Architectural Features
Significant Features of Thundridge Old Church
Norman History of the Site
Thundridge was held by Alnoth, a man of Archbishop Stigand, before the Conquest, and by Hugh de Grandmesnil from Bishop Odo of Bayeux thereafter. When Odo forfeited his holdings after his arrest in 1082, the Grandmesnils continued to hold as tenants-in-chief from the king. By the 13th century, the tenants under the Grandmesnils were the family of Dive of Balderton; William de Dive died before 1251, and John Dive was the lord in 1277 and at his death in 1292-93. The later history of the manor can be found in Victoria County History: Hertfordshire vol. 3 (1912), 377-80.
The church was originally a chapel of Ware, and both the mother church and Thundridge chapel were given to the Priory of Ware by Hugh de Grandmesnil.
The manor of Thundridge is recorded in the Doomsday book. Called Little St Mary’s (also Little St Mary’s and All Hallows’) due to its being linked to St Mary’s, Ware, it is said to have been the summer home of the Priors of Normandy’s St Evroul, parts of whose Priory was later absorbed into ‘The Manor House’ on Church Street, Ware.
By 1229, the congregation at Little St Mary’s and All Hallows’ was sufficient for the Prior of Ware to grant Thundridge’s own chaplain a decent house, four acres of land and a penny every Sunday.
Norman doorway arch
During the Norman period in the 12th century, an arch was added to frame the entrance to the church. When the nave was demolished, this finely carved chevron toothed semicircular arch with billet mouldings was relocated into the blocked up tower arch where it still remains. This arch can be seen in it’s original position below in an ink and watercolour sketch entitled ‘Entrance to Thundridge Church’ dated 21st April 1845 by James Wilcox.
14th-Century Window
The window that is now placed above the Norman door dates to the 14th Century. Like the door, it was moved into the blocking of the tower arch when the nave was demolished.
It is described as a ‘2- light square headed, ogee traceried window with ferramenta and label with carved headstops, in blocking of equilateral C15 tower arch with hollow moulded imposts’.
This window, like that in the west tower, is currently secured behind protective coverings.
15th-Century Tower
The west tower itself was built in the 15th century. It is constructed of flint rubble with stone dressings and angled (diagonal) buttresses on the two west corners and has three stages (stories), although no floors or structures remain inside – it is just an empty space from floor to roof, partially filled at floor level with rubble to discourage break-ins and further vandalism damage. Inside the tower can still be seen the blank diamond (lozenge) shape where the the Royal Coat of Arms was displayed in all churches in the early 1800’s. This was rehung at St Mary’s in 1892, and can still be seen there.
Inside on the southwest corner is a small spiral staircase leading up to what would have been the first floor. Outside on the same corner can be seen two very small openings which brought light into the staircase. One has been photographed with a resident owl.
At the very top of the tower, as can clearly be seen in Bucklers illustration, there was an embattled parapet (i.e. battlements like a castle wall) and a lead-covered ‘Hertfordshire Spike’, half the tower’s height again with a weathervane and cock. All this is now gone, and the roof opening is closed by a concrete slab at former parapet level.
The West door is a ‘four-centered Tudor arch with depressed head’. That is a kind of arch that is low and wide with a slightly pointed apex. The ‘four centered’ description refers to how it is drafted geometrically. Above the arch is a ‘square head’ (surround). The area between the head and the arch, the spandrels, has some carved tracery. Around the outside of the square head is another layer of carving (moulding) , called a ‘label’, with ‘head-stops’ which are carved heads at the base of each short vertical drop. Only the right hand head is now discernable, and even that is badly worn. All the windows and door openings in the tower are carved from ‘clunch’ – a soft easily carved chalk limestone that sadly is easily weathered and vandalised.
Immediately above the West door is a window. This has the same fourcentred arch shape as the door below. Within the main arch are three ‘lights’ (openings) each with five ‘cinquefoiled’ petal mouldings at the top. There are no good pictures of this window, it has been covered throughout living memory.
The second stage of the tower has narrow single ‘slit’ windows on each of the north, south and west faces, with pointed arches. Inside these are surprisingly large window openings internally, something that looks like you could sit in comfortably.
Each face of the third and final stage, where the bells hung has windows, again under four centered arches, of two trefoiled lights (windows with two openings, each with three ‘petals’ at the top) with a quatrefoiled opening in the head, between each light at the very top.
On the South face, a 17th century sundial is engraved ‘Long Live the King’. The metal gnomon (the sticking out bit that casts the shadow) is rumoured to have been relocated to Fabdens, but this has not been corroborated.
Also on the South face is the Quatrefoil with Pelham Buckle.
In 1510, Thomas Gardiner of Wadesmill left ‘money for lights [windows] in church of “Allhaloen” in Thundridge.’ Dormer windows were added in the 1600’s.