BIGGLESWADE HUNDRED 



EYWORTH 



are two fourteenth-century windows, each of two 

 trefoiled lights, that to the east haying a square head, 

 and the other a two-centred arch with a quatrefoil 

 over the lights. The west window of the aisle is a 

 quatrefoil set in a square frame. The north and south 

 doorways of the nave are of plain fourteenth-century 

 detail, and the latter is covered by a modern porch. 

 The tower opens to the nave with an arch of two 

 chamfered orders, having an engaged shaft to the 

 inner order. The west window is of two lights, and 

 at the south-west angle is a stair contrived in the 

 thickness of the wall. The belfry windows are also 

 of two lights, and the tower is finished by a short 

 stone spire with four double spire-lights at the base, 

 and a second tier of single lights near the apex. 



The church has embattled parapets throughout, and 

 low-pitched roofi, that over the chancel being in part 

 of the fifteenth century. There is a seventeenth- 

 century altar table and eighteenth-century rails, but 

 all other wooden fittings are modern. The font has 

 a plain octagonal bowl, much scraped, but apparently 

 of fifteenth-century date. 



A certain amount of old glass is preserved here. In 

 the north window of the nave are parts of several 

 figures, and a shield bearing a cheveron or between 

 three indistinct charges ; in the east window of the 

 south aisle is a lion counterchanged or and sable, and 

 a few other pieces are set in the west window of the 

 tower and the south-west window of the aisle. 



The Anderson monuments in the chancel are ex- 

 cellent examples of their time, that at the north-east 

 being to Sir Francis Anderson, 1 6 1 6, while opposite 

 to it is that of Sir Edmund Anderson, 1605, aild at 

 the south-west is a third to Edmund son of Sir 

 Edmund Anderson, 1638. Sir Francis Anderson's 

 tomb is in poor condition, having lost its canopy and 

 the pillars which supported it ; his alabaster effigy, 

 without hands or feet, kneels between those of his 

 two wives, Judith daughter of Sir R. Soane, and 

 Awdry daughter of Sir J. Bottler. Below are kneeling 

 figures of his four sons. 



The tomb of Sir Edmund Anderson, Lord Chief 

 Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, is an altar 

 tomb under a canopy carried by Corinthian columns, 

 and surmounted by a circular panel of heraldry. The 

 alabaster effigies of Sir Edmund and his wife Magda- 

 len (Smith) lie on the tomb, on the front of which 

 are kneeling figures of their three sons and four 

 daughters. Edmund Anderson's monument is mural, 

 having the busts of himself and his wife under semi- 

 circular arches, with an inscription and heraldry over, 

 and below the bust of their daughter, with another 

 inscription, flanked by allegorical figures resting on 

 the slope of a broken pediment. The top of the 

 tomb has a similar arrangement; In the chancel floor 

 is a brass with figures of Sir Richard Gadbury, 1624, 

 and his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Francis Ander- 

 son ; between them is their daughter, who died in 

 161 8, and is commemorated by an inscription on the 

 wall near by. There are also slabs to Dame Mary, 

 wife of Sir Stephen Anderson, 1667, Alice, Viscountess 



Verulam and baroness of St. Albans, 1656, Mrs. Cathe- 

 rine Anderson, 1705, and other members of the family. 



There are two bells, the treble, a fifteenth-century 

 bell by a London founder, John Walgrave, bearing 

 ' Sancta Margareta ora pro nobis,' and the other by 

 Miles Graye of Colchester, 1632. Here, as in a few 

 other cases, this founder latinizes his Christian name 

 as Milonem instead of Milo. 



The plate consists of a communion cup and flat 

 cover paten of 162;, the cup having a six-lobed foot 

 of unusual type. On both is engraved in dots a boar 

 ermine, with a crescent on the body, which is the 

 crest of Bacon of Redgrave. There is also a second flat 

 paten of 1623, with the same device, but having a 

 coronet over it, and a large flagon of 1 63 8, presented 

 by Dame Dorothy Constable in 1639. 



The first book of registers has entries from 1599 to 

 1787, the second contains baptisms and burials 1788 to 

 1 812, and the third marriages from 1755 onwards. 



Walter Spec, son of William, and 

 ADVOWSON lord of Eyworth manor, gave his 

 nephew Nicholas de Trailly the 

 advowson of all his churches south of the Humber. 

 In a quarrel which arose between the abbot of Warden 

 and the heirs of Walter Spec in 1225, the jurors 

 decided that the advowson had reverted to the heirs of 

 William de Bussy as Walter Spec's heir.** 



Maud de Bussy, sister of William, granted a charter 

 to the prioress of St. Helen's, London, by which the 

 latter claimed the advowson of the church." At first 

 the claim of the priory to half only was acknowledged 

 by the Gravenels, then lords of Eyworth manor, but 

 eventually in 1253 St. Helen's Priory acquired the 

 sole right.*" The value of the church in 1 29 1 was 

 j^4 13/. 4<^." and in 1329 the priory received a licence 

 of appropriation.*' Since the Dissolution both rectory 

 and advowson of the church have followed the same 

 history as the lesser manor in Eyworth, and with it 

 have become merged in Eyworth manor, to which 

 they are still attached."' 



Tempsford chantry owned in Eyworth 3 acres of 

 land, valued at 20<^., for a light." 



It appears from a brass inscription in 

 CHARITIES the church that Sir Richard Gadbury, 

 who died on 16 October, 1624, gave 

 with certain feoffees in trust for the perpetual benefit 

 of the poor 6 a. of land in the fields of Wrestling- 

 worth, and 8 a. in the fields of Dunton. On the in- 

 closure of the open fields in the parish of Dunton and 

 in the parish of Wrestlingworth (1801), 6a. 3r. 34p., 

 situate in White House Way Fields, Dunton, and 

 3 a. or. 3 5 p. in Mildridre Fields, Wrestlingworth, 

 were awarded in lieu of the aforesaid lands. By an 

 order of the Charity Commissioners, dated 1 1 May, 

 1 866, trustees were appointed, and the income directed 

 to be applied in coals, or other articles in kind, and 

 in pecuniary aid in special cases for the benefit of the 

 most deserving and necessitous inhabitants of the 

 parish. The lands produce about j£'20 a year, one- 

 third being distributed in coals, and two-thirds in 

 money. 



5S y.CJI. Beds, i, 362 ; Maitland, 

 Bracton's Note Bk. iii, 107. 



°9 Ibid. ; Cur. Reg. R. 85, m. 29 d. 



5" Ibid. 149, m. 21. 



61 Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 35*. 



^^ Cal. of Pat. 1327-30, p. 446. 



68 Inst. Bks. (P.R.O.) 

 " Chant. Cert, i, No. 24. 



233 



30 



