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.
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.
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 Mass dial by the simple Norman south doorway
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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.
 C14th font
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 Norman nave and chancel arch
 C13th chancel
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 1660 royal arms
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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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All rights reserved for this entire site. Copyright reserved to stiffleaf for all text and images, which may not be reproduced without my permission.
