Description

WIGGINTON HEMP LANE
SP 91 SW
(North side)
4/162
Church of
30.11.66
St. Bartholomew (C of E)
GV
II*
Parish church. Late C13 chancel and nave, large C15 chantry chapel
separate at W for Weedon family, N aisle, NE vestry and archway in to W
chapel 1857-61 by William White in Early English Style, restoration 1881
by R.J.Withers with porch and bell turret, low Church Room linked to W
end 1973. Flint rubble with coursed flint facing and clunch dressings
many renewed in Bath Stone. Chantry chapel has clunch plinth and large
stones set in flint walling. Chancel walls built over rough footings with
tile levelling course visible on N and E sides. Uncoursed knapped flint
to C19 N side. Steep red tile roofs, pyramidial to square timber
bellcote over W end of nave with ball finial and V-pattened metal-clad
base. Hipped tiled roof with parapets to 1973 flint walled extension
with plinth and quoins of reconstructed stone. A small village church
with square ended chancel, nave, low N aisle, taller W chapel now a
baptistry, S porch, bell turret, and church room attached at NW. The
chancel has a C13 blocked, pointed doorway exposed externally, with
inside a C13 piscina with shelf and chamfered arched head at SE, small
niches now restored with figures flanking the 3-light restored E window,
late C14 square-headed 2-light quatrefoiled N window, similar window on
S restored, a simple low-side window at SW, a pointed depressed arch of
2 chamfered orders in N wall has the organ painted in Medieval Style
beneath it with the vestry space behind in a gabled projection.
Patterned floor of coloured and C19 encaustic tiles. Painted walls to E
end. Stone reredos with mosaic figured panels. Stalls inlaid with bog
oak and carved wooden angels support altar rail. Stained glass windows
of 1870's. 2-centred chancel arch of 2 chamfered orders widened 1881.
Taller nave lit from S by 2 2-light tall pointed windows and a small
window at SE lighting the pulpit. Open waggon roof of 1881 similar to
chancel, but carried down over N aisle opened to nave by an arcade of 3½
bays (½ at W) in C13 style with 2-centred arches of 2 chamfered orders on
miniscule circular columns with moulded bases and bell caps. Headroom in
aisle gained by raising a triplet of low gables above the eaves with
lucarne windows in plate tracery, the central one deeper. Heavy battered
walls and gabled terminal buttresses externally. The aisle is carefully
designed not to overwhelme the small scale of the church, internally or
externally. Moulded external hoodmould of pointed C13 S doorway
indicates late C13 date. Double doors with unequal leaves. The N aisle
extends along the N side of the W chapel and now acts as a link to the
Church Room. 2 heavy wooden trusses across W end support the framework
of the bell turret. Panelled stone pulpit at SE. A wide pointed arch cut
through the W wall of the nave now leads to the C15 W chapel at slightly
higher level. This is a rectangular building with eaves higher than the
nave, but a flatter roofpitch so that the ridge is lower than that of
the nave. Diagonal W corner buttresses with weathered offsets, blocked
square-headed entrance in middle of S wall, C19 small W doorway in C13
style, C15 large 3-light square headed W window with blank tracery in
the head and label stops carved as animals. The S wall has an ashlar
plinth and a chamfered string course at 2/3 height which steps up as the
label to the tall 2-light square headed trefoil cusped window to E of
the blocked door. The sill of this window is much lower inside. A small
square headed window is set low to the W of the former S door. The VCH
in 1908 reported a relieving arch in the N wall possibly for a N window.
C15 3-bays open timber roof with moulded wallplate, stone corbel heads,
wallposts and curved braces with traceried spandrels to cranked
tie-beams supporting a ridge beam and flat rafters. Floor now slopes
from W to E. Octagonal C19 stone font. 2-light S window has stained
glass windows 1892 by Kempe of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence (similar is
SW nave window c.1899 of St. Peter and St. Paul). Wall monument to
Thomas Egerton of Champneys, d.1764, white marble set on veined marble
with guttae brackets, cornice with fluted garlanded urn on top, and
armorial cartouche on plinth. Gabled S porch has scissor-rafter roof on
arcaded wooden sides above high plinth of flint and stone. Paterned red
and black tiled floor like that in nave. Wooden side benches. Of
exceptional interest for the C15 W chapel. (VCH(1908)316-7:
RCHM(1911)241-2: Kelly(1914)293: Pevsner(1977)407).

Listing NGR: SP9404810316

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of St Bartholomew (church of England) official website
• Wikidata Q17542235

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  London 4: North: North v. 4 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)