St. Mary’s, Whaplode
This church is not only the oldest in the district, but, in spite of the lamentable condition to which it has been reduced by the ill-usage and neglect in bygone days, it is one of the most instructive and interesting to the architectural student in South Lincolnshire.
“The Parish of Whaplode, prior to the Conquest, was under the jurisdiction of the convent of Croyland, the abbot of which, from the earliest times, was lord of the principal manor. It was proved at a trial before the Bishop of Lincoln in 1447, the abbot “held the principal demesne rights in Whaplode, and had there besides the fee of the church markets, fairs, wastes and warren, right of pillory, as also the assize of bread and beer,” though it is recorded that the abbot’s rights were disputed, and that Ralph Mershe (abbot from 1253-1281), at great expense, and after long suits at law, gained the manor of Gedney and the church at Whaplode. This seems strange, as every record from the earliest times connects the abbot of Croyland with the patronage of Whaplode Church, and that the convent used to supply chaplains to do duty. In addition to the Croyland records, there are the public records, for we find that the abbot, in Henry III.’s reign, in 1245, had a grant of a weekly market on Saturday, and a fair on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and six days afterwards, and that this grant was confirmed by Edward I.; besides which we have the ecclesiastical documents in the Bishop’s Register at Lincoln, showing that the abbot presented to the church in 1239, 1246, 1250, 1251. The abbot won the day, and Croyland abbots held the presentation to the living until the Dissolution in the reign of Henry VIII.”
Moulton Church South Aisle, looking North-West. Moulton Church Nave, looking East.
The monks of Croyland were the builders of Whaplode’s two churches, though doubtless largely aided by the laity, as we have seen was the case at Moulton. Unfortunately the records of Croyland do not give the same amount of information in reference to the building of their churches as do those of Spalding Priory in reference to theirs.
There is no trace of the building of any earlier church at Whaplode than the present one, and we are unaware of any remains of earlier work being found when the church was restored, about the middle of last century.
The earliest part of the present church is the chancel arch and the four eastmost compartments of the nave, which were built about 1125, in the Norman style of architecture. It is greatly to the credit of King William I. and the invaders and their descendants, that no sooner had they got this island into a settled state than they began building cathedrals, monasteries, and parish churches all over the kingdom. Croyland was the first to inaugurate the church-building move in this district, and if they had completed the church as evidently originally designed by the Norman architect, it would have been a very fine specimen of the period.
Before the work was resumed at Whaplode, in the Transitional Period, the masons had been busy at work on the present churches of Moulton and Sutton St. Mary. The monks of Croyland, about forty or fifty years after they had built the Norman portion of the nave, erected the westernmost portion in the Transitional style (1145-1190), and which made the nave 110 feet long and 19 feet wide, the longest and narrowest nave in the Elloc division of Lincolnshire.
The Norman chancel arch is only 13 feet wide and very low, which gives the east end of the nave a very heavy appearance.
The smallness of the Norman arch seems to have claimed the attention of the architects at a very early date. They cut away the large semicircular shafts which carried the soffit of the arch and worked in a Transitional corbel to make the opening wider.
One cannot but think that the Norman columns of the nave were intended to carry a far heavier structure than was ever placed on them, and that the architects altered their plans even before the arches had been erected. The clerestory is partly Norman, and the rest, with the west front, Transitional.
The west front has been terribly mutilated, but happily sufficient remains to guide the architect to its perfect restoration; fortunately it has not been so badly ill-treated as the chancel, which is a standing disgrace, and is as bad a form of Churchwarden’s style as can well be conceived. There is even here, however, enough of the original work left to guide the architect in its restoration, if only funds were forthcoming from the rectors, who are trustees of a public school.
One regrets it is not possible in an article of this nature to enter into the details of the Norman-Transitional work at Whaplode, or compare it with the work of the same period in the churches at Sutton St. Mary and Moulton. To the student a visit to the three churches is very instructive.
As at Moulton Church, where the tower with its spire wins the admiration of all visitors, so does the tower of Whaplode. It is curiously placed, and with what object one is at a loss to understand.
Mr. Sharpe, writing on the tower, states—
“The very striking south-west tower, standing in an unusual position on the south side of the eastmost compartment of the south aisle, must have been commenced immediately after the completion of the nave. In its four stages in height, of which the three lowest belong to the original design, though carried out in a manner which leads us to conclude that the first stage, which carries a zigzag in its pointed arcade, was the only one completed before the close of the Transitional Period, the arcades of the two upper stages exhibiting an almost pure Lancet treatment in their details.
“The fourth stage, with its embattled parapet, added in the Curvilinear Period, gives an appropriate finish to this elegant design.”
Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of Lincoln, gave the following charter to Croyland in the year 1268:—
“To all faithful Christians by whom this writing may be read, Richard, by Divine permission Bishop of Lincoln, sendeth health in the Lord. We will that you should by this present writing know; that, whereas our beloved children in Christ, the religious persons, the Abbot and Convent of Croyland, have long since obtained the grateful consent and assent of our predecessor, the blessed Hugh, of famous and revered memory, as also of his Holiness Honorius, some time chief bishop of the Roman Church, likewise confirming the same of the church of Whaplode, whereof they were and are the patrons, to have it to their own proper use in manner as in this instrument is more fully contained.
“We, at their devout and frequent petitions that we would favourably, more graciously in the premises, grant them our assent and consent to the permission and favour done them by our said predecessor, the consideration of their order inducing thereto, having due regard to the special devotion of the said religious persons, and their sincere love in the Lord towards our venerable church at Lincoln, and the Bishop thereof, being more readily inclined to grant their petitions and requests, as therefore in the monastery of Croyland the weightiness of religion and observance of their order for the sake of sanctity and principally in favour of hospitality, which are known to flourish in that monastery, and which do and ought to render it esteemed by all men, remembering that favour should not be denied to such requesting it, of the assent and grateful consent concerning of our beloved children in Christ of William Lessington, in respect of Divine Piety, and especially for enlarging the duty of Divine worship therein, have given, granted, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, to the monastery of Croyland, and to the monks there together serving God, the church of Quaplode (Whaplode), in which they obtain the right of patronage, to be possessed to and for their own proper uses for ever, the rent and profits of which church they may indeed convert to their use, and without any impediment; for the future have power lawfully so to convert the same, a competent portion thereof being still reserved for the vicar perpetually serving the same church, wherein we likewise ordain and establish the Vicarage out of the profits of the said church for the support of him and his ministers, and the charges thereof as we have thought fit by our episcopal authority, thus to distinguish the portions of the said abbot and convent and the vicar before mentioned by them to us and our successors to be presented whenever the said vicarage shall happen to be vacant, that they, the said abbot and convent, may have the whole tithe of sheaves of the said church of Whaplode, with all demesne lands, and its rights and appendants to the said church any way belonging, and all the tithe of flax and hemp purely and absolutely. Moreover, that they may have and quietly take or receive the whole tithe of wool and lambs arising from the whole parish (to wit) as consisting in fleeces of wool and bodies of lambs, but that the vicar for the time being successively to us and our successor to be presented by the said abbot and convent to the vicarage aforesaid shall, by reason thereof, by this our ordinances for ever hereafter take and have the whole altarage absolutely and indisputably, in whatever name conceived, and in whatsoever it doth and may consist. The tithes of sheaves, flax, hemp, wool, and lambs, and also the whole demesne land with its rights and appendants, as is before said (only excepted), the said vicar shall have and take the whole tithe of hay of the whole parish entirely and without any diminution, and without impediments of the said abbot and convent. He shall, moreover, have the redemption of wool and of lambs wheresoever in the parish from the number of five and so counting downwards, to wit where according to the custom of the place to the tenth of the fleeces and of the lambs it cannot by any means amount to every kind of tithe as well as of wool as of lambs beyond the number of five, arising by counting upwards to the aforesaid custom, remaining wholly in the power of the before-named abbot and convent, as is before mentioned.
“Whereupon we strictly forbid any deceit or fraud to be by any one done under pain of the greater sentence; but we ordain that the before-named abbot and convent do provide for the Vicars for the place and time successively to be instituted a competent mansion in a convenient place at first by them the said abbot and convent, to be erected and competently built for the first Vicar who shall be instituted next after the cession or decease of Simon, now Vicar of the church of Whaplode, thenceforward to be repaired or new built on the same spot as by accidental cause, necessity, or age requiring it ought to be.
“We moreover ordain that the first and every Vicar by the bishop to be instituted after the cession or decease of the said Simon for the time being do sustain and allow ordinary episcopal and archidiaconal charges due and accustomed, and that they take care of and keep in repair and find books, vestments, and other necessary ecclesiastical ornaments, and repair the chancel of the church when it wants repairs at their costs, and also provide and sustain all ministers necessary for serving the vicarage before treated.
“Now we will and ordain that this our ordinance have force for ever in all and singular the above said articles, saving in all things the episcopal customs and dignity of the church of Lincoln, that therefore full credit may be given to this our present ordinance, and that a perpetual security may be provided for the said abbot and convent and the vicars for the time to come. We have caused this instrument to be corroborated with the sanction of our seal. Done in the month of January in the year of our Lord Christ’s incarnation 1268, and the eleventh year of our consecration.”
The original Norman chancel was destroyed about the year 1320, when a new chancel was built, of which little now remains, worked into the present one, and one bay of the north wall, with a pillar, a part of the east-end wall, and the jambs of the arch at the east end of the north aisle.
The Transitional aisles were taken down, and the present ones, with the north transept, were erected about 1420. At the same time the clerestory was heightened, and the present windows were inserted. Fortunately the builders did not destroy the Transitional work.
When the wider aisles of Whaplode were erected, the builders, as at Moulton, preserved the original Transitional south doorway and re-erected it, and also the west doorway, which was erected in 1180, and is, with the two doorways at Moulton, the oldest in the district.
The north and south porches are post-Reformation.
The roof of the nave, now being repaired, is a good example of the Rectilinear Period.
The font is a creditable imitation of a Norman one, but is of post-Reformation work.
The area of this church is so great that only the eastern portions of the nave (the Norman portion) and aisles are fitted with open seats; the rest of the church is entirely open, which gives it a cathedral appearance. There is a fine seventeenth-century monument to Sir Antony Irby and his wife, ancestors of the Right Hon. Lord Boston. There were formerly three chapels in the church. Colonel Holles, when he visited the church about 1641, found memorials to the families of Fitzwalter, Littlebury, Rye, Beke, Quaplod, Venables, Kyrketon, Haultoft, Walpole, Pulvertoft, Welby, Ogle, and others.