FLITT HUNDRED 



FLITTON 



since been disused, but the fair is still held on 

 13 May. 



When the Great Survey was taken the manor of 

 Wrest in Sllsoe comprised a mill which was worth 

 2S. 2(/.,"' but it apparently soon fell into decay, as in 

 all surveys of the manor taken in the fourteenth 

 century no mention of a mill occurs. In 1344 

 Roger de Grey claimed free warren in the demesne 

 lands of his manor of Wrest, and also made good his 

 claim to have a park there.'" This is the first 

 mention of the park which surrounds the manor at 

 the present day. 



The church of ST. JOHN THE 

 CHURCH BAPTIST has a chancel 27 ft. by 1 7 ft., 

 nave 39 ft. by 1 6 ft. with aisles 8 ft. 6 in. 

 wide and south porch, and west tower 1 2 ft. by 

 12 ft. loin., all measurements being internal. In spite 

 of the slight excess in width of the chancel over the nave, 

 the whole appears to be of one build, dating from 

 the fifteenth century. If, as it seems, the south porch is 

 contemporary with the rest of 

 the church, the date of com- 

 pletion, as given by the heraldry 

 on the porch, will fall between 

 i44oandi489. Theonlylater 

 addition to the plan is a large 

 cruciform mortuary chapel of 

 the de Greys, the nave of which 

 is set against the north side of 

 the chancel of the church, its 

 south transept overlapping the 

 east end. It is an extremely 

 unattractive building, coated 

 with Roman cement, and quite 

 out of scale with the rest of the 

 structure. The east window of 

 the chancel has modern tracery, 

 and bieng overlapped by the 

 transept of the chapel, is filled 

 with plain glass, through which 

 one of the modern de Grey 

 monuments can be seen. In the 

 north wall is the entrance to the 

 chapel, a round-headed opening 

 with moulded jambs of late 



Gothic section, filled with a good wrought-iron grate 

 of eighteenth-century date. West of it is a modern 

 recess for the organ. The chancel is lighted on the 

 south by two windows of fifteenth-century style, with 

 three cinquefoiled lights. The nave has arcades of 

 three bays and a clearstory over with three two-light 

 windows on each side, the rood stair being at the 

 south-east angle, carried up to form an embattled 

 turret above the nave roof The north aisle has two 

 three-light windows on the north and a two-light 

 west window, all of the fifteenth century, and there is 

 a blocked north doorway near the west end. The 

 south aisle has a three-light east window _ with 

 tracery in the head, and two windows of three cinque- 

 foiled lights with straight-sided heads in the south 

 wall, which appear to be later insertions, probably 

 t. 1500. The south doorway has a two-centred arch 

 with continuous mouldings, and retains a panelled 

 oak door with moulded styles which may be con- 

 temporary with it. The embattled south porch has 

 an outer archway with a two-centred arch under a 

 label, the spandrels being traceried and 



containing shields, the one barry, which is the whole 

 coat of Grey, the other barry with three roundels in 

 the chief quartered with a sleeve quartering barry with 

 an orle of martlets. These are the arms borne by 

 Edmund Grey, grandson of Reginald, third Lord Grey 

 de Ruthyn, who succeeded as fourth Lord Grey de 

 Ruthyn in 1440, and was created earl of Kent 30 May, 

 1465. To the west of the archway a shield is in- 

 serted in the masonry, bearing ermine a chief bendy 

 for Fitz Richard. In Fisher's Collections for Bedford- 

 shire (18 1 7) is an engraving of this archway showing 

 a shield above the arch bearing a ragged bend. 



The west tower is of three stages, with an em- 

 battled parapet and two-light belfry windows, and a 

 projecting stair turret at the south-east angle. Ex- 

 ternally all parts of the church are embattled, with 

 flat roofs, the walling being of the dark brown local 

 stone. The roofs of the nave and aisles are plain and 

 a good deal of the old open seating remains. The 

 church is rich in monuments of various kinds. 











♦ »i 



square 



Flitton Church, from South-east 



In the chancel is the brass of Thomas Hill, ' re- 

 ceiver-general to three worthy earls of Kent,' who 

 died in 1628, aged loi, and in the nave are in- 

 dents of two brasses, one showing a man and his wife 

 with six sons and three daughters, and another with a 

 single figure of a civilian. On the walls of the north 

 aisle are three fragmentary brasses, the oldest being 

 that of Eleanor Conquest, 1434 ; the second, dated 

 1544, having a female figure with a mutilated inscrip- 

 tion (it is that of Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Waren), 

 and the third is an inscription, dated 1594, in 

 memory of Alice, wife of Reginald Hill, and her 

 infant son William. 



At the north-west of the nave is another slab with 

 indents of a figure between four shields, one of which, 

 bearing a lion, is preserved in the vestry at the west end 

 of the north aisle. A rubbing in the collection of the 

 Society of Antiquaries shows the lion shield apparently 

 in position on the slab of Eleanor Conquest. 



Part of the inscription of the Waren brass is a 

 palimpsest, having part of a fifteenth-century inscrip- 

 tion on the back. 



^V V.C.H. Beds, i, 251. 



118 Plac. de Quo War (Rec. Com.), 45. 



331 



