CHURCH OF ST BOTOLPH

Overview

Location

Details

TL 4311 EASTWICK CHURCH LANE (south end) Eastwick village

10/1 Church of St Botolph

24.1.67

GV II*

Parish church. Rebuilt 1872-3 by A W Blomfield incorporating old tower and C13 chancel arch (plaque in tower and signed plan at Rectory in High Wych). Uncoursed knapped flint with limestone dressings. Steep red tile roofs with ridge tiles alternately plain and crested. Tall unaisled nave, chancel slightly lower, transeptal N organ chamber off chancel, timberframed N porch, and unbuttressed W tower. A long lancet style church following closely the earlier church in form and style: nave buttresses mark transeptal chapels not rebuilt (Buckler drawing of 1827 in church: Glynn's notes of 8 May 1847 (HRO)). Refaced 3-stage tower with C19 battlemented parapet, short pyramidal red tiled spire, corner gargoyles. No W door, 2-light pointed plate tracery opening with quatrefoil in head to each face of the bell-stage. Lancet on W and N in middle stage, and 2-light W window. Each stage narrows at a string course. Organ chamber transept lower than chancel with triple lancets in N gable and stone circular chimney on the ridge. Roll mouldings under the tiled verges of gables to nave, chancel and transept. Open timber porch has cusped bargeboards and side arcades with turned mullions. Large decorative cast iron footscrapers flank porch. Iron gable crosses to nave and chancel. Plastered interior. 5-bay arched braced nave roof on corbels. Scissor-braced rafter roof with side and central purlins. High single lancet windows. Stone pulpit. Fine C13 moulded chancel arch with 3 Purbeck marble shafts at each side with moulded caps and bases - 'astonishingly ambitious ... as if for a cathedral' (Pevsner (1977) 139). Chancel raised one step with a 3-bay boarded wagon roof, encaustic tile floor and 3 further steps to the altar. Sedilia S of altar, possibly reset piscina on shelf N of altar. Simple stone reredos integral with E wall with 3 mosaic panels. Triple lancet E window divided by dark marble shafts with annulets. Brass rail with twisted iron standards and scrolled brackets. Open stall fronts arcaded with turned mullions. Opening to organ chamber on N. C13 recumbent, marble effigy of a knight with crossed legs, on a moulded base under tower, probably Richard de Tany d c1270 (VCH (1912) 318): the best C13 effigy in the county (Pevsner ibid). Above this a fine wall monument'with 3 Corinthian columns to Mary Plummer d 1700. Opposite a wall monument to Walter Plummer d 1746 with exquisite carving for which Pevsner suggests Rysbrack (ibid). Brass to Joan Lee d 1564. The church was rebuilt in 1872-3 at the cost of the Hodgson brothers of Gilston Park as an estate improvement, and they are buried in the churchyard. A long austere Lancet style church mostly rebuilt by A W Blomfield closely following the detail and form of the C13 church, and incorporating the old tower. Of outstanding interest for the splended C13 chancel arch and C13 and C18 monuments of the greatest artistic importance. A landmark and centre of the village group, its E-W elongation echoing the length of a barn range on the other side of the road when approaching Eastwick from the south. (EHAS Trans (1902) 122-3: RCHM (1911) 87: VCH (1912) 318: Pevsner (1977) 139).

Listing NGR: TL4340611651

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

159886

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Doubleday, A, The Victoria History of the County of Hertford, (1912), 318
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire, (1977)
'Transactions of the East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society' in Transactions of the East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society, (1902), 122-3
Other
Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Hertfordshire, (1910)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.