A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



angel holding a trumpet and a censer ; the label 

 stops are carved with the symbols of the four 

 Evangelists. The two windows on either side of 

 the porch, each of two lights, are of modern stone- 

 work external!)', and most of the moulded outer 

 doorway belongs to the i 5th century. 



The windows in the south aisle are similar to 

 those in the north, but the east window has been 

 replaced by an arched opening to the modern organ 

 chamber. In the south wall at the east end is a 

 small piscina with pointed arch, with plain round 

 bowl partly damaged. The south doorway is of 

 two moulded orders with some modern stone- 

 work. 



The oak north and south doors are original but 

 have been repaired. In the east wall of the south 

 porch is a fragment of a stoup, and near it in the 

 wall a piece of clunch rudely carved in the form of a 

 horse-shoe. The truss roofs over both aisles are 

 similar in character and date to that over the nave, 

 with traceried spandrels, and rest on stone corbels 

 carved with a most interesting series of figures, human 

 and grotesque. 



The west tower is of four stages with a stair 

 turret, no longer used, in the north-west angle ; a 

 modern stair turret has been erected at the north- 

 cast angle, and the belfry and spire arc modern. 

 The lofty tower arch is of three moulded orders, 

 separated by hollows, and the moulded respond) have 

 capit.iU and bases partly repaired. The west door- 

 way has a pointed arch of three moulded orders, but 

 the other openings in the tower are of mo.lern stone- 

 work, except the doorway and loop-!ights in the 

 original turret. 



The square bowl of the Purbeck marble font, 

 which is of late I 2th-century date, is ornamented on 

 each side with four shallow round-arched sinkings ; 

 the stem is modern. 



The 15th-century rood-screen still remains in its 

 place ; the lower panels are closed with traceried 

 heads, the open upper panels have tracery in their 

 arches ; the cornice with its supporting groined 

 canopy is modem. 



In the chancel are eighteen oak stalls, with miseri- 

 cordes carved with representations of human heads, 

 animals, hirds, fishes, &c. ; the fronts have traceried 

 panels and pilaster buttresses and the ends have 

 poppy-head finials ; they are of i;th-ccntury work- 



The hexagonal oak pulpit was erectei in 1 65 8 " ; 

 the sides are carved and panelled ; it stands on a 

 hexagonal pillar and is supported by carved brackets. 

 The communion table is modern, but it stands on the 

 ancient altar slab. 



In the vestry is an early 17th-century chest, with 

 a hidden lock with fourteen bolts under the lid ; 

 there is a false lock with padlocks. 



On the chancel floor are some brass inscriptions : 

 one to Thomas Edgcombe, 1614; another on the 

 same slab to an infant of the Edgcombe family ; a 

 third to Charles D^nny, 163 5, for twelve years senior 

 fellow of King's College, Cambridge. 



In the chancel are mural monuments to Mrs. 



"It cost ^5 («* ObsBcock, Rtc.c 

 St. Mithj/ts, Bhh-.t: Snrtfirj, 76). 

 *Cal. Par. 1252-+", p. 355. 

 * Ibid. 1191-1301, p. 119. 

 "Ibid. [350-4, p. 239. 



'■'Cu^n 



Hut. 



Cordelia Denny, 1698, with arms, and to the 

 children of Edward Maplesden, 168+-6. 



There are ten bells: the treble, second (1810), 

 third, seventh and ninth (all 1791), by John Briant ; 

 the fourth, fifth and sixth (1713), by John Waylett ; 

 the eighth a funeral bell, inscribed ' Statu turn «t 

 omnibus semel mori ' (1 8oi), by John Briant ; the 

 tenor (1730}, by John Waylett. 



The communion plate consists of a cup, 1735 ; 

 another, 1823 ; four patens, 1683 (?), 1 7 1 1, "77*. 

 and one modern; an almsdish, 1722 ; two large 

 flagons, 1721 and 1731 ; also a knife and fork, 1823, 

 and a spoon with marks erased. 



The registers of baptisms, marriages and burials 

 begin in 1561. 



The church of HOLT TRINITY was built of 

 stone in 1859 in 13th-century style. It consists of 

 chancel, nave, transept and bell-turret. The living 

 is in the gift of the vicar of Bishop's Stortford. 



ALL SAINTS, Hockerill, was built of stone in 

 1852. It consists of a chancel, nave, with bellcot 

 over north-east corner, baptistery, south porch, and 

 vestries. The living is in the gift of the Lord 

 Chancellor. 



The church of Stortford was ap- 

 ADVOWSON propriated by the Bishops of London 

 to the prccentorship of St. Paul's. 

 In 124.3 the church was said to be in the gift of the 

 bishop, a whereas in 129+ the precentor of St. Paul's 

 is called the parson," so that the appropriation may 

 have been between these two dates. In 1352 the 

 king gave licence for the appropriation of Stortford to 

 the bishop's table instead of to the chantership, as its 

 value was not great enough for an official of the 

 precentor's importance," but the change does not 

 seem to have been made, for the rectory and advowson 

 remained with the precentors until 1867, when they 

 passed to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The 

 advowson was made over by the Commissioners to 

 the Bishop of St. Albans on the creation of that 

 bishopric. Two endowments of great tithes have 

 been made by the precentors to the vicarage, viz the 

 tithes from the farm called Stortford Park, which at the 

 beginning of the 1 8th century was held on a lease 

 for lives of the Bishop of London by Dr. William 

 Stanley, precentor of St. Paul's, and a moiety of the 

 great tithes of a piece of land called by Salmon 'the 

 Earl of Essex Park,' which were given by Dr. Dibbing, 

 precentor when Salmon wrote in 1728.* The great 

 tithes of the rectory were leased out with the rectory 



The chantry of Baldwin Victor" was founded in 

 1+85 by his widow Marjory Victor. The chantry 

 priest celebrated mass at the altar of St. John the 

 Baptist. 59 The chantry was dissolved under Edward VI, 

 when its property was valued at £8.°' In 1583 the 

 chantry priest's house and two messuages and land 

 in Stortford, which had belonged to it, were in the 

 possession of Oliver Godfrey and Elizabeth his wife, 

 who conveyed them in that year to Thomas Bowyer." 

 He died seised of them in 1607, leaving a daughter 

 and heir Helen Bowyer, then aged two." The lands 

 included some of the meadows between the river and 



of Her. 



aughing 



s of SUnaLcad Mountfiuhet. 



304 



55 Cat. Fat, T476-85, p. 498. 



61 Chant. Cert 10, no. 67. 



<■> Fcetof F. Herti. East. 15 Elir. 



a Chan. Inq. p.m. (Scr. 2), iad, 



