Relhan Collection : 341 Hildersham church

Relhan, Richard, 1782-1844

Relhan Collection

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Added to list by Ethel Fegan 1935. Holy Trinity church is basically early C13. The tower and later C13 nave, chancel and S chapel were in poor repair by 1665. In 1803 churchwardens sold lead from the roofs and pulled down the S chapel. Relhan shows attempts to buttress the chancel, the walls appear to be limewashed over plaster and the roofs are covered in lead sheets. The Reverends Goodwin, father and son,restored the whole building between 1853 and 1890 (architects: CA Buckler and Clayton and Bell). The chancel, S chapel and porch were rebuilt and many of the windows replaced with reticulated tracery. The tower was raised 4m and given a small spirelet. Relhan shows several leaning gravestones and an iron-railed monument. Inside the church were two brass monuments, one of which was stolen, and a C14 oaken effigy of a knight and his lady was also stolen 1977. Cole describes the oaken effigy as ‘<i>no doubt designed for the founder of the chapel, viz, William Bustler and his wife, who were lords of the manor before the</i><i>Paris’s</i>.’ These figures lay on low altar tombs; he is cross-legged, and has a lion at his feet; she is in a praying posture and has a dog at her feet, similar to stone effigies at Rampton (<b>352</b>), Isleham (<b>349</b>) and Westley Waterless (<b>350</b>). The wooden effigies were found by Lysons in the vestry. They were later whitewashed and eventually moved back to the chapel when rebuilt in late C19 by Rev Robert Goodwin, before the 1977 theft. The churchyard is now filling up with interesting memorials, eg recording reburial of Anglo-Saxon skeletons found beneath the porch. Relhan shows C18 gravestones in the churchyard of which several examples survive, as does the table tomb of freestone and brick with iron railing on which Cole 1743 recorded an inscription to Thomas Rickard, d. 1733.</p><p> Bradley and Pevsner 2014; Palmer 1932; Davis EM pers comm; Lysons 1808; VCH 1978</p></p>