The misericords and history of Godmanchester,
St Mary the Virgin.
St Mary’s has twenty, 15th century misericords.
Click to launch a description of the misericords of St Mary’s, Godmanchester
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History of St Mary’s, Godmanchester, Huntingdonshire.
It is quite probable that the first church on this site dates back as far as the fourth century, this was almost certainly a wooden structure. Later a 9th century, Saxon, stone church was built - this church is mentioned in the doomsday book of 1086. Parts of this church still survive in the current St Mary’s - The font dates from this period, also some of the stonework in the current north porch has been re-used.
The present church, which was started in the early 13th century, reflects the increased size and importance of the town. The chancel was consecrated in 1215 - folklore has it that King John attended, and it would be nice to see if his touring of the country, during that period, would have enabled that. The chancel also includes a “mass dial” which was probably added during initial construction A nave, north and south transepts and central tower were added later that century as the town’s status (and wealth grew), however, as is often the case, the tower collapsed, demolishing much of the nave. On the plus side, this is usually an excuse to build a grander church than before, and to this, St Mary’s Godmanchester appears to be no exception. Parsimony is after all a virtue, so where possible existing walls were used as the groundwork for the new nave - this has led to a peculiarly uneven look to some walls, most notably the west. North and south aisle were soon added, followed shortly by the addition of a nave clerestory. Rooms were later added above both the north and south porches - the northern as strong room, for both records and valuables - this seems to indicate that there was more than a passing trade in church plate! The southern room was residence to the vicar.
At some point in the 15th century, 20 misericords were added. As St Mary’s does not appear to have been colligate, twenty misericords is an unusually large number. It is possible that these misericords were imported, from either Ramsey Abbey - to which St Mary’s bound to for its rector, or Huntingdon Priory, after their dissolution. The other theory is that William Stevens, the vicar of St Mary’s from 1470 to 1481 had them made - the reason for this theory is that the misericord with the fleur-de-lys has the initials, “WS” inscribed; the downside to this theory is that the vicar was employed by the Rector at Ramsey Abbey, as such, he was unlikely to be wealthy - and he would have needed to be to commission 20 misericords.
Early in the 17th century the tower was added - this was funded by a local tithe - a very unpopular move. The stone was purchased from, the now defunct and ruined, Hinchingbrooke Nunnery, and the unpopularity stems from having to pay for material which normally would have been classed as common property - the Vicar was not happy at this, enough so that there is still an outstanding arrest warrant for him.
The Victorians, pushed their own tastes upon the church - replacing the magnificent east window with lancet windows, on the other hand, they also added some fine stained glass to the south aisle.
The 20th century has included a major restoration
The Official St Mary’s Godmanchester website.
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