NORMAN PORCH, KEMPSFORD.
KEMPSFORD CHURCH.
Kempsford church-tower is prominent across the meadows, and we find it to be a notable and interesting church, and the village a place of aristocratic appearance, where humble cottages are few and the manor-house imposing. This is as it should be in a place with its history: the manor having once belonged to Edward the Confessor, who gave it to Harold. William the Conqueror conferred it upon one of his knights, and in the course of the centuries the property came to Henry, Duke of Lancaster, whose son-in-law, John o’ Gaunt, Shakespeare’s “time-honoured Lancaster,” once resided here, greatly favouring this one of his many manors, of which the number scattered all over England was so great that it would have been distressingly hard work for him to visit them each and all in the course of a year.
The only son of Henry, first Duke of Lancaster, was drowned here, and his sorrowing father is said never again to have resided at Kempsford. On the north door of the church is nailed a horseshoe, in allusion, it is said, to one cast by his horse on his departure, and immediately nailed up here by the inhabitants. It is, indeed, often said to be the original shoe, but that is an absurdity. A curious other horseshoe legend and observance is to be noted at the town of Lancaster, John o’ Gaunt’s ancient palatine seat. There, where the two principal thoroughfares of the town cross, is “Horseshoe Corner,” so named from the horseshoe let into the roadway, and renewed in every seven years; in memory, says tradition, of a shoe cast there by his horse.
Kempsford church consists of a long and lofty aisleless nave, with tall central tower. The nave is Norman, with Norman doorways and Perpendicular windows, and very beautiful, gorgeous, and impressive.
The ancient manor-house, frequently styled “the Palace,” came at last into the possession of the Hanger family, Earls of Coleraine, one of whom wantonly destroyed it.