stiffleaf's hertfordshire churches
  • Visiting Hertfordshire churches
  • Contact
  • Locked churches, and Mammon and the church
  • Architectural style in Hertfordshire churches.
  • Fonts, glass, woodwork and tiles in Hertfordshire churches.
  • Hertfordshire church monuments.
  • Glossary and links.
  • Architectural timeline
  • Abbots Langley church, Hertfordshire
  • Albury church, Hertfordshire
  • Aldbury church, Hertfordshire
  • Aldenham church, Hertfordshire
  • Anstey church, Hertfordshire
  • Ardeley church, Hertfordshire
  • Ashwell church, Hertfordshire
  • Ayot St.Lawrence churches, Hertfordshire
  • Baldock church, Hertfordshire
  • Barkway church, Hertfordshire
  • Bengeo church, Hertfordshire
  • Benington church, Hertfordshire
  • Berkhamsted church, Hertfordshire
  • Bishop's Stortford church, Hertfordshire
  • Braughing church, Hertfordshire
  • Brent Pelham church, Hertfordshire
  • Broxbourne church, Hertfordshire
  • Caldecote church, Hertfordshire
  • Cheshunt church, Hertfordshire
  • Chipping Barnet church, Hertfordshire
  • Clothall, church, Hertfordshire
  • Cottered church, Hertfordshire
  • Cuffley church, Hertfordshire
  • Datchworth church, Hertfordshire
  • East Barnet church, Hertfordshire
  • Eastwick church, Hertfordshire
  • Flamstead church, Hertfordshire
  • Furneux Pelham church, Hertfordshire
  • Gilston church, Hertfordshire
  • Great Amwell church, Hertfordshire
  • Great Gaddesden church
  • Great Hormead church, Hertfordshire
  • Great Offley church, Hertfordshire
  • Great Wymondley church, Hertfordshire
  • Hatfield church, Hertfordshire
  • Hemel Hempstead church, Hertfordshire
  • Hertford churches, Hertfordshire
  • Hertingfordbury church, Hertfordshire
  • High Wych church, Hertfordshire
  • Hitchin church, Hertfordshire
  • Hunsdon church, Hertfordshire
  • Ippollitts church, Hertfordshire
  • Kings Langley church, Hertfordshire
  • Knebworth churches, Hertfordshire
  • Little Gaddesden church, Hertfordshire
  • Little Hadham church, Hertfordshire
  • Little Hormead church, Hertfordshire
  • Little Munden church, Hertfordshire
  • Markyate church, Hertfordshire
  • Meesden church, Hertfordshire
  • Much Hadham church, Hertfordshire
  • Nettleden church, Hertfordshire
  • Newnham church, Hertfordshire
  • North Mymms church, Hertfordshire
  • Oxhey chapel, Hertfordshire
  • Redbourn church, Hertfordshire
  • Royston church and cave
  • St.Albans churches, Hertfordshire
  • St.Albans cathedral, Hertfordshire
  • St.Pauls Walden church, Hertfordshire
  • Sawbridgeworth church, Hertfordshire
  • Standon church, Hertfordshire
  • Stanstead Abbotts church, Hertfordshire
  • Stanstead St. Margaret church, Hertfordshire
  • Stocking Pelham church, Hertfordshire
  • Thorley church, Hertfordshire
  • Walkern church, Hertfordshire
  • Ware church, Hertfordshire
  • Waterford church, Hertfordshire
  • Watford churches, Hertfordshire
  • Watton-at-Stone church, Hertfordshire
  • Weston church, Hertfordshire
  • Wheathampstead church, Hertfordshire
  • Wyddial church, Hertfordshire
  • Wormley church, Hertfordshire
St. Mary's church, Little Hormead, Hertfordshire


This little church sitting in a field near the few houses left of its village has a fame far greater than its size would indicate. The small Norman nave has two original doorways, and it is from the blocked northern door that the famous twelfth century door came, known so widely because of the ornate ironwork that decorates the whole surface. The church is now in the hands of the Churches Conservation Trust, that great home for churches unwanted by the Church of England. Here as elsewhere they have done a great job of repairing the church and clearing it of unnecessary clutter, although their treatment of the door here as some sort of fetish object is slightly worrying; when I was younger the door was ageing quietly as it had done for centuries, whereas now it seems to need steel and glass protection more suited to a dictator's limo than a humble church door. The last two times that I have visited the door has been sitting upside down awaiting imprisonment, temporarily unviewable. I shudder to imagine what signage and interpretion await it: there's a real risk that heritage funding and C.C.T. care may destroy the thing that they love far more effectively than centuries of casual misuse.
Picture

Picture
PictureMass dial by the simple Norman south doorway

The blocked north doorway to the nave is more ornate than that in use to the south,beside which a mass dial can be seen. There is a splendid Norman chancel arch, over which is an ornate Stuart coat of arms for King Charles II, and a tiny Norman window remains to the north. The font is mid fourteenth century , carrying good tracery patterns on the bowl. At the west end some loose Norman voussoirs with zigzag remain, but where from ? Maybe a fancy east window replaced when the chancel was extended in the thirteenth century. The Victorians added the bellcote, and rebuilt the east and north chancel walls.
PictureC14th font

PictureNorman nave and chancel arch

PictureC13th chancel

Picture1660 royal arms

All in all, a nice little church, to which I will return when the door is back on show; though whether the glass cage will allow photography I do not know. The key is available nearby normally.

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