St Andrews Church. Heckington. Lincolnshire.
Ground Plan.
In the flowing tracery and foliage of the south porch gable are three interesting shields—Edward the Confessor, a cross patonce between five martlets; St. Edmund, three crowns two and one; and the royal arms of England, three lions passant gardant. The figure in the apex of the gable is missing, but, from the adoring angels on either side, it was probably that of the Virgin and Child. The whole of the south side is a perfect example of Curvilinear art; the flowing lines of the window tracery and pierced parapets, buttresses with niches and pinnacles enriched with foliage and carvings of vigorous yet refined workmanship, the bold and lofty staircase turrets at the east end of the nave, all disposed in perfect harmony and proportion, and tied together by the admirable group of mouldings sweeping round the base. Here is English Gothic at its zenith—vigorous, yet refined; luxuriant, yet restrained. The priests’ door on the south side of the chancel cuts rather clumsily into the jamb and sill of the window, owing to lack of space between the latter and the adjoining buttress. The writer recollects a church in Suffolk where a similar difficulty had been surmounted by throwing the buttress clear of the wall on a flying arch and placing the door beneath it—a pretty instance of the manner in which the mediæval builder created a virtue out of a necessity. The east end is perhaps the most pleasing part of the exterior—admirably proportioned, vigorous, and graceful, the seven-light window one of the finest in the whole country; were this the only portion of the church left to us, it would yet have proclaimed the unknown architect a master of his craft.
The interior is at first disappointing; the arches only chamfered, not a moulding or a piece of carving visible; rood-screen, pews, pulpit, and every scrap of old woodwork swept away. But walk into the chancel, turn to the north wall, where Roger de Potesgrave, in eucharistic vestments, lies under an arched recess, and a little farther east appears a mass of tracery and sculpture, like an elaborate aumbry; it is the Easter Sepulchre, perhaps the richest in England, except one of the same date at Hawton, near Newark. Below, in canopied niches, sleep four Roman soldiers; next, the sepulchre itself, a small recess, with figures of the three women and the attendant angels, and above this the risen Christ attended by adoring angels. For richness and delicacy of execution it is beyond praise. Easter sepulchres in stone (often they were of wood, and have been swept away) were designed as a permanent receptacle for the celebration of a rite marking the advent and holiness of Easter. On Good Friday the consecrated host was deposited in the sepulchre, where it was continually watched until Easter morning, when it was again placed on the altar. In the articles of inquiry issued by Cranmer in 1547 one is, “Whether they had upon Good Friday last past the sepulchre with their lights, having the sacrament therein?” On the south side of the chancel are fine sedilia in three compartments, in design and execution equal to the Easter Sepulchre; the seats are covered by groining and trefoil arches with gables, above which are sculptured Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, SS. Barbara and Katherine, and St. Michael; the cornice bears figures of angels crowning the saints below and swinging censers. A recent writer on English mediæval figure sculpture says: “The stone of these pieces is the Lincoln and Ancaster oolite, and they are insertions in the body of the building, so they are probably importations from the Lincoln or Stamford workshops. Of coarser texture than the carvings of clunch at Ely, they have less freedom and incisive cutting, but their composition has the same quality of decorative story-telling.”
St. Andrew’s, Heckington, South Transept and Porch.
From the north wall of the chancel several steps lead up into the vestry, which has a double piscina, and below which is a vaulted undercroft, known as the “scaup” (skull) house. The south transept, known as the Winkill Aisle, from the local family who were probably benefactors to the church, has sedilia and a double piscina.
The architectural features of the church are beautifully illustrated by a series of forty plates in Bowman and Crowther’s Churches of the Middle Ages, but the full story of its connection with the Abbey of Bardney still waits investigation from the patient historian, and would probably prove of great interest.
