Tomb of Cecil Talbot in the churchyard of St Nicholas

Summary

Tomb of Cecil Talbot, 1720, situated a short distance to the north-west of the Church of St Nicholas, Sutton.

Reasons for Designation

The tomb of Cecil Talbot in the churchyard of St Nicholas, Sutton, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* As a chest tomb of 1720, its bold design taking the form of a sarcophagus, with coved ends and a pyramidal lid;
* The carving – both the arms on the ends of the tomb, and the lettering of the inscriptions – is well-executed.

Historic interest:
* The tomb commemorates Cecil Talbot, daughter and heir of a prominent Welsh landowner, and wife of a future Lord Chancellor; she is the subject of a powerful eulogy inscribed on the tomb.

Group value:
* The Church of St Nicholas, which contains a memorial to Cecil Talbot’s son, William Talbot, first Earl Talbot, is listed at Grade II*, and a number of other tombs within the churchyard are listed at Grade II.

History

The manor of Sutton belonged to Chertsey Abbey from before the Norman conquest to the Dissolution when it passed to a succession of mostly non-resident owners. In the C18 the village became a coaching stop on the route to the races in Epsom and then Brighton and by 1800 it was a small village sprawling up the hill from the common (now the Green) to the Cock Cross Roads. The arrival of the Sutton to Epsom railway in 1847, the Epsom Downs line (1865) and the more direct line to London via Mitcham Junction (1868) led to rapid change. Middle class development took place at Benhill and in the area around the railway station, while Newtown, east of the High Street, was more working class. The High Street shops developed quite rapidly, probably largely in the 1870s and 1880s and by 1900 Sutton was a small commuter town in the countryside beyond London. In the 1920s and 1930s the whole area was engulfed by suburban development.

The present Church of St Nicholas is a rebuilding of earlier churches on the site; the earliest was a Saxon church built by the Abbot and monks of Chertsey Abbey who had been granted the manor of Sutton in AD 675. This church was partly re-constructed at the end of the C13 by the Abbot of Chertsey, John de Rutherwyck, and the list of Rectors dates from 1291.

Following an increase in the population of Sutton it was decided in 1862 that additional church accommodation was necessary, and the architect Edwin Nash was employed to rebuild the earlier church; the earlier monuments were re-sited in the new church.

The churchyard has retained its form since that time.

The tomb of Cecil Talbot is situated a short distance to the north-west of the church. Cecil Talbot (1692/3-1720) was the daughter and heir of Charles Matthews of Castell-y-Mynach, Glamorgan, and also heir presumptive of her uncle Richard Jenkins of Hensol, in the same county. In 1708 she married Charles Talbot (1685-1737), a lawyer, and the son of William Talbot, successively bishop of Oxford, Salisbury and Durham. The couple had five sons. The second of these, William (1710-1782), became first Earl Talbot and Lord Steward in 1761; his monument is in the south aisle of the church. The Talbots’ connection with Sutton is not currently known; one account (A History and Description of Sutton, 1869) states that Cecil having died here, William chose to be buried with her.

Charles Talbot would become Lord Chancellor in 1733. His name is remembered in the 1729 Yorke-Talbot slavery opinion, in which Sir Philip Yorke as Attorney General and Talbot as Lord Privy Seal opined that slavery was legal in England; this was widely referred to as authoritative before being superseded by the celebrated Somerset case of 1772. Following Cecil’s death he inherited her Glamorgan properties, and is credited with re-building Hensol Castle; he was made first Baron Talbot of Hensol in 1733. Cecil and Charles’s descendants inherited the earldom of Shrewsbury in 1858; thanks to Talbot’s efforts in mobilising support for a private bill for the resettlement of the estates of a distant cousin, Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, in 1720, they also inherited the estates.

A tomb of the same model dating from 1719 commemorates Lady Sarah Cowper in the churchyard of St Mary, Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire.

Details

Tomb of Cecil Talbot, 1720, situated a short distance to the north-west of the church.

MATERIALS: grey stone, or possibly weathered marble.

DESCRIPTION: the tomb takes the form of a sarcophagus with pedestal feet on a panelled base. The west and east ends are coved, with projecting sloping panels to the north and east, and there is a cornice with a bold oversailing torus moulding below a shallow pyramidal lid. The west and east ends are carved with Talbot and Matthews arms in cartouches; the projecting north and south faces carry inscriptions. There are two repairs to the stonework, one to the north and one to the south face; on the south face an inserted section of stone has been carved with lettering. On the north face: ‘In memory of M[…] CECIL TALBOT / Only daughter & heir of CHARLES MATTHEW / Of Castle y. Menich in ye County of Glamorgan Esqr ; And wife of CHARLES TALBOT Barrister at Law / To whom She bore five sons, and left four surviving; / She died in this parish on the 13th of June 1720, / And chose this place for her grave / in the 28 year of her Age.’ On the south face: ‘She had a quick apprehension ready wit and solid judgement / Improved by usefull […] knowledge. / With a sweetness of temper scarce ever to be ruffled / How mild beneficent she was to her domesticks / How anxiously tender of her children and rationally instructive / How invariably zealous in her just concerne / for the honour & interests of her Country, / of her Family, and of her Friends, / How dear, how reciprocally affectionate & faithfull / to her (alas! now lonely) Spouse, / All her acquaintance know, these lines are meant / to witness to posterity: / After a short life, led under a constant and deep sence / Of the excellence of Virtue, She is gone to God in peace. / Go Thou, and beg of him to give Thee grace, / in what Thou may’st to imitate the bright example.’

Sources

Books and journals
Morgan, J, A History and Description of Sutton, (1869)

Websites
M. Macnair, ‘Talbot, Charles, first Baron Talbot of Hensol (bap. 1685, d. 1737)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008, accessed 11 August 2017 from http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/26923

Other
Norman Crabtree, Monumental inscriptions and memorials St Nicholas Church and Churchyard, 1628-1945 (1972)

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