Know Your Church

~ The Chancel ~

High Altar Table: Given to the church by Mary Grenside in 1897. It is beautifully carved, but has a decidedly Moorish eastern look to its arches.
Memorial Brass: Depicts the Rev William Hearn (or Heron), who was Rector and died in 1525, showing his tonsure¹. This brass was originally on the High Altar floor, but moved to present piscinal niche² when the floor was raised by two steps.
Altar Rails: Modern; designed and donated by C O Skilbeck, made by Ivor Newton of Haddenham and installed in 1949.
Chandelier: Wonderful example of ornate brass-work with 24 sconces³. It is probably of Dutch origin and early 18th century.
Blocked Doorway: Situated on the south side of the chancel and was originally the Priest’s Door in the 13th century. It was probably blocked after the Reformation (mid 16th century).
Choir Stall & Pulpit: New and installed in the 20th century.

~ The South Side ~

South Altar Table: Was the earlier High Altar Table and likely dates from early 17th century, when Elizabeth I decreed that ’Every Paryshe⁴ Church to have a stoute oaken table from which to celebrate the Lord’s Supper’.
Oil Painting – Descent from the Cross: Painted by Samuel Wale in about 1770, who was a founder member of the Royal Academy, along with William Turner and Thomas Gainsborough, and its first Professor of Perspective? The date when the painting was donated to the church is not known.
Mahogany Torchère Candle Holders: Situated on either side of the south altar table. They were bequeathed by Albert Edward Piggott (converted by Walter Rose of Haddenham). The Piggotts lived in the house in Church End, nearest to the Manor Farmhouse, which is still named Piggotts.
Icon: copy of a 15th century painting of The Angel of the Annunciation by Melozzo da Forli (Florentine School). The Icon was given to the church by the aviatrix Amy Johnson in January 1930. She lived for 20 months in a cottage behind St Mary’s Church, Princes Risborough, and liked to come to Holy Trinity to worship. She died when the aircraft she was flying plunged into the Thames in 1941.
Tomb Recesses: Thought to have been for effigies of Sir James Freysel who died in 1341. He was buried, together with his wife, near the south altar.
Oak Churchwarden’s Chairs: Donated to mark the installation of Rev J W P Chapman as Vicar, on 4th March 1930. The shields of Oxford and Buckingham were painted by C O Skilbeck.
South Altar Communion Rails: Installed in June 1934. The bars are lathe turned, whereas the High Altar has flat profiled bars.
War Memorial: Names of the fallen in the two Word Wars were on the panels of the former Chancel Screen. When this screen was moved to the tower chamber, a new wooden memorial (commissioned in 1987/8) was sited on the south wall, which included additional names following research by Michael Cooper.
Font: The oldest object in the church. The design is an Aylesbury Font. It is thought to have been (fairly crudely) carved by two stonemasons sent over to do the work by Abbot of St Albans in 12th/13th century. The recess⁵ on the south wall behind the font was to house the holy oils used in Baptism.
South Door: The oldest church door still in use in Buckinghamshire, which is over 700 years old. Outside the door, on the east wall of the porch, is the Stoup (a relic of when the church practised Catholic worship), which held the Holy Water, that facilitated worshippers to wet their fingers and cross themselves before entering the church. Thomas Cromwell’s iconoclasts would normally have broken such stoups after England adopted the Protestant faith, but fortunately this was one they missed!
South Porch: Added to the church in the 14th century.
Organ: Made in Leighton Buzzard and installed in 1898 (a Vicarage Fête was held that year to complete the appeal for its funding). Originally the organ was sited on the south wall side of the chancel, thus obliterating the revealed 13th century priest’s doorway. In 1929 it was dismantled for cleaning and restoration, and re-sited where it now stands. The organ was converted from hand-pumping to electricity in 1949. Prior to this the boys from the Children’s Homes were keen to hand-pump the organ and many of them carved their names on the organ’s pine panelling - still to be seen today.

~ The North Side ~ 

North Door: Despite being a Norman shape (i.e. arch and door) this very thick (at least 3 inches) door is not thought to be as old as the Gothic shaped south door.
Parish Chest: Made of oak in the 18th century. Inside the chest, found in the 1970s, was the Indenture of 1797, in which Samuel Whitbread (previous owner of the Manor of Bledlow) made a gift of the land on which the workhouse was built for the poor of Bledlow, and which later became the school, prior to the school being built in 1868. 

~ The West Side ~

Former Vicars & Rectors: Shown on a framed list on the west wall. By ecclesiastical definition the Rector of a parish was entitled to the Great Tithe, while the Vicar had the Lesser Tithe. Probably just a subtle distinction. 
Royal Coat of Arms: Previously situated on the original chancel screen, but now at the tower floor entrance. Painted by C O Skilbeck, to mark the accession of H M Queen Elizabeth II in 1952.
West Door: In the wonderful manner of church architects and historians, the west door is modern - it was let in to the tower base in the 14th century, probably about the time of the Black Death.

~ The Nave ~

Seating: Originally the church would have had the traditional oak pews, but these would have been replaced because of woodworm infestation. The 1920 Inventory lists 211 chairs (goodness knows where they would all have been accommodated!). In 1965 the present modern chairs were purchased - 50 bought from C R Bates of High Wycombe, with a further 12 in 1972. For any anxious parents of a bride-to-be, it is estimated that the church can accommodate 120 seated.
Nave Oil Lamps: converted to electricity in 1949.
Church Heating: The old coal fired heater was adapted to oil in 1960.
The Lectern: The oak lectern, on which the King James’ Bible rests, is pre-Reformation, and whilst  not being a carving of great delicacy, is very unusual if not unique. Whereas virtually all lecterns, be they brass or wooden, have the eagle (sometimes referred to as a pelican) facing the congregation, the Holy Trinity eagle is looking over its shoulder. The bird would be described in heraldic terminology as an Eagle Reguardant. 
Wall Paintings: Foliated and Masonry patterns date from the 13th century. Biblical texts in cartouches are post-Reformation. These paintings were cleaned and restored by English Heritage in 1999/2000, and the whole church interior was cleaned at the same time (about a foot to the east of the second arch from the chancel, in line with the top of the arch, can be seen a 2” x 1” dark grey patch. This area was left by the restorers to indicate the colour of the interior before cleaning). 
Church Clock: Probably installed in 1690/early 1700s. Originally there would have been no dial or hands, the clock merely striking the tenor bell every hour. In the late 1700s a smaller dial would have been fitted on the tower face, with only a single hour hand; in the early 1800s the present large cast iron dial would have been erected and the minute hand added. The hands are of gilded copper. In 1984 the capstan based hand-winding mechanism was changed to electric auto-winding motors. 
Church Bells: A 1552 Inventory records 3 bells: the 1637 Visitation records 4 bells. In 1683 these were re-cast in Woodstock by Robert Keane. In 1842 a fifth bell was added, this being made by Taylors of Loughborough. The church bell-ringers launched an appeal in 1983 to mark the tercentenary of the founding of the first bells, the aim being to augment the peal to eight bells, and at the same time replace the 300 year old oak frame with a new steel frame. This appeal was successful and the three new bells were cast, together with the five existing bells being retuned, by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in east London. Thus Bledlow Church has now eight bells and a new steel frame to house them.

Tower Chamber: An 1822 Inventory refers to a staircase at the very end of the South Vestry leading to a gallery above the present Tower chamber. No trace of this is visible today.

~ Outside the Church ~ 

Church Roof: The east side of the tower clearly shows where the earlier pitched roof had been. The weight of the roof was starting to push out the walls and the capitals (easily seen in the north capitals). During the 1997/98 restoration, English Heritage gave the opinion that the old roof was lowered mid 16th century. However, notes by the Vicar in 1878 state that the old roof was lowered during the restoration carried out in the mid 1870s. This was supervised by the then Church architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (whose son designed the present Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool). The old roof was lead covered.
North face of the Tower: The first corbel to the left of the apex of the upper voussoir⁶ arch shows an effigy of Lord Carrington, a new corbel being carved by the masons.
North-west Buttress: Note the large Sarsen boulder used as a foundation stone. (Sarsen stones were deposited when the Ice Age glaciers melted). Locally the use of Sarsen stone is not common in very old cottages and house foundations.
The Churchyard: The churchyard would originally have been at more or less the same level as Church End, but burials over the centuries have built up the ground to its present level. It is now known as a closed churchyard and is the responsibility of the Parish Council. The headstones in the southern churchyard were removed after World War II – a fairly widespread practice since it was no longer possible to recruit sextons, and a clear churchyard was easier to mow. The northern churchyard has retained its monuments.
The area to the southeast if the churchyard was the paupers’ burial place. At the very south-eastern corner of the church, about six to eight feet above the ground is a stone tablet in memory of John Williams, faithful servant of the then Lord of the Manor (William Hayton) who died of the smallpox on 12th March 1743.
The erection of stone memorials in churchyards is a relatively recent (by Church standards) practice, and was facilitated by the construction of the canal system in the mid 18th century, making it possible to transport stone at economical rates. Solid memorials, usually of slate or marble, were the privilege of the rich, who were buried inside the church, which prompts one to recall the inscription on a headstone in Bedfordshire:

Here lye I by the Chancel Door,
Here lye I because I am poor,
The further in, the more you pay,
Here lye I, as warm as they.

The remains of a stone cross is 14th century or earlier. Churchyard crosses often precede the building of a stone or flint place of worship, and thus marked out an early less substantial building as being a church. There is no evidence that these crosses were knocked down during the Reformation; the condition is no doubt merely a matter of exposure to the elements. 



1 shaved patch on crown, as clerical or monastic symbol 
2 stone basin in a niche on south side of altar in church
3 brackets holding candlesticks
4 parish 
5 correct name for such a recess is an aumbry
6.wedge shaped or tapered stone forming an arch