St Leonard’s Church, Glapthorn

Northamptonshire

DIOCESE OF

PETERBOROUGH

This Statement of Significance is based on the information and the views available at the time of its compilation, including a site inspection.  It is a summary of principal features and issues, and does not include all matters of interest. It should be treated as an initial guide.  When proposals requiring consent under faculty jurisdiction or planning permission are being considered, the Statement will assist in identifying the need for more detailed or extensive investigations to inform a full consideration of the proposals.  It should be reviewed and updated regularly by those with appropriate interests and expertise, in conjunction with the Quinquennial Inspection.  

Church

Address Archdeaconry

Local authorities

Parish Church of St Leonard’s

Glapthorn, Peterborough, PE8 5BE

Oakham

East Northants District Council, Northamptonshire County Council

Date compiled and approved by PCC

September 2009 (not yet approved by PCC)

Nat Grid Ref

Sites and Monuments Record Number

TL 02 90

2806/1

Published plan

Royal Commission for Historic Monuments [1984], page 76

Constituent parts

Church, and churchyard on all sides.

Parish population

Congregation size

266 (2008 estimate by ENDC)

Average of 27

Use by and significance for congregation and community

Two services are held at a regular time each Sunday: a morning service and Evening Prayer. Morning service consists of a rotation of Family Service, two Holy Communions and a BCP 1662 Mattins each month. There is no service on the 5^th Sunday, as there is a Deanery Service elsewhere. Special services are also held: for example, Christingle, Carol Service, Good Friday, and so on. Weddings, baptisms, funerals and ashes interments are all held here, of course. There is a Sunday Club for children, which takes part monthly in the Family Service, as do children from Glapthorn Church of England School. The school holds a carol service and a leavers’ service in the church each year. The significance of this substantial number of services in a relatively small village underlines, to both congregation and village community, the strong commitment of the Christian community in Glapthorn. This is reinforced by the church being open during daylight hours. The churchyard is well-kept by a mixture of paid and voluntary labour. The church is floodlit after dark and until 11 pm.

Outline history of site and building, including extent of any major restoration

·       This is a simple country church, parts of which date from the mid 12^th C.  It originally served as a chapel of ease to Cotterstock.

·       The building is of interest for its growth by piecemeal development in a relatively small space of time between the mid 12^th century and the 14^th century, to more than double its original size.

·       In the 13^th C it was considerably enlarged.  A large chancel and north chapel were built.

·       In the 14^th C, the south aisle was widened and the south porch built.

·       The west tower is no earlier than 15^th C.

·       There was formerly a north porch, possibly 13^th C, which was described in the 17^th C.

·       Apart from the building itself, the church is notable for its wall paintings, some of which date from the 13^th C, its wealth of medieval piscinae (4), its handsome Jacobean wooden pulpit and its 15th century octagonal stone font.

·       The church was restored in 1895 by J.C. Traylen, a local church architect, the early fabric being sympathetically preserved. New deal roof beams and pews were put in place, and a woodblock floor under the pews. The cost was approximately £1000

·       Despite exhaustive searches in the County Records Office, it has been impossible to discover any information about the wooden chancel screen. It is not mentioned in any faculty, nor the RCHM or SMR. We believe it to be Victorian, perhaps dating from the time of the Oxford Movement.

·       An organ was put in the north chapel (vestry) in 1933-4, replacing a harmonium.

·       In 1951, electricity was installed, and a boiler installed in the tower with a new oak tower screen erected in front of it. The design of the tower screen, as well as nave chandeliers, was done by Lawrence Bond, architect, of Grantham. (Cost something over £500). The boiler was removed in 1967, and replaced by radiant heaters suspended from the roof. This heating system was augmented in 2001 with gas-fired wall-mounted convection heaters, cost £12017.

·       Two rows of pews in the south-west corner of the church were removed in 2000, to provide space for refreshments, a play area for children and to allow the congregation to gather round the font at christenings (cost £1441).

·       Floodlighting was installed in 2003; the cost was £1631.

·       Repairs (by Gents) to the windows and surrounding stonework was carried out in 2005. The cost was £7713, but outside funding (Cory Environmental Trust) and a VAT rebate paid for all but £1738.

·       In 2006, the Collyweston slates on chancel roof (south slope) and south porch (both slopes) were replaced.The work was done by McFarlanes. The costs was £13109, but Cory Environmental Trust and a VAT rebate kept the net cost to £1374.

Location in landscape

·       It is located in the centre of the village on the main street.   To the south, the churchyard backs onto open fields.

Designations: Listed Building, Conservation Area, Scheduled Ancient Monument, Tree Preservation Orders etc

Churchyard open or closed

The church is listed Grade II*. (National Listing Reference number 232643).

Glapthorn is not a Conservation Area.

There are no Tree Preservation Orders for trees in the churchyard.

The churchyard is open.

Visual contribution of building and site

The tower is visible in the village, but does not dominate.

Building:

 materials,

plan form,

construction sequence

The walls are of coursed rubble. The roofs are of Collyweston stone slates. Internally, the walls are plastered and painted white, except where there are traces of wall paintings.

The plan of the church consists of a nave, with chancel to the east, an aisle to the south, and one to the north, which extends into a north chapel. This north chapel extends for two-thirds the length of the chancel. There is a tower at the west end of the nave, partly closed off by an oak screen. There is a porch to the south of the south door. The north and south doors are wooden and 18^th C.  The medieval pillars are round and the arches either round or double-chamfered and pointed. The windows are mainly medieval with simple tracery; they are not uniform.

There is evidence of a mid-12^th century church, the nave of which occupied the two eastern bays of the present nave. Late in the 12^th C, the nave was extended westward by two further bays. There was a bell-cote at the west end. In the 13^th C the two eastern bays were rebuilt and later the western arches of the north arcade were constructed. A large chancel and north chapel were built. In the 14^th C, the south aisle was widened and the south porch built. The clerestorey and west tower are probably 15^th century; the bellcote was dismantled so the tower could be built; two blocked 13^th century openings exist on the first floor of the tower. At some point, the north porch, still there in the 17^th century, was removed.

Brief description of each compartment

(see attached photographs of some of the features)

·       The entrance is through the 14^th C south porch and doorway.  Inside are stone benches – one is inscribed ‘1638 IB’.

·       The roofs are mostly replacements from 1895.

·       In the nave are arcades with bays that have pointed arches, circular shafts and moulded capitals dating to about 1250 on the eastern side and 14^th C on the northern side.  Bays on the southern side are semi-circular with round arches.

·       The font (15^th C) has a panelled stem and quatrefoil bowl.

·       Wall paintings, probably of St Christopher (patron saint of wayfarers and motorists) are extensive.  The most prominent is discernable on the north wall of the North Aisle. There is a partly over-painted Doom over the chancel arch.

·       The octagonal wooden, panelled pulpit is Jacobean.

·       The pews date from 1895, and three have older ends.

·       Just beyond the Victorian screen, in the chancel, are two reading desks partly constructed from re-used linenfold panels.

·       Oak communion altar rails are Jacobean.

·       There are four medieval piscinae, and an aumbry with dog-tooth decoration.

·       The north doorway has lost its original mouldings; it may have been the 13^th C.

·       The 14^th C east window has and external label with stops, one carved as a sow suckling piglets, the other as a boar (a reminder of when Glapthorn was known as ‘pig village’).

·       The west tower, unbuttressed with plain parapets, is post-medieval.

·       There are three bells, which were rehung in 1897. One is by Henry Penn of Peterborough (1710), one is 14^th century by John Sleyt, and one 15^th century.

·       On the angle buttresses at north-west corner of north aisle, is engraved a moral verse by John Brokesby, 4 February 1604.

Churchyard:

Memorials,

Ecological value

·       The churchyard surrounds the church on all sides, but lies mainly to the east and south. It was enlarged to the south in the 19^th century. The graveyard is surrounded by a typical Northamptonshire limestone wall with coping stones and drip ledge. Most of the gravestones are of limestone. The first book of registers contains marriages 1568 to 1788, baptisms 1583 to 1748, burials from 1614 to 1812. The second contains baptisms from 1749 to 1812, and the third marriages from 1776 to 1812.

·       One part (to the west of the church) is maintained as a wildlife meadow, with a different mowing regime from the rest of the churchyard. It attracts butterflies and other insects.

Other buildings or pieces or land

None.

Historical associations: people and events

·       The church originally served as a chapel of ease to Cotterstock.

·       In 1923, it united with Southwick and, later, Benefield.

·       In 2000 it was joined with Oundle.

Overall heritage  significance in local and national contexts

The church is a good example of the quality of medieval church craftsmanship, although no more so than many small parish churches in Northamptonshire. The quality of, for example, the pillars and arcading, is a little hidden by the placement of a number of the wooden pews. The wall paintings, especially that of St Christopher on the north nave wall, though faint, are important.

Assessment of archaeological potential

No more or less than any other small parish church.

Repairs identified in QIR for work within its currency

[   ] date of QIR

Re-pointing of the tower stonework, and some renewal of the leadwork there.

2002

References and sources of information

A history of the county of Northants, Vol 2 [1906] (Victoria County History)

An inventory of architectural monuments in NE Northants; (Royal Commission for Historic Monuments)

Northamptonshire Sites and Monuments Record.

Faculties of 1895, 1933 and 1950.

Nikolaus Pevsner, Buildings of England, Northamptonshire, 1961 pp 225-6