Churchyard gateways, railings and fountain at St Paul's Church

Summary

Stone gate piers and wrought-iron gates and railings, erected around 1730, and drinking fountain erected in 1883.

Reasons for Designation

The churchyard gateways, railings and drinking fountain at St Paul’s Church are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* for the architectural quality of their craftsmanship and materials;
* for the strong contribution they make to the architectural character and diversity of Bedford’s historic High Street and St Paul’s Square.

Historic interest:
* for their historic relationship with the medieval Church of St Paul (listed at Grade I).

Group value:
* for their stong historic and functional group value with St Paul’s Church (listed at Grade I).

History

Bedford lies in the shallow valley of the River Great Ouse, and from the Middle Saxon period evidence appears for the beginnings of a settlement at ‘Beda’s ford’, a key river crossing point. The Middle Saxon core of Bedford developed on the north side of the river with an early street pattern (still recognisable) and was surrounded by a defensive ditch. In the C10 and C11, Bedford was important both as a trading centre, with coins minted in the town, and as the central burh of the shire. The town’s main north-south route, comprising what is now High Street to the north of the river and St Mary’s and St John’s Streets to the south of the river, was developed by this time. After 1066, Bedford became a stronghold of the new Norman regime and during the reign of William II, a motte and bailey castle was built in a strategic position on the north bank of the river and then rebuilt in stone. A period of unrest, however, led to a siege of the castle in 1224 and, when it fell, Henry III ordered it to be dismantled. Despite political struggles, the town experienced a period of consolidation during the Norman and Medieval periods, when local commerce flourished and religious houses and hospitals were founded. The population of the town was decimated by the Black Death in the C14, and a new river crossing at Great Barford undermined the local economy by drawing traffic and trade away from the town. There was little further growth and the town was largely contained within its Saxon framework, as can be seen from John Speed’s map of Bedford dated 1610.

The dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII dealt a further blow to the town’s prosperity but its fortunes began to revive with the receipt of letters patent from Edward VI, allowing the foundation of a grammar school. Bedford also benefitted from the River Navigation Act, which made the River Great Ouse navigable between Bedford and King’s Lynn (completed in 1689). The town became the headquarters of Cromwell’s army between 1646 and 1647 and the puritan influence established during the Civil War lived on after the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, when the town became a centre for non-conformist preachers such as John Bunyan. Despite this prosperity, Bedford remained of modest size through to the end of the C18, as illustrated on Thomas Jefferys’ map of 1765. An Improvement Act in 1803 allowed for the erection of a new river bridge between 1811 and 1813 (widened in 1938), and clearance of the Market Square. Continuing prosperity in the early C19 was accompanied by modest growth, but by far the most dramatic expansion of Bedford followed the building of the Midland railway in 1873, linking the town with London, and associated industrialisation. In the early years of the C20, some houses in the town centre were replaced by department stores, banks and cinemas to serve the expanding population; The Arcade was built and other properties in and around the centre were converted to shops and offices. The High Street is characterised by narrow three and four-storey frontages, with long buildings, closes and yards occupying medieval burgage plots to the rear, those on the eastern side of High Street being particularly long.

John Speed’s map of Bedford dated 1610 appears to show an enclosure around the churchyard of St Paul’s church, the same footprint as it is today, stepping in at its northeast corner where the Coach and Horses Inn stood until 1895 and the Old Corn Exchange stood until 1904. The early ironwork of the gates and railings is attributed to William Stewardson, whitesmith of Bedford, and were erected around 1730. Following the Improvement Act of 1803, the area east of the churchyard was cleared of buildings, and it is possible that the east railings date from around this time. The eastern railings and northeast gateway are visible in a lithograph view of St Paul’s Church by J Sunman Austin in 1850. A gothic fountain at the southeast corner was erected by the Municipal Council of Bedford in 1883, replacing the Turnley fountain which was erected in the market area east of St Paul’s Church in 1870 (on what is now the site of the John Howard statue) and was removed in 1880. The east end of the north boundary, where the Old Corn Exchange stood until 1904, was rebuilt in the early C20 with a plinth wall and railings.

Details

Stone gate piers and wrought-iron gates and railings, erected around 1730, and drinking fountain erected in 1883.

MATERIALS: the gate piers are constructed of ashlar sandstone, and the gates and railings are of wrought iron. The railings stand on a brick plinth wall with stone coping. The drinking fountain is crafted of polished and rough-tooled Dartmoor granite with bronze fixings.

PLAN: the gate piers are square on plan. The gate piers and railings bound the churchyard of the Church of St Paul (Grade I) on St Paul’s Square.

DESCRIPTION: six gateways are located north, northeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest of the churchyard. The piers either side of the gateways are square on plan and feature carved panel mouldings to each side, a plain cornice, and a decorative urn (of differing styles with gadroons and festoons). The gateways have a variety of wrought-iron and cast-iron gates, generally double gates with evenly-spaced bars, finials and dog bars. The south, southwest and northwest gateways each have a single gate with a scrolled wrought-iron overthrow. The north gate has a wrought-iron scrolled overthrow, and the west gate has pointed finials to a plain overthrow.

The railings stand on a brick plinth wall with stone coping. The north and east stretches of railings have fleur-de-lis finials, and the south and west stretches are pointed with a decorative urn finial to every twentieth rail, and scrolled brackets where they meet piers.

The Turnley drinking fountain on the southeast corner was installed in 1883 and takes the form of a canted granite water bowl and triangular-headed surround over a curved limestone step. Over the water bowl the surround is inscribed: ‘THIS FOUNTAIN IS ERECTED BY THE / MUNICIPAL COUNCIL OF BEDFORD / IN PLACE OF ONE PRESENTED BY / THOMAS WESTLEY TURNLEY / ‘HE SHALL LEAD THEM / UNTO FOUNTAINS OF LIVING WATER’ / REV. VII.7’

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

35560

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
The Victoria History of the County of Bedfordshire: Volume III, (1912), pp1-9 and pp24-29
Pevsner, Nikolaus, O'Brien, Charles, The Buildings of England: Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire and Peterborough, (2014), 84

Websites
Heritage Gateway, ‘Gateway and Railings, St Paul’s Churchyard, HER No. 1226’, accessed 09 November 2022 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?resourceID=1014&uid=MBD1226
Bedford Borough Council, 'The Turnley Drinking Fountain', accessed 09 November 2022 from https://virtual-library.culturalservices.net/webingres/bedfordshire/vlib/0.digitised_resources/commemorative_plaque_turnley_drinking_fountain.htm

Other
Parkin, I, Parr, C, Vision for High Street Bedford, January 2009, pp13-14

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