A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



have been the addition of the porch and the shortening 

 of the chancel; the clerestory is part of the I jth-century 

 fabric. About 1 290-1 300 new windows were inserted 

 in the south aisle and the porch was erected, and further 

 changes took place in the 15th century, when the 

 present west window of the nave was put in and the 

 chancel probably assumed its present appearance. The 

 east window is of this period and, though evidence is 

 wanting, it is not unreasonable to suppose that the 

 chancel was shortened by a bay about this time. The 

 north aisle, with the exception of its east bay, was taken 

 down at some time unknown' and the arcade filled in; 

 it was rebuilt in its present form in 1 849, in which year 

 the church was restored and a west gallery pulled down. 



The church is built throughout of rubble, and in- 

 ternally the walls are plastered.^ The chancel has a 

 tiled eaved roof, but the roofs of the nave and aisles are 

 slated,^ behind plain ashlar parapets. 



The chancel is divided by buttresses into three short 

 bays and has a pointed east window of three cinque- 

 foiled lights with Perpendicular tracery. On each side 

 of the window within is a blocked and mutilated image- 

 recess, the canopies and one of the brackets having been 

 destroyed. A lancet window and a double piscina were 

 discovered and opened out in 1909 at the east end of 

 the south wall; the piscina was partly covered by the 

 existing east wall, but is now fully exposed to view by 

 the removal of part of the masonry. The recess has a 

 square chamfered head and octagonal dividing-shaft 

 and one of the bowls is perfect: the projecting front 

 of the second bowl has been cut away. The lancet 

 window, which is above the piscina at the extreme end 

 of this wall, has been restored and the width of its inner 

 splay reduced, but the original jambs remain.* The 

 chancel appears to have been originally about 9 ft. 

 longer than at present. The priest's doorway is of a 

 single chamfered order with label, and in the western 

 bay is a 1 5th-century square-headed window of three 

 cinquefoiled lights with quatrefoils in the head. There 

 are now no windows in the north wall, but near the 

 east end is a small rectangular aumbry and what appears 

 to be part of a lancet jamb: externally the wall is 

 covered by a thin coat of plaster. The chancel arch is 

 of two chamfered orders, on double chamfered responds 

 with moulded capitals and bases. 



The nave arcades are of four bays with arches of two 

 chamfered orders springing from octagonal piers with 

 moulded capitals and bases and from responds of the 

 same type; in the eastern bay of the north aisle the pier 

 is a compound one with attached responds carrying the 

 nave and aisle arches, and giving support to the tower. 

 At the west end of the nave are massive buttresses of 

 two stages to take the thrust of the arcades, and between 

 them a four-centred window of four cinquefoiled lights 

 with Perpendicular tracery. This window, which is 

 high in the wall, takes the place of a group of lancets 

 the outer jamb-stones of which are still in position on 

 either side, visible both within and without. Below the 

 window internally is a stone bench. The clerestory has 

 four restored lancet openings on the south side and 

 three on the north, all without hood-moulds. 



In the south aisle the west window is a restored tre- 



■ The writer in Chs. Arch. N'lon. 

 {184.9) assumes that the aisle was taken 

 down c. 1290, but there seems to be no 

 evidence of this. 



^ A portion of the plaster has been 

 stripped from the lower part of the chancel 

 walls. 



3 Before the restoration they were 

 covered with lead. The church was re- 

 opened after restoration on 27 Dec. 1849. 



■* The splay was originally 4 ft. 8 in. 

 wide : it has been reduced to 2 ft. 8 in. 



s In memory of Jane Harriet Wise: it 

 has linen pattern panels. 



foiled lancet, but that at the east is of two lights with 

 forked mullion, and those in the south wall of three 

 lights with uncusped intersecting tracery. The piscina 

 of the aisle altar remains in the usual position, with 

 plain projecting bowl and trefoiled head with label 

 terminating in notch-heads. The arch between the 

 eastern bay and the aisle is of two hollow chamfered 

 orders, carried on the wall side by a corbel: it is of the 

 same date as the adjacent windows. The 13th-century 

 south doorway has a sharply pointed arch of two cham- 

 fered orders and label, the outer on nook-shafts with 

 moulded capitals and bases, the inner continued to the 

 ground below imposts. The outer doorway of the porch 

 is of two continuous orders, the inner with wave- 

 moulding, the outer hollow-chamfered; built into the 

 gable is a stone dated 1685. 



The 13th-century arch benveen the north aisle and 

 its eastern bay, or chapel, is of two chamfered orders 

 springing from half-round responds with moulded capi- 

 tals and bases, and the tower arch is of three orders 

 continued to the ground on the south and dying out on 

 the north side. The windows of the modern north aisle 

 are in the style of the 14th century, but the east window 

 is original, of two lancet lights with pierced spandrel. 



The tower is 60 ft. in height and of three stages, 

 with pairs of gabled buttresses at the north-west and 

 north-east angles in the lower stage, the height of which 

 is about equal to the other two. The south-east buttress 

 is not gabled. At the second stage the walls set back 

 with a line of nail-head ornament and the bell-chamber 

 windows are of two lancet lights, with shafted jambs, 

 set within a pointed containing arch: the tympanum is 

 unpierced. There are flat buttresses east and west to 

 about half the height of the lower stage, which on the 

 north has a restored window of two trefoiled lights 

 occupying the middle of a 13th-century wall arcade of 

 three arches on shafts with moulded capitals and bases. 

 There is a vice in the north-west corner and adjoining 

 it on the west an external doorway, now blocked, 

 which, though modern, appears to reproduce an 

 original entrance, the bases of the nook shafts and jambs 

 being ancient. The battlemented parapet is a 15th- 

 century addition: its angle pinnacles are gone. 



The 13th-century font has a plain octagonal bowl 

 on a short shaft and two steps. The oak pulpit is 

 modern. 5 There is a scratch dial on the east jamb of 

 the porch doorway. 



Bridges records inscriptions in the floor of the chancel 

 to Alexander Ekins (d. 1655), Ann Savi^-er (d. 1682), 

 James Sawyer, junr. (d. 1692), Thomas Sawyer (d. 

 1694), William Gardner (d. 1705), and Mary Allen 

 (d. i7io).6 



There are five bells, the treble by Thomas Eayre of 

 Kettering 1744, the third and fourth by Taylor & Son, 

 St. Neots, 1 8 19, and the second and tenor dated 1727.'' 



The plate consists of a silver cup and paten of 1851, 

 a paten of 1849, a cup of 1852, and a plated flagon.* 



The registers before 1 8 1 2 are as follows: (i) baptisms 

 1 573-1662, marriages 1 573-1651, burials 1573- 

 1644;' (ii) missing; (iii) baptisms and burials 1723-54, 

 marriages 1723-53; (iv) baptisms and burials 1754- 

 1812; (v) marriages 1755-1812. 



' Hist, of Northants. ii, 163. 

 ' North, Ch. Belh of Northants. 220, 

 where the inscriptions are given. 



8 Markham, Ch. Plate of Northants. 68. 

 ' After 164.2 this volume is badly kept. 



10 



