A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



upon the clergy of reconciling their people to the services and teaching ot 

 the re-established Church. 



The repair of the fabric of the church other than the chancel was the 

 duty of the parishioners, and the charge was usually met by a church rate ; 

 the obligation seems to have been generally discharged during the Com- 

 monwealth period/' but the chancels had suffered, as the rectors, if lay, 

 were often Royalists with sequestrated estates, or if clerics were frequently 

 doubtful of their tenure, especially during the later years of the Protectorate. 

 Thus at Aldenham, where the rectory was in the hands of the lord of the 

 manor, the chancel was in 1666 in such ruin as to be unusable, and the court 

 of the Archdeacon of Huntingdon 'ordered that a curtain of baize or some 

 other thick material should be hung up between the ruins of the said chancel.*" 

 Nothing further was done for some months, but in 1667 the vicar was ordered 

 to say prayers in the nave, as ' the roof was fallen down in the part over the 

 reading pew or desk, of the minister.' Since no remedy could be obtained 

 from the lay rector, recourse seems to have been had to a church rate.'* 



Internally the churches underwent considerable alterations. The galleries 

 which Wren and his followers put into the London churches to increase 

 their seating accommodation set a fashion which was followed in the country. 

 The motive for their adoption in Hertfordshire is not very clear. Returns 

 of accommodation in the churches were made to the Bishops of Lincoln at 

 the beginning of the 18th century, and were compared by them with the 

 estimated population and number of Dissenters," but the galleries seem 

 generally to have been private erections. That built in Benington Church 

 by the Dods" was probably used as a family pew, as was that built at the 

 west end of Braughing Church by Ralph Freeman." In other cases they 

 were provided for school children ; that at Aldenham ' was erected by the 

 worshipful Company of Brewers, London, trustees of Richard Piatt, citizen 

 of London, deceased, in the year 1686 ' for the use of the master and scholars 

 belonging to the free school of Aldenham, founded by the said Richard 

 Platt.'^ At Ware ' a handsome Gallery at the West End of the church ' was 

 built by the governors of Christ's Hospital for their 'colony of children. '"'' 

 At Bishop's Stortford the trustees out of rents for beautifying the church 

 built one gallery, while the parishioners, not to be outdone, subscribed for 

 the building of a gallery on the north side for ' the young gentlemen of the 

 school,' '' successors of the youths whose good order and diligence in noting 

 the sermon had been commended to Laud in 1636. 



One of the articles of inquiry of 1668 was whether there was ' a decent 

 Font of stone with a cover ' standing ' at or near the neather end of your 

 Church, in such manner as anciently and usually Fonts have stood for the 

 baptizing of children,' or whether it had ' been removed and converted to 

 any profane or private use.'*° In most cases the fonts remained." One 



5- Ou.:ricr Sess. R. (Herts. Co. Rec), i, 114; Be;=e, J Coll. of the Sufferings of the People called Quakers, 

 I, 240-1. 33 Urwick, op. cit. 251. 



' ' Ibid. Henr)' Coghill and W. Briscoe refused to contribute. Coghill had objected to a similar rate 

 in 1637 {CaL 5. P. Dom. 1637, p. 575). 35 'Speculum Dioecesis ' (Doc. in Alnwick Tower, Line). 



'" Salmon, Hit. rf Herts. 196. 3? Ibid. 231. 38 Clutterbuck, op. cit. i, I 36. 



2" S.i!mon, op. cit. 248. 39 ib;cj_ ^72. 



•^ ./r,';-,;-/ /5 be enquired of ■j.lthin the Archdeaconrj of St. Albans . . . 1662, p. I. 



*' of. Rep. of R:-,. Com. on Hist. Mon. of Herts, passim. 



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