St Mary, Eynesbury, St Neots, Cambridgeshire
And so to the very last parish church in Cambridgeshire. It could be stated that it has taken me longer to finish this county than any other, mainly because I was 1st taken into a Cambridgeshire church to be baptised fifty-seven several years in the past at the age of two months. Be that as it may, I started out checking out the Cambridgeshire churches in earnest about four years ago, partly as a consequence of an enthusiasm for family history. Far more than thirty Cambridgeshire parishes and their church buildings were homes to my ancestors of the past four generations. Listed here, they were baptised, married and despatched on their last journey to the grave.
Cambridgeshire is a curious county. A satisfying parallelogram in form, stretching some forty miles from corner to corner, it has only existed in its present sort considering the fact that 1974, when it was designed by the union of the two brief-lived counties of Huntingdon & Peterborough and Cambridgeshire & the Isle of Ely. These experienced been designed in their flip in 1965 out of four lesser counties, these staying Huntingdonshire, the Soke of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. The Isle was returning to its status of prior to the 1890s, when it had been hived off from Cambridgeshire for administrative needs. Prior to the 1890s, the Soke of Peterborough had been a element of Northamptonshire. Even now with me? Good. The 1974 iteration of the county took in a one parish every from Bedfordshire and Essex, and then in the 1990s shed one parish to Suffolk.
It all seems a little bit of a hotchpotch, and still it seems to work. Of all the amalgamated counties established in 1974, Cambridgeshire is the only one which has survived by community will. Avon and Humberside have been consigned to record, Leicestershire broken up yet again into its constituent elements. But in Cambridgeshire, the previous county of Huntingdonshire has been authorized to survive as a area governing administration district, as has the Soke of Peterborough which proceeds in expanded variety as the Peterborough unitary authority.
The metropolitan areas of Cambridge and Peterborough have both of those expanded spectacularly considering that 1965, and the county is the only non-metropolitan region to have an elected mayor directing thousands and thousands of kilos to development assignments. The populace of about a million is break up much more or fewer fifty percent-and-50 % concerning city and rural options. The west and south of the county are quite prosperous, but the Fenland district in the north-east has deep pockets of poverty, as do the cities of Cambridge and Peterborough.
I used the 1st twenty many years of my lifestyle in Cambridgeshire, most of it in Cambridge, and it is however really hard not to consider of it as home. And so this has given a unique resonance to my journeys about the county. Cambridgeshire’s church buildings are not amazing. Indeed, it is tricky to identify a unique Cambridgeshire fashion at all, other than a liking for octagonal tower tops, and they are not so really abundant. But Cambridgeshire shares borders with extra other counties than any other English county, and the churches around individuals borders are inclined to just take on the properties of the other county – massive, marshland churches up near Norfolk and Lincolnshire, modest, homely church buildings down in the direction of Hertfordshire and Essex, grand Perpendicular church buildings by the Suffolk border, although west of Huntingdon the spired church buildings merge seamlessly into their Northamptonshire counterparts. Strikingly, Cambridgeshire’s pretty finest church buildings are really significantly all in close proximity to a border with one more county.
Of program, the county has two key medieval cathedrals at Peterborough and Ely, as nicely as a selection of college or university chapels in Cambridge, some of which are medieval in origin, together with the spectacular chapel of King’s School, as excellent as a cathedral. I have included these on my journey, so by the time John and I acquired to the St Neots suburb of Eynesbury at a quarter to 4 on a late autumn afternoon I experienced by now visited 314 Cambridgeshire churches. St Mary at Eynesbury would be the final parish church.
We hadn’t meant to be so late. We might arrived in St Neots at about two o’clock, all set to visit the a few city centre churches, all of which prior to 1965 served separate towns. If Cambridgeshire is an odd amalgam, then St Neots is odder however. 5 cities and villages merge into just about every other in the south-west corner of the county to type St Neots, which, with far more than 40,000 men and women, can claim to be ‘the premier town in Cambridgeshire’ (Cambridge and Peterborough both of those becoming cities of training course). The parishes of St Neots city and Eynesbury variety the town centre, with the parish of Eaton Socon on the reverse bank of the Great Ouse, and Eaton Ford, which types a component of the parish, to the north of it. Small Paxton, the poshest parish, retains by itself a little bit at arms size, but once more only by the width of a river. The Bedfordshire border operates together two sides of the town, and in truth, until eventually 1965 sections of the city ended up in Bedfordshire.
All 3 medieval church buildings in St Neots town centre are big, and all 3 are focused to St Mary, which can be the cause of some confusion. St Mary at St Neots and St Mary at Eynesbury are just a couple of hundred yards aside, separated by a modest bridge, when St Mary at Eaton Socon sits fifty percent a mile or so to the south-west of them. The Eaton Socon church is heartily Evangelical in character, but the Eynesbury and St Neots town church buildings are both in the Anglo-Catholic custom, and I am really hard place to imagine of two other these kinds of Superior church buildings so near jointly, in particular in a compact town, and thinking of that they are in individual benefices.
We experienced identified the Eaton Socon church locked. The indicator appeared to suggest that if you tipped up in the morning on a weekday you may discover the adjacent office open up, and presumably they just may permit you into the church, though as spectacular as the Perpendicular exterior is there would not be a great deal to see, as the church was gutted by fireplace in 1930. The only aged detail still left is the font. Nonetheless, this was our thirteenth church of the day, and the to start with a person we experienced observed locked, so we weren’t much too disappointed.
We headed off and parked in close proximity to the Eynesbury church. This was also locked, but there was a keyholder recognize, so I rang him up. He appeared a little surprised, but advised us he’d be coming down in about an hour’s time, would that do? I reported it would. We walked the small distance up to the St Neots town church, which was open up of class, as it is each and every working day. One more large, stunning Perpendicular church, but not ample within of it to fill an hour, so we drove out to Wonderful Paxton and its late Saxon church, which John experienced not visited in advance of, and then back again into city to preserve our appointment.
Eynesbury church is large, nevertheless unlike its two sisters it is largely Early English in origin, with previously arcades and later aisles. The tower was considerably rebuilt in the 17th Century, and looks it. The tower is most abnormal in that it is set towards the most easterly bay of the south aisle of the nave. The nave extends westwards to the street line, which is also versus the north side, and so this points out the tower’s situation. Of the three church buildings, this is the most city in appearance, and would not seem out of area in the centre of Cambridge.
The Early English interior is at initial relatively dim, for as at St Neots, this church was practically fully glazed in the 19th Century with coloured glass, much of it by Hardman & Co. But, despite the fact that the nave is just about as wide as at the other church, it does not really feel like a barn. Instead, the reduce roof and the dusty furnishings give a sense of muddle, though not in a negative way. This is a rough and all set church which has formed alone to the demands and wants of its parishioners over the generations. Arthur Blomfield led the 19th Century restoration, and his acquainted ambiance lies seriously listed here. The watch east is to the terrific rood, the 1933 get the job done of Albert Richardson who experienced just finished restoring Eaton Socon.
I was pleased to find that what I experienced taken for reticence in our host turned out to be a cheerful dryness. He was quite welcoming, answered our concerns, but still left us just to wander all over as he pottered about. I requested him about the Anglo-catholic tradition of the two churches. He failed to look to feel it was unusual to uncover two urban churches in the Anglo-Catholic custom so near collectively, which I discovered surprisingly reassuring. “We like to assume we’re just that very little bit higher than that large amount up the highway,” he noticed. I questioned him how to pronounce Eynesbury (I have always rhymed the initial syllable with traces). “Well, we simply call it Ains-bury,” he claimed, “nevertheless I do not know if that’s right.”
However we wandered. The 17th Century pulpit was declared unusually gorgeous by Pevsner’s revising editor, and he is right, the outcome partly the consequence of its resetting on an exquisite stem in the 1970s. Other woodwork incorporates the ideal medieval bench finishes we had witnessed all day, carved with animals which includes pigs, bulls and a camel. Some of them surface to have been tailored and additional to somewhat crudely, perhaps in the 17th Century. Could this have been an endeavor to repair the final results of iconoclasm? If so, it would be exciting to know what was there in advance of.
In the middle of the nave is a modern memorial slab to an Eynesbury parishioner who died two hundred decades in the past. James Toller was just 20 a single a long time old. What tends to make him extraordinary is that he was a single of the tallest men and women who have ever lived. Close to this spot lies all that is mortal of James Toller (The Eynesbury Big) who died 4th February 1818 aged 21 years, 8 ft 1½ inches in top. James Toller was born in the road beside the church in 1797. Tall from an early age, in his teenagers he was exhibited in London and offered to the Russian Tsar. He was toured during Europe with a Dutchman referred to as Simon Paap who was only 20 8 inches tall.
The great persons of Eynesbury appear to have dealt with James cheerfully as a person of their possess, but his popular fame eventually manufactured it impossible for him to are living a standard daily life, and, as his wellness deteriorated, he invested his final many years at the rear of the higher walls of the rectory back garden. He was buried within the church for, it was claimed, a bounty of £20 experienced been issued for his corpse by dissectionists. In his life time a peak of 8 foot six was claimed for James, but a measurement of his skeleton when it was reburied soon after the 19th Century restoration of the inside gave a more true measurement, which was still extraordinary.
And so, that was it, the past parish church in Cambridgeshire, a suitably quirky put for a quirky county. There are still a lot of non-conformist chapels to take a look at, as perfectly as the chapels of cemeteries, schools and other establishments of class. But for now, the satisfaction of a position accomplished accompanied me as we headed back again to Ely station.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2018-11-11 08:36:51
Tagged: , Eynesbury , St Neots , Cambridgeshire , Cambs , Huntingdonshire , Hunts , church , East Anglia
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