THE EASTER SEPULCHRE
On the south side of the chancel is one window beneath which is a canopied credence table; and west of this, three tall and richly carved sedilia with figures of our Lord and the Virgin Mary and Saints Barbara, Katherine and Margaret; but the gem of the building is the Easter sepulchre on the north side, where there are no windows. This is only surpassed by one at Hawton, near Newark. Below are the Roman guards asleep, in fourteenth century armour. On each side of the recess for the sacred elements, which once had a door to it, are two figures of women and a guardian angel, and above them, the risen Christ between two flying angels. This is a truly beautiful thing, enshrined in a worthy building.
Outside is a broken churchyard cross, and the slender chancel buttresses are seen to have each a niche for a figure. The magnificent great “Dos-D’Âne” coping-stones on the churchyard wall, both here and at Great Hale, are a pleasure to see.
There was a church at Heckington before the Conquest, and a second was built about 1100. The income of this, as well as of that of Hale Magna, was given in 1208 by Simon de Gant and his wife Alice to support the church of St. Lazarus outside the walls of Jerusalem, and this endowment was confirmed by King John. The rector of Hale Magna in his parish magazine points out that the enormous amount of land which was constantly passing to the churches and monasteries in the Middle Ages became a distinct danger, and that an Act was passed to prevent it, called the Statute of Mortmain, under which licence had to be obtained from the Crown.
Consequently we find that in the fourth year of Edward II. (1310) inquisition was taken on a certain Sunday before Ranulph de Ry, Sheriff of Lincoln, at Ancaster “to inquire whether or not it be to the damage of the King or others if the King permit Wm. son of Wm. le Clerk of St. Botolph (Boston) to grant a messuage and 50 acres of land in Hekyngton and Hale to a certain chaplain and his successors to celebrate Divine service every day in the parish church of Hekyngton for the health of the souls of the said Wm. his father, mother and heirs, &c., for ever,” etc. The jury found that it would not be to the damage or prejudice of the king to allow the grant. They also reported that Henry de Beaumont was the “Mesne,” or middle, tenant between the king and William Clerk of Boston for twenty-eight acres, and between the king and Ralph de Howell for the other twenty-two acres, he holding from the king “by the service of a third part of a pound of pepper,” and subletting to the others, for so many marks a year. The land apparently being valued at about 1s. 8d. an acre. From other sources we find that land thereabouts varied in value from 4d. to 8s. an acre yearly rent.
In 1345 when the abbot and abbey of Bardney by royal licence received the churches and endowments of Hale and Heckington for their own use, the abbot became rector and appointed a vicar to administer each parish. The name of the abbot was Roger De Barrowe, whose tomb was found by the excavators at Bardney in 1909.
The building of the present beautiful church was completed by Richard de Potesgrave, the vicar, in 1380. He doubtless received help from Edward III., to whom he acted as chaplain. That he was an important person in the reigns of both Edward II. and III. is shown by the former king making over to him the confiscated property of the Colepeppers who had refused to deliver Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, to Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II., in 1321; while he was selected by Edward III. to superintend the removal of the body of Edward II. from Berkeley Castle to Gloucester. His mutilated effigy is under the north window of the chancel, and in a little box above it with a glass front is now preserved the small chalice which he used in his lifetime.
CHURCHWARDENS’ BOOKS
The churchwardens’ account book at Heckington begins in 1567, and in 1580 and 1583 and 1590 “VIˢ VIIIᵈ” is entered as the burial fee of members of the Cawdron family, whose later monuments are at Hale.