Wednesday 8 November 2017

Boxworth, Cambridgeshire

St Peter, open, is very strange and rather appealing. I loved the location and its strange design - it's a kind of Hansel & Gretel exterior. Inside there's a great pulpit and the south aisle dormer roof windows are interesting, otherwise quite dull.

ST PETER. Not in the village. Of pebble rubble, all embattled. Unbuttressed W tower originally with a spire. Chancel 1868. Some Norman masonry in the S wall. C14 S arcade of four bays with four semi-polygonal shafts; not high. N windows also C14; S windows Perp. - STAINED GLASS. By Kempe. St Peter and St Paul, 1891, others 1900-7. - PLATE. Chalice 1572.

St Peter (3)

Pulpit

S aisle dormer roof

BOXWORTH. It has been the home of two fine scholars: John Boyse, a rector who translated the Apocrypha, and Nicholas Saunderson, who was blinded by smallpox as a child, yet grew up a university professor. He has lain under the altar here since 1739. He had a marvellously quick and active brain, mastered the classics at school, and became so learned that George the Second made him a doctor of law, and Lord Chesterfield declared that though he had lost the use of his own eyes he taught others to use theirs. He had an acute sense of hearing and a trained ear for music, he could tell the size of a room by the sound of his voice in it, and could judge his distance from a wall by the echo. His sense of touch was so delicate that it was said he could detect false medals merely by touching them.

The neat little church stands in a trim churchyard by fields and woodlands, with an old farm and thatched barns to keep it company. A pretty picture it is, with its 15th century tower and fine battlements crowning its patchwork of flint and stone. In one of the aisles is Norman masonry. The dim religious light of the interior moved the restorers last century to set windows in the roof of an aisle and a glass door in the 15th century doorway of the porch. They serve their purpose well, lighting up the 14th century arcade. The beauty of the glass makes up for the light it steals, for though it is modern it is attractive and rich in colour. We see St Etheldreda crowned, Gabriel bringing the good news to the Madonna, a fine little Nativity with the shepherds and another with the Wise Men, Christ appearing to Mary in the garden, and David with his harp. There is a plain old font, a small chest with two locks, and a pulpit 250 years old.

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