St Mary, Eynesbury, St Neots, Cambridgeshire
And so to the past parish church in Cambridgeshire. It could be reported that it has taken me extended to comprehensive this county than any other, due to the fact I was 1st taken into a Cambridgeshire church to be baptised fifty-7 a long time back at the age of two months. Be that as it may, I begun viewing the Cambridgeshire church buildings in earnest about 4 yrs ago, partly as a result of an enthusiasm for loved ones history. More than thirty Cambridgeshire parishes and their church buildings have been homes to my ancestors of the last four generations. In this article, they have been baptised, married and despatched on their ultimate 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 current sort because 1974, when it was created by the union of the two limited-lived counties of Huntingdon & Peterborough and Cambridgeshire & the Isle of Ely. These experienced been produced in their switch in 1965 out of four smaller counties, these being Huntingdonshire, the Soke of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. The Isle was returning to its position of right before the 1890s, when it had been hived off from Cambridgeshire for administrative functions. Right before the 1890s, the Soke of Peterborough experienced been a section of Northamptonshire. Continue to with me? Excellent. The 1974 iteration of the county took in a solitary parish each individual from Bedfordshire and Essex, and then in the 1990s shed just one parish to Suffolk.
It all appears a little bit of a hotchpotch, and nonetheless it would seem to operate. Of all the amalgamated counties made in 1974, Cambridgeshire is the only just one which has survived by public will. Avon and Humberside have been consigned to historical past, Leicestershire broken up once more into its constituent areas. But in Cambridgeshire, the previous county of Huntingdonshire has been authorized to survive as a nearby federal government district, as has the Soke of Peterborough which proceeds in expanded form as the Peterborough unitary authority.
The metropolitan areas of Cambridge and Peterborough have the two expanded spectacularly due to the fact 1965, and the county is the only non-metropolitan region to have an elected mayor directing tens of millions of pounds to growth assignments. The population of about a million is break up extra or considerably less fifty percent-and-50 percent concerning urban 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 towns of Cambridge and Peterborough.
I put in the first twenty years of my life in Cambridgeshire, most of it in Cambridge, and it is even now tricky not to imagine of it as household. And so this has given a special resonance to my journeys all-around the county. Cambridgeshire’s churches are not breathtaking. In truth, it is challenging to identify a specific Cambridgeshire model at all, other than a liking for octagonal tower tops, and they are not so very abundant. But Cambridgeshire shares borders with extra other counties than any other English county, and the church buildings close to people borders are inclined to just take on the features of the other county – big, marshland churches up around Norfolk and Lincolnshire, little, homely church buildings down in 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 very best church buildings are really significantly all in the vicinity of a border with yet another county.
Of course, the county has two significant medieval cathedrals at Peterborough and Ely, as very well as a selection of school chapels in Cambridge, some of which are medieval in origin, which include the impressive chapel of King’s Higher education, as fantastic as a cathedral. I have incorporated these on my journey, so by the time John and I received to the St Neots suburb of Eynesbury at a quarter to four on a late autumn afternoon I experienced by now visited 314 Cambridgeshire church buildings. St Mary at Eynesbury would be the final parish church.
We hadn’t meant to be so late. We would arrived in St Neots at about two o’clock, ready to go to the a few city centre churches, all of which prior to 1965 served individual towns. If Cambridgeshire is an odd amalgam, then St Neots is odder nonetheless. Five towns and villages merge into each individual other in the south-west corner of the county to type St Neots, which, with a lot more than 40,000 persons, can declare to be ‘the premier town in Cambridgeshire’ (Cambridge and Peterborough both of those staying cities of system). The parishes of St Neots city and Eynesbury type the town centre, with the parish of Eaton Socon on the reverse lender of the Fantastic Ouse, and Eaton Ford, which sorts a section of the parish, to the north of it. Small Paxton, the poshest parish, retains itself a bit at arms length, but once more only by the width of a river. The Bedfordshire border operates together two sides of the town, and indeed, till 1965 pieces of the town were in Bedfordshire.
All a few medieval churches in St Neots town centre are huge, and all a few are dedicated to St Mary, which can be the result in of some confusion. St Mary at St Neots and St Mary at Eynesbury are just a pair of hundred yards apart, divided by a modest bridge, when St Mary at Eaton Socon sits 50 % 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 city church buildings are the two in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, and I am difficult place to imagine of two other these kinds of Significant church buildings so shut jointly, primarily in a smaller city, and looking at that they are in independent benefices.
We experienced observed the Eaton Socon church locked. The sign appeared to counsel that if you tipped up in the early morning on a weekday you may well find the adjacent office environment open up, and presumably they just may enable you into the church, although as stunning as the Perpendicular exterior is there would not be considerably to see, as the church was gutted by hearth in 1930. The only outdated thing still left is the font. Still, this was our thirteenth church of the day, and the very first one particular we experienced observed locked, so we weren’t way too unhappy.
We headed off and parked in the vicinity of the Eynesbury church. This was also locked, but there was a keyholder detect, so I rang him up. He seemed a tiny surprised, but informed us he’d be coming down in about an hour’s time, would that do? I explained it would. We walked the limited length up to the St Neots town church, which was open up of program, as it is each individual working day. Another major, amazing 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 had not visited before, and then back again into town to hold our appointment.
Eynesbury church is huge, even though compared with its two sisters it is mostly Early English in origin, with earlier arcades and later on aisles. The tower was considerably rebuilt in the 17th Century, and appears it. The tower is most unusual in that it is established towards the most easterly bay of the south aisle of the nave. The nave extends westwards to the avenue line, which is also towards the north aspect, and so this points out the tower’s placement. Of the three churches, this is the most urban in physical appearance, and would not appear out of location in the centre of Cambridge.
The Early English interior is at first relatively dim, for as at St Neots, this church was practically totally glazed in the 19th Century with colored glass, substantially of it by Hardman & Co. But, though the nave is pretty much as wide as at the other church, it does not sense like a barn. Alternatively, the reduce roof and the dusty furnishings give a perception of muddle, nevertheless not in a negative way. This is a tough and completely ready church which has shaped itself to the wants and desires of its parishioners over the generations. Arthur Blomfield led the 19th Century restoration, and his common environment lies closely below. The see east is to the fantastic rood, the 1933 work of Albert Richardson who had just concluded restoring Eaton Socon.
I was pleased to discover that what I had taken for reticence in our host turned out to be a cheerful dryness. He was incredibly welcoming, answered our issues, but remaining us just to wander about as he pottered about. I requested him about the Anglo-catholic custom of the two church buildings. He didn’t appear to be to assume it was unusual to find two urban churches in the Anglo-Catholic tradition so shut collectively, which I identified strangely reassuring. “We like to believe we’re just that small bit increased than that good deal up the highway,” he observed. I asked him how to pronounce Eynesbury (I have normally rhymed the initial syllable with lines). “Very well, we phone it Ains-bury,” he claimed, “although I don’t know if that’s proper.”
However we wandered. The 17th Century pulpit was declared unusually stunning by Pevsner’s revising editor, and he’s ideal, the result partly the result of its resetting on an exquisite stem in the 1970s. Other woodwork incorporates the best medieval bench finishes we had viewed all day, carved with animals together with pigs, bulls and a camel. Some of them look to have been adapted and extra to somewhat crudely, possibly in the 17th Century. Could this have been an attempt to maintenance the effects of iconoclasm? If so, it would be interesting to know what was there ahead of.
In the middle of the nave is a present day memorial slab to an Eynesbury parishioner who died two hundred a long time in the past. James Toller was just twenty one particular decades outdated. What would make him amazing is that he was 1 of the tallest individuals who have ever lived. In the vicinity of this area lies all that is mortal of James Toller (The Eynesbury Huge) who died 4th February 1818 aged 21 decades, 8 feet 1½ inches in top. James Toller was born in the street beside the church in 1797. Tall from an early age, in his teenagers he was exhibited in London and introduced to the Russian Tsar. He was toured all over Europe with a Dutchman identified as Simon Paap who was only twenty eight inches tall.
The fantastic people of Eynesbury appear to have addressed James cheerfully as a single of their have, but his prevalent fame inevitably made it not possible for him to stay a normal everyday living, and, as his well being deteriorated, he invested his final several years guiding the superior partitions of the rectory yard. He was buried inside of the church for, it was claimed, a bounty of £20 had been issued for his corpse by dissectionists. In his life span a top 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 nonetheless outstanding.
And so, that was it, the past parish church in Cambridgeshire, a suitably quirky location for a quirky county. There are continue to lots of non-conformist chapels to go to, as very well as the chapels of cemeteries, colleges and other institutions of training course. But for now, the fulfillment of a career finished accompanied me as we headed back again to Ely station.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2018-11-11 08:36:50
Tagged: , Eynesbury , St Neots , Cambridgeshire , Cambs , Huntingdonshire , Hunts , church , East Anglia
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