Swaffham Bulbeck: Church

CHURCH.

In the 12th century the church probably belonged to the Bolbec manor until it was given, probably shortly before c. 1200, to endow the newly founded Swaffham priory. (fn. 1) It was appropriated to that nunnery by 1275 at latest, when a vicarage had been established. (fn. 2) The priory retained its advowson, regularly presenting vicars in the 14th and 15th centuries, (fn. 3) along with the great tithes, until the Dissolution. (fn. 4) In 1538 the Crown gave that advowson to the bishop of Ely with the priory manor, and did not resume it with that manor in 1600. (fn. 5) Accordingly the patronage of the vicarage, regularly reserved to the bishop in leases, (fn. 6) remained with the see of Ely into the late 20th century. (fn. 7)

The Crown initially retained the impropriate rectory, comprising only the great tithes. By 1538 it was leased for a £20 rent, (fn. 8) which remained substantially unchanged for later beneficial lessees into the 19th century. (fn. 9) That rectory was granted in an exchange of 1562 to the bishop of Ely, (fn. 10) among whose estates it remained until taken over by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1864. (fn. 11) In the 1530s the nuns' precinct included a tithe barn, decayed by 1600. (fn. 12) At inclosure in 1801 the bishop was allotted 373 a. in the south of the parish for his rectorial tithes. (fn. 13) That land continued to be held on beneficial terms, being let c. 1795-1825 to the Barkers (fn. 14) and by the 1830s to the Harrises, latterly a clerical family, along with much of the Barkers' own adjoining farmland. (fn. 15) When the lease ran out in 1873 the Commissioners also bought in 1874 the rest of the Harrises' Chalk farm (114 a). with 171 a. in the fen. In 1885 their tenant there still claimed half the choirstalls as his pew. The Commissioners sold the 285 a. in 1919, probably with an additional 93 a. bought from the vicar in 1912. (fn. 16)

Until the Dissolution the priory cultivated its demesne as a home farm so that it remained free of all tithes. (fn. 17) That exemption was questioned after 1560 when the bishop's lessee of the manor sublet the demesne to the rectory lessee who demanded that the actual farmer pay a rent equivalent to its great tithe. After 1579 the Folkeses as demesne farmers successfully defended their exemption in lawsuits culminating in 1602-3. (fn. 18) The former priory lands were still exempt in 1648, (fn. 19) but in 1799 the Abbey farm derived from them paid a £25 modus. (fn. 20)

Before 1800 the vicar had no glebe, save ½ a. by his house, and only the small tithes. (fn. 21) In 1378 the priory rebutted an attempt by one vicar to claim such tithes and the offerings from servants and labourers dwelling within its precinct, and asserted its right to have all sacraments performed by its own chaplain in its chapel. (fn. 22) By the 1570s the vicar received from the rectory 1 qr. each of wheat and barley, representing the yield of 1 a. of each of those crops; that render had once been due from the prioress. (fn. 23) About 1600 the Folkeses, although professing willingness to contribute to the vicar's needs out of benevolence, firmly denied any liability to pay small tithes for their rectory farm, even for the recently introduced saffron; tithe-free saffron plots paid slightly higher rents. (fn. 24) Michell Hall demesne then compounded for its hay tithe with 3 'tithe acres' in its meadows. (fn. 25) In the 1770s the small tithes were customarily taken in cash at standard rates, including those of hay, of sedge cut in the fen, and of outsiders' sheep agisted there. The vicar then also received a yearly pension of £10 out of the rectory, besides the traditional 2 qr., and £2 of the Abbey farm modus. (fn. 26)

At inclosure in 1801 the vicar was allotted for his tithes, pensions, and common right 154 a., (fn. 27) a third in the fen, which all remained with the living (fn. 28) until its sale: part was sold in 1912, the rest in 1920-1, largely to the county council for use as smallholdings. (fn. 29)

The allotment of 1801 had for a time substantially improved the vicar's income. In the 13th century, when the whole church was taxed at 20 marks and by 1276 at £34, the vicar received only £5 in 1291. (fn. 30) Usually too poor, with under £8, to be taxed in the 15th century, (fn. 31) he had £16 10s. yearly by 1535, (fn. 32) £35-40 by the 1640s, (fn. 33) and under £50 yearly in 1728. (fn. 34) In the late 1790s his income averaged £67. (fn. 35) From 1801 his two new glebe farms yielded £120 in rent. (fn. 36) By 1830 and in 1851 he received £220 annually, (fn. 37) and c. 1875-80 c. £300-320 gross. Falling steadily further below £250 from the late 1880s, the vicar's income was thereafter supplemented by augmentations by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners which doubled between 1887 and 1908 to produce, at almost £90, over a third of it. (fn. 38)

Until 1800 the vicar's house stood at the north-west corner of the churchyard. (fn. 39) Said to be ruinous in 1563, it had four hearths in 1664. (fn. 40) A new vicar, Jeremiah Jackson (1814-28), alleging that it was out of repair, pulled it down and spent large sums received as dilapidations on building a new house upon the former 3-a. Camping close to the north-west, allotted to the living at inclosure. That 'more convenient' house, to designs by Charles Humfrey of Cambridge, was retrospectively approved in 1818. (fn. 41) His successor, Leonard Jenyns, extended it to the rear c. 1828. (fn. 42) The house is of grey brick, slat-roofed, and has an asymmetrical front towards the road, but a three-bayed one with a central study towards the garden. It remained the vicars' usual residence thereafter into the late 20th century. (fn. 43) A young vicar died of typhoid from its drains in 1883. (fn. 44) Thought too dark and damp in 1934 and over large by 1979, it was sold in 1982. (fn. 45)

Vicars were occasionally recorded from the late 13th century. One died during the Black Death in 1349. (fn. 46) About then a clerk, Hugh Glanville (fl. 1332-47) of a prosperous local family, gave a vestment to the church, which already c. 1275 had six sets and six service books. (fn. 47) Only two vicars were possibly graduates before 1500. (fn. 48) In 1379 the vicar had had a clerk and two chaplains to assist him. (fn. 49) John Smith, vicar 1494-1532, who was usually resident throughout his tenure, (fn. 50) and prosperous enough to own several pieces of silver plate, left vestments worth £20 for the church, which had four sets of silk and velvet in 1552. (fn. 51) The last prioress allegedly appointed a friendly friar to succeed him. It was asserted 65 years later, that, following the priory's surrender, she retired to an underground cave at the vicarage for a year until the friar resigned and she received her pension. (fn. 52) In the 1540s the cure was mostly served by the parish priest, still acting as curate in the 1560s. One vicar, Richard Gaysley, 1537-46, occasionally came to his parish. (fn. 53)

In 1389 there were four well established guilds: that of the Holy Rood, the principal one, cared for the church's fabric and vestments. The others were of the Nativity of the Virgin, All Saints, and St. Margaret. Their members, of both sexes, subscribed entry fees in barley or wax, attended services and provided lights at their patronal feasts, and also came to masses for deceased members' souls, the offerings then going to the poor. (fn. 54) In 1512 Nicholas Hughson left 8 marks yearly for four years of masses at St. Catharine's altar. A priest singing there was to be paid at the same rate in 1532. (fn. 55) In 1516 there was a guild of the Resurrection. (fn. 56) Villagers still left land for the Easter sepulchre light in the 1540s, and for trentals not only in that decade, once for those of St. Gregory's mass, but implicitly in 1559. (fn. 57) In 1553 1¾ a. given for lights had been sold by the Crown. (fn. 58)

From the 1540s the bishop usually selected graduates as vicars. (fn. 59) The parish was still probably being served by curates in the late 1560s. (fn. 60) One non-graduate vicar, serving 1570-93, (fn. 61) who resided only 'when it pleased him', was accused in 1579 of not procuring sermons and failing to enforce religious instruction upon the village youth, while admitting uncatechized men to communion. Some parishioners insulted him even during services. (fn. 62) Villagers in his time sometimes worked on saints' days, and even questmen countenanced card playing in prayer time. (fn. 63) Edward Smith, presented by the queen in 1593, who served until his death in 1638, (fn. 64) regularly resided, often preaching. (fn. 65) He even induced parishioners to leave substantial sums not only for local charity, but by the 1620s for the 'ornament' of the church. (fn. 66) In 1609 seven farmers were accused of letting their labourers plough and ditch, mostly in service time, on 5 November. (fn. 67) In 1617 c. 35 villagers were mowing the fen on one 'sabbath' in July. (fn. 68) Smith's successor, a zealous young Laudian and royalist partisan, who brought in equally Arminian substitute preachers, quitted the parish early in 1643, later escaping to India. Formally ejected in 1644, he had five replacements within the next ten years. (fn. 69) Four of them proved nonconformists after 1660, including the last, who received a £40 augmentation in 1658 and may have adhered to the Cambridge Presbyterian classis after 1655. He had left by 1663. (fn. 70)

Between 1663 and 1680 there were seven incumbents, mostly starting their clerical careers. All but one resigned and only two served for five years or more. (fn. 71) John Towers, vicar 1680-92, had a curate in 1682. (fn. 72) Much non-attendance at church was reported from the 1670s. (fn. 73) In the 1690s the parish may have been served not by the vicar, but by Richard Hill, later a benefactor of the school. (fn. 74) Stephen White, vicar 1720-73, a pluralist from 1733, (fn. 75) was already non-resident in the 1720s; his curate, who as later was paid half the vicarial income, then catechized regularly. About 1740 the Bottisham sequestrator also served Swaffham. (fn. 76) About 1770 White saw the parish only during annual two-week visits from his Suffolk living to his former pupil Soame Jenyns at Bottisham Hall. (fn. 77) In the late 18th and early 19th centuries curates under White's equally absentee successors held, as in 1728, two Sunday services and the three usual annual sacraments. One in 1807 served the parish from Cambridge, attentively teaching the village youth, before becoming vicar. Over 30 communicants were reported in 1728, and there were as many in 1825. (fn. 78)

From 1823 the curate, occupying the new vicarage, was Leonard Jenyns (1800-89), younger son of the owner of Bottisham Hall. As vicar 1827-53, (fn. 79) he claimed to be the first resident incumbent for a century: his predecessor had allegedly never visited Swaffham after 'reading himself in'. Jenyns was initially dismayed at the general irreverence: the vestry met, hats on, around the communion table and wrote their accounts on it, while cattle were hung for butchering against the church tower. Although Jenyns was an enthusiastic and later noted natural historian, reluctance to quit his parochial duties made him decline in 1831 the place of naturalist on the Beagle, recommending instead his friend Charles Darwin, with perhaps incalculable results. When Jenyns left Swaffham in 1849, he had created an orderly congregation. He regularly visited throughout the parish, reformed the school, and gently altered liturgical customs, successfully quelling unseemly conduct in church by the village youth. (fn. 80) By 1836 he had, though scarcely increasing the normal number of services, slowly raised the average of communicants to c. 45. (fn. 81) In 1851 his curate claimed an average attendance of 200 in the afternoons, doubling that in the mornings and filling two thirds of the sittings, besides c. 110 Sundayschool children. (fn. 82)

Jenyns's successor in 1854, William Fleetwood, an ex-schoolmaster, in office until he died, aged 92, in 1881, (fn. 83) had difficulties c. 1870 with one of his curates, whose sermons championing labourers' rights offended the farmers, and whom Fleetwood eventually dismissed. Another, High Church, curate c. 1880 also proved troublesome. (fn. 84) In the late 19th century most villagers continued to be churchpeople, and attendance was good: 20-40 young people might be confirmed at a time. The number coming to communions, held under Fleetwood initially monthly, by 1885 weekly, increased from 30 in 1873 to 40-50 in the 1880s and 1890s. Bible classes were held by 1885, and there was an organized choir, soon of 30 or more. (fn. 85) The parish retained a resident vicar of its own into the mid 20th century: seven incumbents served, some for 15-20 year terms, between 1894 and 1969. After 1955 the living was usually combined with diocesan posts such as school inspectorships or youth chaplaincies. From 1969 there were priests-in-charge, from 1980 shared with Bottisham. (fn. 86)

The church of ST MARY, so named by 1340, (fn. 87) standing north-west of the middle of the main village street, comprises a chancel, aisled and clerestoried nave of four bays with (largely rebuilt) north and south porches, and west tower. It is built partly of clunch ashlar, the chancel and clerestory being of fieldstones. (fn. 88) The earliest surviving part is the four-stage west tower, probably early 13th-century; buttressed and parapeted, it has a triple-chamfered arch towards the nave, which mostly dies into the walls, and stepped lancets for its main west window. The stonework of a 13th-century chancel arch may have been reused when the rest of the church was reconstructed in the early 14th century, the aisles being then widened. The spacious nave has two-chamfered arches over octagonal piers, the aisles two- and threelight windows, mostly trefoiled and ogeed, with quatrefoils above; those on the south, with slightly thicker tracery, are probably a little later than those of the north aisle, whose east window retains intersecting tracery from an earlier design. The chancel side walls have more elaborately traceried three-light windows, cusped throughout, with curved mouchettes. Inside, in the south wall, are a piscina and triple sedilia, and a matching tomb recess to their west, all ogee-headed and intensely crocketed. Fragmentary glass in the north aisle included in 1743 the arms of Clare and Vere, with the name of a villager (fl. 1320). (fn. 89) Work was presumably concluded by 1346 when Bishop Lisle consecrated the high altar. (fn. 90)

A high-pitched early 14th-century nave roof, whose outline is visible against the tower, was superseded when the clerestory with its plain two-light windows was added in the 15th century, when a new nave roof of nine sections with tiebeams on arched traceried braces was installed. Its bosses also include the Vere arms. The similar aisle roofs are also 15th-century. In 1409 Catherine, lady Burgh, left money for an altar on the north side of the church and for repairs to its south side. (fn. 91) About 1482 the priory repaired the chancel windows. (fn. 92) In 1495 a Londoner born and bred at Swaffham left £1 for work on its church. (fn. 93)

The octagonal font is 13th-century. The roodscreen, to accommodate the surviving stair to which the east responds of the nave arcade project some way westward, was still in place in 1743, (fn. 94) but had probably been removed by 1850. Of the late medieval woodwork there survives, however, a substantially complete set of 34 carved benches: their finials and armrests are decorated with numerous creatures, some fabulous, many mutilated. Brasses of William Hamond and Nicholas Hughson, were still in place though damaged in 1743, when they had male and female figures and arms. They, and insets of other brasses, one for a priest, (fn. 95) were lost by the mid 19th century. An Italian cedar chest of c. 1500, by 1990 installed as an altar in the south aisle, with incised pictures of Biblical scenes and the Crucifixion painted under the lid, should not be identified with an iron-bound chest given before 1400 by a Bottisham man living at Lynn. (fn. 96)

By 1561 the chancel was ruinous through neglect by the impropriator (the bishop) or his rectory lessee, as it was still c. 1600. (fn. 97) About 1610 the steeple needed repair. (fn. 98) In 1644 William Dowsing destroyed 100 'superstitious' pictures, including four of the Crucifixion, presumably leaving the painted glass 'defaced' as was reported in 1743; he also destroyed 20 cherubims, perhaps on the roof. (fn. 99) A new pulpit and desk were installed in 1723. By the 1740s the upper tracery of the five-light chancel east window was lost or blocked. (fn. 100) In 1864 the fabric was still being maintained through a church rate. (fn. 101) In 1876-7 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners repaired the chancel, installing a new roof and replacing the east window tracery in a Decorated style matching the side windows. (fn. 102) A new organ given in 1884 replaced in the north aisle a vestry whose 19th-century screen was moved to the tower arch. (fn. 103) In 1888-9 the farmers' high pews in the south aisle were replaced by benches matching the medieval ones, and a new pulpit was given by a Conservative parliamentary candidate. (fn. 104) The interior and roofs were renovated in 1896, and fire damage to the tower repaired in 1936. (fn. 105) The tower stonework was extensively renewed c. 1980, and between then and 1991 that of the aisle windows was almost entirely replaced externally. (fn. 106)

In 1552 the church had two chalices, besides a heavy pyx, all silver gilt. (fn. 107) The later plate, mostly deposited by 1980 in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, includes a cup and paten of 1569, a flagon of 1698 and standing paten of 1700 given, 1699-1700, by a former vicar's mother and sister, both named Frances Towers. A late 17th-century North German beaker was given in 1850 by Field Marshal Thomas Grosvenor. (fn. 108)

There were three bells in 1552, (fn. 109) one cracked c. 1600-70, (fn. 110) and four, besides a clock, in 1743. They were recast in 1820 as a peal of six, (fn. 111) still in place in the 1980s when they could not be rung, owing to the frailty of the possibly medieval bell-frame. (fn. 112) The registers beginning in 1558 are substantially complete. (fn. 113) The churchyard, almost full in 1873, was closed in 1885 (fn. 114) and replaced from 1886 by a cemetery at the northeast end of the main street. (fn. 115)