A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



youngest, Catherine, in 1871, the manor, under the 

 will of Viscount Hampden, passed to the descendants 

 of Matthew Cock, brother of Mary Cock. 17 



His granddaughter, Jane Letitia Crispin, married 

 Charles Battye, but on inheriting the Trevor estates 

 she took the name of Trevor-Battye. Her grandson, 



TREVOR, Party bend- 

 tinisterwise crminois and 

 pean a lion countercoloured. 



BATTYI. Sable a 

 che-veron argent between 

 three goats argent, each 

 having two roundels sable 

 upon him, and a chief in" 

 vecked or -with a demi- 

 man holding a club and 

 cut ojf at the waist be~ 

 tween two cinque foill 

 gules therein. 



Mr. Charles Edmund Augustine Trevor Trevor- 

 Battye, is the present lord of the manor. 



The church (dedication unknown) 

 CHURCH stands on a somewhat contracted site, the 

 ground falling rapidly from east to west, 

 and consists of a chancel 15 ft. 6 in. by 13 ft. 10 in., 

 a nave 20 ft. by 1 3 ft. 3 in., and a wooden north 

 porch with an upper floor serving as a bell turret. 

 Externally the nave and chancel are of equal width. 

 The walling of the nave may be of the I 2th century, 

 and a carved fragment of that date is set in the chancel 

 wall, but there is nothing in the architectural features 

 to prove that any part of the structure is earlier than 

 the 1 3th century. The chancel has been almost 

 completely rebuilt in modern times, and its greater 

 internal width as compared with the width of the 

 nave is probably due to a thinning of the walls rather 

 than to any process of rebuilding round a former 

 chancel. The chancel arch has also been widened in 

 modern times, the new crown being formed of brick. 

 The south porch and bell-turret are apparently of 1 6th- 

 century date, while about the end of the 1 8th century 

 new windows were inserted in the nave and all the 

 old ones destroyed. 



The east window of the chancel is modern, of two 

 trefoiled lights with 14th-century detail, and on 

 either side of the chancel is a single trefoiled light, 

 also modern. A third window at the west end of the 

 north wall is a small lancet of 13th-century date, the 

 sill of which forms the head of a small low side 

 window, rebated for a frame, the hinges of which are 

 still in its jamb. At the east end of the south wall is 

 a 13th-century piscina with a chamfered pointed head 

 and a label ; on the face between the label and the 

 chamfer is a band of running foliage ornament. In 

 the same wall, a little to the west, is the 12th-century 

 fragment already mentioned, a carving of a bishop or 

 abbot in mass vestments, with his right hand raised in 

 benediction, and holding a crozier in his left. There 

 seem to be traces of an inscription above his head. 



The pointed chancel arch is plain, of a single square 

 order, and much mutilated. 



The nave is lit by three plain pointed 18th-century 

 two-light windows, two on the south and one on the 

 west, the latter taking the place of an earlier window, 

 of which a few traces remain, though not enough to 

 show its character. Of the windows in the south 

 wall, the westernmost is built in the place of the old 

 south doorway, the lower part of the opening of which 

 remains, blocked with brickwork. The only opening 

 in the north wall is the north doorway, a plain arched 

 opening with chamfered jambs and head, which may 

 be of the 141)1 century. 



The north porch is a picturesque half-timber 

 structure of two stories, with a red-tiled gabled roof, 

 and small louvred openings to the second stage, which 

 contains the single bell. The arched entrance is 

 formed of two naturally-curved pieces of timber, 

 which are chamfered, and form a rough two-centred 

 head. 



The font is of 1 8th-century date, with a small round 

 basin upon a slim baluster stem, and there are no 

 fittings of any interest except the altar slab, now 

 placed under the altar table. It has the five con- 

 secration crosses, but no detail from which it might 

 be dated. 



The roof of the nave also, though undoubtedly old, 

 is so plain as to give no clue to its date. 



The great interest of the church lies in the wall 

 paintings in the nave, which are of various dates from 

 the 1 3th century onwards. On either side of the 

 chancel arch are figures under trefoiled canopies, of 

 late 13th-century style, and on the south wall 

 remains of a 14th-century Weighing of Souls. The 

 figure of St. Michael is almost destroyed, but the 

 scales are clearly visible, and also the figure of the 

 devil pulling down the balance on the one side, while 



Burke, Landed Gentry, 1906. 



LITTLE HAMPDEN CHURCH : THE NORTH PORCH 



292 



