POLEBROOK HUNDRED 



OUNDLE 



Corpus Christi Col- 

 lege. GuUi a pelican tn 

 ber piety argent quarter- 

 ing azure three lilies 

 argent with stalks and 

 leaves vert. 



in selling this manor to Henry Pickering ; warranty 

 was promised against the heirs of Sir Robert Kirk- 

 ham, the great grandfather, William the uncle, and 

 Walter his son.'* Kirkham was deeply in debt." 



Henry Pickering and Elizabeth his wife were in 

 possession in 1660.*" He was created a baronet soon 

 afterwards, and seated at Whaddon in Cambridgeshire. 

 His father was rector of Aldwinkle in the Common- 

 wealth time (1647-1657), and he himself had been a 

 colonel in the Parliamentary army. His wife was 

 Elizabeth daughter of Sir Thomas V'incr. He died 

 in 1668.*' The manor of Elmington, with a messuage, 

 150 acres of land, etc., was in 1681 secured to Sir 

 Henry Pickering, bart.,'- but 

 was sold in 1687 to Dr. John 

 Spencer, master of Corpus 

 Christi College, Cambridge, 

 and dean of Ely. The price 

 paid was ;£3,6oo and the 

 estate was said to be worth 

 £200 a year. Dr. Spencer gave 

 it to his college, for the aug- 

 mentation of the mastership 

 and other endowments. He 

 expressed a wish that the 

 master should visit the estate 

 twice in three years.*^ There 

 is now no manor claimed, but 

 the estate remains in the 



possession of the college. There were two farm- 

 houses in Elmington about 1870. 



The church of ST. PETER consists 

 CHURCH of chancel 47 ft. by 21 ft., with north 

 and south chapels, each 22 ft. by 17 ft., 

 clearstoried nave 80 ft. by 20 ft., north and south aisles, 

 each 18 ft. wide, north and south transepts, each 

 36 ft. by 20 ft., south porch, and west tower 17 ft. 

 square, surmounted by a lofty spire. All these 

 measurements are internal. There is also a two- 

 storied vestry on the north side of the chancel at 

 its east end. The total internal length of the church 

 is 153 ft., and the width across nave and aisles 62 ft. ; 

 across the transepts the width is 98 ft. 



No portion of the building is older than the 12th 

 century, but part of a pre-Conquest grave-slab, or 

 coffin-lid, with plait-work in two panels,*'' found below 

 the south transept about 1904., is probably a relic of 

 the burial ground attached to the first church on the 

 site. 



The plan of the existing building seems to have 

 developed from a cruciform 12th-century church 

 with central tower, the nave of which was the same 

 width as at present, and about 51 ft. long. The tower 

 occupied the position of the existing eastern bay, with 

 transepts about 18 ft. long, extending north and 

 south,and the chancel wasabout half itspresent length. 

 There is no reliable evidence of any change of plan 

 before the end of the 12th century, though a plain 

 chamfered string at the west end of the north aisle 



has suggested that an aisle may have been added on 

 that side. It is more likely, however, that the string 

 is not in its original position, and that the plan of the 

 building remained unchanged until the first half of the 

 13th century, when very extensive alterations and 

 additions were made, amounting almost to a rebuild- 

 ing. Tlic chancel was lengthened, chapels added on 

 both sides at its west end, that on the south being the 

 Lady Chapel,*^ and aisles thrown out from the nave 

 in line with the ends of the already existing chapels. 

 All this work appears to have been completed by about 

 1260, but the south aisle and chancel chapels seem 

 to have been built first and finished before the north 

 aisle was taken in hand, and probably before the chan- 

 cel was completed. The reconstruction and lengthen- 

 ing of the transepts followed during the last quarter 

 of the 13th century at a time when geometrical 

 window tracery was fully developed, but the central 

 tower appears to have remained standing till about 

 1340-50. It was then taken down, the western arch 

 of the crossing being entirely removed, and the tower 

 space added to the nave, new arches made into the 

 chancel and transepts, and a clearstory carried through 

 from the west wall of the chancel to the west end of 

 the church. The three new arches closely correspond 

 in moulding to the chancel arch at Cotterstock 

 church, which was rebuilt soon after the foundation 

 of the chantry college there in 1338 ; it is therefore 

 reasonable to suppose that this work at Oundle 

 dates from the decade immediately preceding the 

 Black Death, the outbreak of which may have post- 

 poned the building of the west tower. The five-light 

 east window of the south chapel, and possibly one of 

 the south windows, was inserted about this time, or 

 perhaps a little later. The tower and spire were not 

 begun until the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 

 15th century. Their scale suggests that a rebuilding 

 of the nave, such as took place later at Kettering, 

 was contemplated, though never carried out. The 

 tower was built a little to the west of the existing 

 wall of the church, with complete buttresses on all 

 sides, the old wall being afterwards taken down and 

 the nave joined to the tower by hastily executed 

 masonry. 



The chancel walls were heightened and the pitch of 

 the roof lowered in the 15th century, when the present 

 east window was inserted. The roof of the north 

 chapel was also lowered in the same way, the head of 

 its east window being raised and a large new window 

 inserted in the north wall. Other windows were 

 inserted during this period in the aisles. The porch 

 is said to have been built about 1485 by a merchant 

 named Robert Wyatt and Joan his wife, who founded 

 the almshouse to the south of the churchyard. The 

 vestry is an addition of the l6th century.*' 



The spire was rebuilt in 1634, and restored in 1837, 

 and again in 1899. The church underwent an exten- 

 sive restoration in 1864, when galleries and pews 

 erected earlier in the century were removed. 



'* Feet of F. Northant). Mich 

 Chji. I. 



'• Cat. Com. for Comp. ii, 1088. 



•• Feet of F. Northant! 

 II Chai. II. 



" G. E. C. Complete Bart, iii, 151. 



" Feet of F. Northanti. Mich. 33 

 Chai. II. 



23 



Trin. 



" R. Masters, Htst. of Corpus Christi 

 Coll. 167. 



" The slab is figured in The Reliquary 

 and lUust. Archaologist, xi, 127 (April 

 1905). It is not earlier than the 

 nth century and may be a» late a> 

 c. 1050. 



'* Alio known lateral the Guild Chapel 



95 



from the Guild of Our Lady founded by 

 Robert Wyatt. 



" In 1908. when some work in connec- 

 tion with the heating apparatus was in 

 progress on the north side of the vestry, 

 a two-handled earthenware drinking cup 

 of the Tudor period was found a few feet 

 below the surface of the ground : Smalley 

 Law, Oundle's Story, ao. 



