St Mary, Eynesbury, St Neots, Cambridgeshire
And so to the last parish church in Cambridgeshire. It could be reported that it has taken me lengthier to full this county than any other, for the reason that I was first taken into a Cambridgeshire church to be baptised fifty-seven decades back at the age of two months. Be that as it might, I begun traveling to the Cambridgeshire churches in earnest about 4 yrs in the past, partly as a end result of an enthusiasm for loved ones history. Much more than 30 Cambridgeshire parishes and their church buildings had been residences to my ancestors of the past 4 generations. Listed here, they were being baptised, married and despatched on their closing journey to the grave.
Cambridgeshire is a curious county. A pleasing parallelogram in shape, stretching some forty miles from corner to corner, it has only existed in its present form because 1974, when it was developed by the union of the two small-lived counties of Huntingdon & Peterborough and Cambridgeshire & the Isle of Ely. These had been created in their change in 1965 out of 4 smaller counties, these remaining Huntingdonshire, the Soke of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. The Isle was returning to its standing of prior to the 1890s, when it had been hived off from Cambridgeshire for administrative applications. In advance of the 1890s, the Soke of Peterborough experienced been a portion of Northamptonshire. Nonetheless with me? Fantastic. The 1974 iteration of the county took in a single parish just about every from Bedfordshire and Essex, and then in the 1990s lost a single parish to Suffolk.
It all seems a little bit of a hotchpotch, and yet it appears to be to do the job. Of all the amalgamated counties designed in 1974, Cambridgeshire is the only a person which has survived by community will. Avon and Humberside have been consigned to heritage, Leicestershire broken up again into its constituent areas. But in Cambridgeshire, the previous county of Huntingdonshire has been allowed to survive as a community government district, as has the Soke of Peterborough which continues in expanded sort as the Peterborough unitary authority.
The cities of Cambridge and Peterborough have the two expanded spectacularly due to the fact 1965, and the county is the only non-metropolitan place to have an elected mayor directing hundreds of thousands of pounds to growth jobs. The inhabitants of about a million is split more or considerably less 50 percent-and-50 percent in between urban and rural configurations. The west and south of the county are incredibly prosperous, but the Fenland district in the north-east has deep pockets of poverty, as do the metropolitan areas of Cambridge and Peterborough.
I used the very first twenty decades of my lifetime in Cambridgeshire, most of it in Cambridge, and it is continue to hard not to believe of it as household. And so this has specified a special resonance to my journeys around the county. Cambridgeshire’s churches are not impressive. Indeed, it is tough to detect a particular Cambridgeshire design and style at all, other than a liking for octagonal tower tops, and they are not so quite abundant. But Cambridgeshire shares borders with a lot more other counties than any other English county, and the church buildings near individuals borders are likely to just take on the properties of the other county – massive, marshland church buildings up around Norfolk and Lincolnshire, small, homely churches down toward Hertfordshire and Essex, grand Perpendicular churches by the Suffolk border, even though west of Huntingdon the spired church buildings merge seamlessly into their Northamptonshire counterparts. Strikingly, Cambridgeshire’s pretty very best church buildings are really a lot all near a border with yet another county.
Of training course, the county has two significant medieval cathedrals at Peterborough and Ely, as very well as a collection of higher education chapels in Cambridge, some of which are medieval in origin, such as the stunning chapel of King’s University, as very good as a cathedral. I have bundled these on my journey, so by the time John and I got to the St Neots suburb of Eynesbury at a quarter to 4 on a late autumn afternoon I experienced currently frequented 314 Cambridgeshire churches. St Mary at Eynesbury would be the ultimate parish church.
We hadn’t meant to be so late. We’d arrived in St Neots at about two o’clock, prepared to visit the a few town centre church buildings, all of which right before 1965 served independent towns. If Cambridgeshire is an odd amalgam, then St Neots is odder continue to. 5 cities and villages merge into each other in the south-west corner of the county to sort St Neots, which, with much more than 40,000 individuals, can claim to be ‘the major city in Cambridgeshire’ (Cambridge and Peterborough both of those being metropolitan areas of course). The parishes of St Neots town and Eynesbury kind the city centre, with the parish of Eaton Socon on the reverse financial institution of the Wonderful Ouse, and Eaton Ford, which sorts a section of the parish, to the north of it. Very little Paxton, the poshest parish, retains alone a little bit at arms length, but all over again only by the width of a river. The Bedfordshire border operates along two sides of the city, and without a doubt, till 1965 sections of the town were in Bedfordshire.
All a few medieval churches in St Neots town centre are large, and all 3 are devoted to St Mary, which can be the cause of some confusion. St Mary at St Neots and St Mary at Eynesbury are just a few of hundred yards aside, separated by a smaller bridge, whilst 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 churches are equally in the Anglo-Catholic custom, and I am difficult place to consider of two other this kind of Substantial church buildings so shut collectively, especially in a little city, and thinking about that they are in individual benefices.
We experienced observed the Eaton Socon church locked. The indicator seemed to propose that if you tipped up in the early morning on a weekday you may discover the adjacent business office open, and presumably they just may possibly enable you into the church, however as breathtaking as the Perpendicular exterior is there would not be significantly to see, as the church was gutted by fireplace in 1930. The only previous factor remaining is the font. Continue to, this was our thirteenth church of the working day, and the 1st one particular we had identified locked, so we weren’t way too upset.
We headed off and parked near the Eynesbury church. This was also locked, but there was a keyholder detect, so I rang him up. He appeared a small surprised, but explained to us he’d be coming down in about an hour’s time, would that do? I reported it would. We walked the limited distance up to the St Neots town church, which was open of training course, as it is each and every working day. Another large, spectacular Perpendicular church, but not more than enough within of it to fill an hour, so we drove out to Terrific Paxton and its late Saxon church, which John experienced not frequented prior to, and then back again into city to continue to keep our appointment.
Eynesbury church is huge, even though in contrast to its two sisters it is largely Early English in origin, with previously arcades and later on aisles. The tower was significantly rebuilt in the 17th Century, and looks it. The tower is most unusual in that it is established against the most easterly bay of the south aisle of the nave. The nave extends westwards to the street line, which is also in opposition to the north side, and so this clarifies the tower’s situation. Of the three churches, this is the most urban in visual appeal, and would not glimpse out of area in the centre of Cambridge.
The Early English interior is at to start with alternatively dim, for as at St Neots, this church was virtually totally glazed in the 19th Century with colored glass, significantly of it by Hardman & Co. But, whilst the nave is pretty much as huge as at the other church, it does not come to feel like a barn. Alternatively, the reduced roof and the dusty furnishings give a feeling of muddle, nevertheless not in a bad way. This is a tough and prepared church which has shaped itself to the demands and wishes of its parishioners about the generations. Arthur Blomfield led the 19th Century restoration, and his familiar ambiance lies greatly below. The watch east is to the great rood, the 1933 do the job of Albert Richardson who experienced just completed restoring Eaton Socon.
I was pleased to learn that what I experienced taken for reticence in our host turned out to be a cheerful dryness. He was incredibly welcoming, answered our inquiries, but left us just to wander all-around as he pottered about. I requested him about the Anglo-catholic tradition of the two churches. He failed to feel to consider it was abnormal to uncover two urban church buildings in the Anglo-Catholic custom so close jointly, which I located surprisingly reassuring. “We like to think we are just that small bit higher than that great deal up the highway,” he noticed. I requested him how to pronounce Eynesbury (I have usually rhymed the 1st syllable with lines). “Effectively, we contact it Ains-bury,” he claimed, “even though I never know if which is appropriate.”
Nevertheless we wandered. The 17th Century pulpit was declared unusually lovely by Pevsner’s revising editor, and he is right, the influence partly the end result of its resetting on an stylish stem in the 1970s. Other woodwork involves the ideal medieval bench finishes we experienced seen all working day, carved with animals like pigs, bulls and a camel. Some of them surface to have been adapted and included to rather crudely, perhaps in the 17th Century. Could this have been an attempt to restore the outcomes of iconoclasm? If so, it would be interesting to know what was there prior to.
In the center of the nave is a contemporary memorial slab to an Eynesbury parishioner who died two hundred years back. James Toller was just twenty 1 years previous. What makes him outstanding is that he was one of the tallest individuals who have ever lived. Around this area lies all that is mortal of James Toller (The Eynesbury Giant) who died 4th February 1818 aged 21 many years, 8 toes 1½ inches in height. James Toller was born in the street beside the church in 1797. Tall from an early age, in his teens he was exhibited in London and offered to the Russian Tsar. He was toured in the course of Europe with a Dutchman referred to as Simon Paap who was only 20 8 inches tall.
The excellent persons of Eynesbury feel to have addressed James cheerfully as a person of their possess, but his prevalent fame eventually created it difficult for him to live a normal everyday living, and, as his health and fitness deteriorated, he put in his previous years driving the substantial partitions of the rectory backyard. 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 height of eight foot 6 was claimed for James, but a measurement of his skeleton when it was reburied just after the 19th Century restoration of the inside gave a more true measurement, which was nevertheless exceptional.
And so, that was it, the previous parish church in Cambridgeshire, a suitably quirky place for a quirky county. There are however loads of non-conformist chapels to take a look at, as well as the chapels of cemeteries, schools and other establishments of system. But for now, the fulfillment of a job concluded accompanied me as we headed again to Ely station.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2018-11-11 08:36:36
Tagged: , Eynesbury , St Neots , Cambridgeshire , Cambs , Huntingdonshire , Hunts , church , East Anglia
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