Transcript:Birmingham Archaeological Society. Transactions, excursions, and reports/1887/St Peter's Church, Bickenhill

▼Transactions, Excursions, and Reports.
For the Year 1887.

[page 26]

St. Peter's Church, Bickenhill.

By J. A. Cossins.

February 23rd, 1887.

The village church of Bickenhill stands on a slight eminence, about midway between Birmingham and Coventry. Most of us, when travelling from Birmingham towards Rugby, as the train drew near to Hampton-in-Arden Station, must have noticed its thin graceful spire, about half a mile away, on the right-hand side. The distance from Hampton to Bickenhill by the highway is two miles, but a pedestrian, after taking the road for half a mile, may find a footpath to the right which, if followed, will bring him, by an extremely pleasant and much shorter route, through fields, to the south side of the village, which, seen from this distance, has a pleasing and thoroughly rural aspect, the church forming the central and principal object.

I am sorry to say that this pleasant first impression is somewhat marred when, on approaching the church, one finds the whole of the south side of the nave and chancel to be modern, it having been entirely rebuilt about forty years ago.

Fortunately I am enabled to give a view of the south side as it appeared before restoration (Plate 1), the sketch having been copied from a drawing in the Aylesford Collection preserved in the Birmingham Reference Library. The valuable series of drawings, of which this is one, was probably executed between seventy and eighty years ago, but I well remember the church before this side was rebuilt, and made the sketches of the details on Plate 3 in the year 1852. [page 27]

Plate 1. Bickenhill Church from the S.E.—drawn by J.A. Cossins from an old sketch in the Reference Library.

The churchyard is on the very top of the hill, and is surrounded and supported by a stone wall, much of which is ancient. The level of the churchyard is nearly as high as the top of this wall, but the road which it adjoins is 4ft. 6in. lower, having been much wasted by the wear and rains of seven or eight hundred years, and the churchyard somewhat raised by the burial of twenty or thirty generations of parishioners.

As I am not giving the history of the Parish, I must refer you to Domesday Book and to “ Dugdale ” if you wish to obtain detailed particulars of the original possessors of the place ; but since the history of a parish church is invariably more or less mixed up with the history of the manor, and as it is always interesting, when we are considering any important parts of the fabric, to know who were the contemporary owners of the place, and who were the patrons of the living, I may say—quoting from Dugdale—that, in the Conqueror's time, Bickenhill, with four adjoining petty hamlets, was possessed by “ Turchill de Warwick.” There is a deed still in existence, made by a grandson of Turchill, Henry de Arden, from which we learn there lived at that time a Eustace de Arden de Bickenhill. Dugdale was of opinion that the descendants of this Eustace, on account of their residence here, forsook the name of Arden and assumed the name of Bickenhill. A Thomas de Bickenhill is mentioned with relation to this place in the thirty-third year of Henry II., just seven hundred years ago. Now we shall see further on that the oldest part of the church is apparently of about the first twenty or thirty years of the twelfth century, and so of the time of Henry I. It therefore appears that it was built when the manor was held by this younger branch of the Ardens, possibly by the first of them, who had the manor assigned to him as his patrimony.

After the Ardens and Bickenhills, came one Walter Parles, about the close of the reign of Edward II., and in Edward III.'s time it passed to the Peches of Hampton-in-Arden.

The church, dedicated to St. Peter, was at first united to the neighbouring monastery of Henwood, but it very soon after came into the possession of the nunnery of Mergate, in Bedfordshire, which held the advowson until the suppression of the smaller monasteries in 1537. It retains interesting remains of early Norman work, the positions of which are printed black on the plan and sections (Plate 2), from which it will also be seen that the church consists of a chancel, nave, north aisle, extending to the extreme east end of the chancel and forming a chapel with a vestry beyond it, and a western tower and spire. The oaken porch on the south side is modern. The walls have been so much pulled about at different times that no fragment of Norman work beyond what the drawings show can be identified. The twelfth century church had certainly a nave and chancel, and the existing Norman arcade shows us that [page 28] there was also a (probably narrow) north aisle, which extended to the pier between the easternmost Norman arch and the pointed arch beyond. There was also a chancel arch, as this latter feature was rarely if ever omitted in a Norman church ; further than this we cannot even guess.

In discussing the church in detail, I will begin with the oldest features and proceed in chronological order.

The nave arcade, of three bays, shown by the section, is of very rude construction, and, if rudeness of execution were always to be taken as an indication of early date, this would be the oldest nave arcade in Warwickshire. It will be observed that the arches are of but one rim, or course, with a plain square section, the stones forming the faces of the arch on both sides not extending through the soffit, but leaving an irregular interval of rubble work, which is plastered. The arch ring is shallow, and irregular on the back, and the mortar joints of both piers and arches are very wide. The massive cylindrical pillars are each built up in three courses of several stones ; the capitals are ornamented with very rude carvings, and have thick abacuses splayed on the underside ; the bases are of an unusual section, having a somewhat classical-looking ogee and bead. The springers of the arches do not stand accurately over the axes of the pillars, but are eccentric to the extent of two or three inches. Although I have said that mere rudeness of execution must not of itself be relied upon as an evidence of great antiquity, I yet think we have in this arcade enough to convince us that it is of at least the early part of the twelfth century, the thinness of the arch rings, the single square soffits, the heavy splayed abacus, and the wide joints, all being indications of early Norman work. The peculiar base is also, to my mind, rather a sign of early work than otherwise, more likely to be found in the eleventh century than later on.

Another interesting relic of the Norman church is the inner arch of the south door. This was discovered when the church was restored. Whether it was then taken down and rebuilt, or not, I cannot learn ; neither can I offer any opinion as to whether it had been merely re-used by the builders of the fourteenth century, who appear to have nearly, if not quite, rebuilt the south wall. It is, however, a genuine Norman arch, with a small splay on the edge, and a label mould enriched with double alternating billets ; the terminations are fragments of a string, enriched with a zig-zag ornament (Plate 2). The only other Norman work, that can be recognised as such, is the head of a small window, or more probably a niche, now built into the wall just above the south doorway ; it is ornamented by a double row of billets, like the label just described, and by lozenges. I think it is probable that it belonged to a niche for a statue above the south door, and if so, it now occupies about its original position (Plate 3). [page 29]

Next in date came the very interesting, but now destroyed, lancet window, with low-side window just beneath its sill. When I first saw this church, nearly forty years ago, I made a sketch of these very interesting bits of early thirteenth century work, including the priest's door, which though it has no very characteristic detail, is, I have no doubt, of the same period. The sketch I then made is here reproduced (Plate 3). The destruction of these interesting records of the thirteenth century was a piece of barbarous stupidity, a disgrace to every one concerned in it, whether an active agent in the demolition, or only passively acquiescent. The window was, as you see, a well proportioned and graceful example of unmistakably Early English work, and the little rectangular opening beneath was probably constructed at the same time. This was a characteristic and valuable example of the simplest form of low-side window, as frequently found in the thirteenth century. I was pleased to find that the lancet and low-side windows had not been omitted in the drawing in the Aylesford Collection, which also shews us there was a long and narrow window, with a trefoiled arch in the same wall. The south wall of the nave, with its buttresses, is also shewn, and the old porch,—altogether a most interesting record of what must have been valuable historic work, now gone for ever.

This drawing also shews a half-timbered house opposite the west end of the church, removed at least forty-five years ago, and a part of a building on the east side also removed (Plate 1).

Of the fourteenth century, we have the north wall of the aisle, containing one square-headed window of two lights, with trefoiled ogee arches. The north door has a pointed arch, with splay, continued in the jambs, and a simple label moulding. The western window of the aisle is a single, ogee-headed, trefoiled light, under a square lintel, and contains fragments of stained glass. The north window of the chapel is of three lights, under a square head, but it appears to have been originally a pointed arched window, which has been cut down to adapt it to its present position. Indeed, I think it may have been the eastern window of the aisle before the chapel was built. The aisle had then, as now, a ridged roof ; so that there would have been height enough for the pointed arch of such a window as this. Until lately it contained fragments of ancient stained glass (Plate 5).

Of the work of the fifteenth century, I will first mention the tower and spire. They are of graceful proportions, though extremely simple in details. The tower has buttresses at the angles, those at the north-west and south-west placed diagonally ; they are all carried up to about the level of the belfry floor, and then change to square panelled shafts, ending in small crocketted pinnacles at the corners of an embattled parapet.

The belfry windows have two lights, the arches of which, and of the enclosing arch, are segmental pointed, a form always unpleasing to me. With [page 30] the exception of the usual moulding beneath the parapet, there is neither string-course nor set-off from base to summit. A striking feature of the exterior is the stair turret, which projects from the south face of the tower, close to the eastern angle. It terminates a very little below the cornice with a semi-pyramidal stone roof, recently repaired. The stair is entered by a Tudor arched door, over which on the exterior are the date 1632 and initials E. B. R. A. cut in the stone ; I believe these may have been intended to record the event of the construction of this door, as the original entrance to the stair, which still remains, was from the interior only. The spiral staircase was much cut about to make an entrance from the later door. This has quite lately been reconstructed. On the same side of the tower are carved other records of churchwardens :—“ Samuel Smith, Thomas Brookes, Churchwardens, 1607 ;” and “ James Daniell, Philip Arton, Churchwardens, 1692.”

The western window on the ground floor is a rather remarkable one of four lights, with perpendicular tracery, and small buttresses on the faces of the two outer mullions.

The spire springs considerably within the parapet, and is carried across the angles of the tower on double arched and splayed squinches. It has three tiers of small lights—on the cardinal faces only—with small crocketted canopies, and terminates in a carved finial, with a weathercock. The arch, once communicating with the nave, is pointed, of triple splayed courses, but now completely hidden from the church by a brick wall. The walls of the tower are prolonged eastward somewhat beyond the arch and splayed off, the splays being ornamented with cinquefoil arched panels with pedestals, which, however, appear to be too small to have held statues (Plate 2).

The north chapel is of the latter part of the fifteenth century. It communicates with the church by a wide four-centred moulded arch, with crocketted label on both sides ; the jambs are moulded, and have attached shafts with moulded capitals and bases. The terminations to the labels are curious ; on the chancel side, at the western springing of the arch, is a harpy, having the head of a woman, with horned head-dress (the horns twisted into spirals), the feet and claws of a bird, and the wings of a dragon. This device was often repeated in the latter part of the fifteenth century in the churches of the district. I have seen it at Wootton Wawen, Frankley, and elsewhere ; it was intended as a satire directed against the ladies of the time who wore these horns—sometimes of enormous length—and the custom frequently called forth very severe rebukes from the clergy, especially against the wearing of these lofty head-dresses in church.^[1] [page 31]

I lately met with a very well carved label corbel of a somewhat similar kind, but of much earlier date, at Corley. It represents the head of a lady wearing a horned head-dress, whilst a lizard or eft is crawling up one side of her face, and a worm or snake is creeping out of her mouth. The moral thus meant to be conveyed was constantly being enforced in the middle ages in all sorts of ways ; but when I first saw this corbel, I thought it had some reference to the text—“ Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.”

At the eastern extremity of the label is a remarkably formidable looking animal, which, I believe, was intended to represent a cockatrice. Those who wish to know anything of the history of this heraldic monster will find a full description in Cussan's Heraldry. On the chapel side is another horned lady ; the corresponding terminal has been destroyed.

Beyond the eastern end of the chapel is a small apartment, now used as a vestry (Plate 4). It is divided from the aisle by a stone screen about 6ft. 6in. high, having on its western face blank spaces, against the lower of which, it is evident, an altar once stood, and, in a recess above it, a reredos, probably one of those carved in alabaster, so popular shortly before the Reformation. On each side of the altar space is an elaborate niche for a statue, the bracket of which is supported by the figure of an angel ; over each niche is a tall, spire-like, crocketted canopy, with ogee gablets. The top of the screen is finished by a moulding and Tudor ornament. It is tolerably evident that the screen and the arch were erected at the same time, as the stones are bonded in, but since the chapel was built, as there is no connection between it and the north wall. Altogether this is one of the most interesting screens prepared to receive an altar to be found in Warwickshire. In the south end of the screen is a moulded doorway, with four-centered arch, and a crocketted label carried by carved heads of a king and queen.

The apartment east of the screen, to which this door gives access, is used as a vestry. It possesses some curious and, to me, inexplicable peculiarities. In the eastern gable is a perpendicular window of five lights, with ordinary tracery, and four-centred enclosing arch, and beneath it a recess, which seems to have been cut into the wall to receive an altar, as is further evident from the bracket over for a statue. North of this is a fireplace, the flue from which passes up by the jamb of the window, follows the outer line of the arch, and terminates in a chimney on the apex of the gable. When I first saw the church, this was an interesting and uncommon example of an original octagon chimney in stone, though but a little of the shaft and the base remained. It has [page 32] since been superseded by a chimney of blue brick. I fortunately made a sketch of the old fragment (Plate 3). On the south side of the altar space is an arched recess, possibly intended to receive a seat. There is also a similar recess in the south wall, and another in the north within which there has been a small pointed arched window, now walled up. A part of the back of the stone screen has also been cut away as if to admit some special fitting. At 6ft. 6in. from the floor is a projecting, moulded course of stone, the flat upper surface of which is level with the top of the screen. It looks as if it must have been intended to support a floor or at least a ceiling ; but either would have cut across the lower part of the east window very awkwardly, and it hardly looks as if there could have been a room over it. I have thought this may have been a chamber for the use of the priest who officiated at the altar, on the other side of the screen. But there is every probability that an altar once stood beneath the east window, and it is possible that this was removed westward, when the screen and the wide arch into the chancel were constructed, to make room for a vestry ; yet this does not satisfactorily account for the peculiar recesses, the small window, and the shelf-like projection. Passing to the western end of the aisle, we find a Tudor arched and moulded doorway, with crocketted label and carved terminals of the same character, and apparently of the same date, as the constructions I have been describing. This evidently opened to some room without the church, of which there are traces. Was this a priest's chamber, and the apartment at the opposite end always a vestry ? I was informed by Mr. Wood, the parish clerk, that a tradition exists in the village that “ someone once lived in a room which stood in the nook between the west end of the aisle and the tower.” The mark of a chimney is plainly visible.

The east window of the chancel has been reconstructed on the original lines.

The font is a rather fine one of late fifteenth century date, but somewhat coarsely executed ; it has a large octagon bowl, with panelled sides, on a panelled stem, the angles ornamented by carved angels. It is made of some fine grained stone, but has been painted.

The Bells.

There are five bells in the tower :—

On the 1st—“ MR. CARVER, MINISTER, 1703,” with impressions of coins of George II. round the waist.

 "  2nd—“ JESUS BE OUR SPEED, 1636.”

 "  3rd—“ —— COX AND MR. JOHN SHAW, CHURCHWARDENS, 1703.”

 "  4th.—“ SOLI DEO GLORIA. PAX HOMINIBUS. W. T. D. 1650.”

 "  5th.—“ JOHN HENSHAW, JOHN BARBONE, CHURCHWARDENS. MR. HENRY KARVER, VICAR, 1707.” [page 33]

All the fittings of the church are new, and the only ancient article of furniture remaining is a very long church chest, hewn out of a single tree trunk. It is in two divisions, with separate lids, and is heavily banded with iron (Plate 5). There are two locks to one of the divisions, and but one to the other. Many such old trunks exist, but, unfortunately, they never have any detail possessing a distinctive character by which to judge of their date. Some have supposed these hollowed tree trunks to be of a date not earlier than the sixteenth century. I have seen a good many, but have never been able to pronounce from the character of the ironwork whether they were of that time or later. Several of them had slits in the lids to admit coins, and I have supposed this to be an evidence of an early date, as I believe they ceased to be used as offertory boxes before the fourteenth century. Some have three divisions, with covers, in one only of which is a slit for money. (See “ Bloxam's Ecclesiastical Architecture.”)

It is probable that these church chests were used to contain valuable properties belonging to the church, and if this of Bickenhill is as old as I suppose it to be, it may have held some of the articles comprised in the list made in the sixth of Edward VI., by Sir George Throckmorton, Knight, John Digby, and Thomas Marrowe, Esquires, and which, although it has several times been published, I cannot well omit to mention :—

Item there—ooñ chalice and iii belles in the Steple.

  "  a front for thaltar, wulsted.

  "  a cover to the altar, silke.

  "  iii altar clothes, lynen.

  "  two towel Is.

  "  a pix, brass.

  "  two candlesticks.

  "  a cope, silke.

  "  a vestment of velvet.

  "  a corporis and the case, velvet.

  "  a crosse, bras.

On searching the old chest, I found among several volumes of overseers' accounts, &c., of which more hereafter, the dilapidated glazing from the heads of the three lights of the north window of the chapel, which had been removed to make way for a modern stained-glass window. One of these is represented in Plate 5, the others are less interesting.

All the old benches and other furniture have disappeared, but among the coal, kept in the tower, I found some pieces of a stall end of the fifteenth century, of a very interesting character (Plate 3).

Dugdale does not speak of any monuments in the church ; but he figures shields of arms of Waver, Peche, and Erdington, as existing in the windows in [page 34] his time. None of these remain, but in the small western window of the aisle are still a few fragments of the old glazing, representing architectural details, &c.

When the church was restored, about thirty-five years ago, many ancient and interesting features were destroyed. Mr. Wood, schoolmaster and parish clerk at Bickenhill for forty-five years, told me the walls were found to be nearly covered with paintings in distemper, under the whitewash ; no record of these was kept.

Among the Chantry certificates for Warwickshire there is the following entry :—

“ The Countie of Warr. Knightloe Hundred Stock of Cattall & Moneye in Bickenhull al. Bicknell, vz.

“ Twoo kien Gyven to the churche of byckenhull afforesaid thone to y^e mainten^ance of an anniv^esarie and thother of A lighte to be hadd and done yerelie ffor ever in the same churche, w^ch kyen were Praysed thone at x^s and thother at xiij iiij^d = xxiij^s iiij^d.”

Monuments.

These are but very few, and are of no particular interest. The oldest is a horizontal slab of alabaster, forming a part of the floor of the gangway in the aisle. It is of large dimensions, and has a double line of old English characters round the margin, but they are so worn that I have been unable to decipher more than a word or two ; I think it is of the sixteenth century, but I cannot find out whose death it recorded. Near it is another alabaster slab, the surface of which has been rubbed down smooth. Next in date, as I suppose, is a rather singular looking mural tablet on the north wall of the chapel, with a shield of arms :—

“ IN MEMORY OF | FETTIPLACE NOTT ESQ^R SERGEANT AT LAW | WHO DIED 22^ND APRIL 1726 AGED 55 | years

“ AND SARAH HIS WIFE | WHO DIED 4^TH MARCH 1754 AGED 75 |

“ THIS INSCRIPTION WAS ORDERED TO BE PLACED | BY THEIR ONLY SON | FETTIPLACE NOTT | OF THE CITY OF LICHFIELD ESQ^R | WHO ALSO DIED 31^ST MAY 1775 | AGED 73.”

Fixed to the south wall of the nave, near the west end, is a slab of blue lias stone, with the following inscription :—

“ Near to this place lieth | interred the Bodys of | George Smith Cooper | of Great Packington and | Elizabeth his wife He died | June the 15^th An^o 1731 | He gave to the poor of this | parish the sum of ten pounds | the interest of which is to | buy Bread the one half to | be give on S^t Thomas's Day | and the other half on Good | Friday for ever.” [page 35]

Forming a part of the chancel floor is a slab of blue stone, with incised letters, filled with a white cement :—

“ To the Memory of | Martha wife of Richard Osborn | who died September 24^th 1761 | Aged 40 Years | Also of Richard Osborn | who died the 26^th of July 1794 | Aged 87 |

“ We'v passed the gates of Life and Death,
And now for Judgement wait,
Hoping in God Mercy to find,
Because his Mercy's great.”

On the north wall of the chancel are three small tablets to the children of a former vicar.

In the churchyard there are a few old gravestones of the beginning of the eighteenth century, apparently the work of the same mason, the inscriptions on which are quaint, and the mixture of characters curious.

The Registers date from 1558, and are well preserved. The two oldest volumes are bound in vellum, and extend to 1783. On the inside of the cover of the first are these notes :—“ Baptisms from 1558 to 1657 ; Weddings from 1558 to 1593 ; Burials from 1582 to 1679.” (Signed) “ John Ritson.”

“ Several leaves missing containing Registers of Marriages and Burials.”

The first page is headed “ Byknoll,” “ a trew copy of y^e Register ….

“ Christeninges, Weddings, and Burials from y^e sixt year of her Ma^ties. Raigne until y^e yeare 1599.

“ Collected by Rob^t Osbourne, Minis^tr, and approved by George Butler and Will^m Smith, Churchwardens of y^e said parish.”

I may perhaps be allowed to remind you that the first order for the registration of baptisms, marriages, and deaths was made in the reign of Henry VIII., A.D. 1538, but registers of this early date are rare.

In the year 1558, the order was re-issued in a more peremptory form ; the first order having been much neglected. In 1597 it was ordained that every parish should provide a book of parchment, and that all the names in the older books, which were generally of paper, should be copied therein, hence the note I have just read.

Then follows a list of Donations and Legacies to the church and parish.

In the second volume, the

Baptisms extend from 1652 to 1750 and 1783.

Marriages "  " 1682 " 1757.

Burials "  " 1679 " 1783.

There are, of course, among the last, frequent references to burials in woollen. [page 36]

On the last pages of this volume there are crowded together a great many notes of “ Briefs.” Among them I noticed :—“ The collection for Edgbaston Church was paid to Mr. Wolley, the 18th February, 1685.”

In the subsequent Registers, the births, deaths, and marriages are entered in separate volumes. That for Marriages, with printed forms to fill up, is from 1758 to 1810; for Baptisms, from 1783 to 1812 ; for Burials, from 1783 to 1812.

There are fewer marginal notes in the volumes than I have generally found.

Churchwardens' Accounts.

These have not been well preserved. What parts remain of them are in such a dilapidated and mixed-up condition that I have not had time enough to give more than a cursory glance at their contents. I did not see any earlier than the last century, but they contain some items relating to alterations of the church, of which, as they have reference to the subject of my paper, I have jotted down a few :—

Overseers' Accounts.

The earliest volume of Overseers' accounts which I saw was from 1704, the items are of the usual kind :—Small sums given to necessitous travellers, for the keep of paupers, apprenticing and clothing orphan children, sparrows' heads, &c.

1. ↑ [page 30] I have lately met with a paragraph from an American paper, which shows how curiously “ the whirligig of time ” brings round the same follies and the same rebukes :—“ The phrase, ‘ in the height of fashion,’ is peculiarly applicable to the prevailing style of head gear. The New York [page 31] press has teemed for some time past with denunciations of the monstrously tall bonnets worn by the ladies of the city, which, it is complained, completely intercept the view in the theatres, churches, and public streets. Even Mr. Beecher has been asked to lift up his voice against the abomination, but this, it seems, he declined to do, as ‘ any effort of his would be powerless to stem the tide of fashion.’”