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I Location

II General Description

Bledlow is a village on the northern edge of the Chiltern Hills, in the east of south Buckinghamshire. The village is two miles SW of Princes Risborough and a half mile east of the Oxfordshire border. The church stands in the centre of the village. Holy Trinity has an aisled nave with a S porch, a chancel and a W tower. The nave is 4 bays long, with 13thc. arcades with stiff-leaf capitals indicating an early-13thc. date for the aisles. A scar against the E tower wall indicates an earlier roof that was much steeper. The clerestorey windows are three-light, trefoil-headed bar-traceried openings under square heads, and appear to date from the later 13thc. Both aisles have been extended westwards alongside the tower. The N aisle contains a reset 12thc. doorway, indicating the original date of the unaisled nave. The aisle windows are a mixture of geometric and flowing tracery on the N and geometrical and Perpendicular on the S; both the W aisle windows are early 13thc., contemporary with the arcades, but they may have been reset when the aisles were lengthened. The chancel arch is contemporary with the arcades too, but the original, short chancel was 12thc. (indicated by the arch of the former priest’s doorway in the S wall). It was lengthened eastwards and refenestrated in the 13thc. The church was reseated and restored by G. G. Scott in 1875–77, and repaired in 1961–62 by H. J. Stribling of Slough, and in 1967 and 1975–76 by Roiser and Whitestone, architects of Cheltenham. At the W end of the N aisle is a display of loose stones, some Romanesque, that were found in the wall of the tower. The font is also 12thc., and belongs with the Aylesbury group.

III Exterior Features

1. Doorways

(i) Nave N doorway

Round headed, single order. The jambs and arch are plain and unchamfered, without capitals but with imposts consisting of an upper roll overhanging a hollow with a thin roll below it.

Dimensions

V Furnishings

1. Fonts

(i)

In the S aisle, just E of the S doorway. An Aylesbury-type font consisting of a cup-shaped bowl with a projecting lower ring on a plain, short, cylindrical stem that stands on an inverted double-scallop base and a rectangular chamfered step. All elements are of clunch. The bowl is fluted, with a scalloped upper edge to the flutes and a triangular stop at the bottom of each flute. Above the fluting is a broad band decorated with two wave-form grooved stems that intersect to form twelve oval fields, each containing a leaf or flower carved in relief. These vegetal forms are varied, including simple horizontal leaves with grooved or raised spines and reeded ribs, pairs of fluted leaves falling fountain-like from a central vertical stem, and more complex symmetrical flowers with a central carpel, fluted petals and plain sepals. In the spandrels of the design, above and below the intersections of the two main stems, are relief vegetal forms, all roughly triangular and generally fluted but varying in detail. Above this band, the upper rim of the bowl has a quadrant roll. The projecting ring at the bottom of the bowl is carved from the same block as the bowl. It is keeled in section and decorated with two-strand cable, alternately roll and hollow. The plain cylindrical stem is a single block, mortared to the bowl and the base.

The double-scalloped base has relief ovoid leaves at the four angles; their stems towards the stem of the font. These leaves have projecting central spines and grooves to indicate the ribs, except the one at the SW angle, which is of the same shape but without grooved ribs. The tucks between the cones are also decorated with relief vegetal forms as follows:

W face: a crudely-carved, vertical, symmetrical flower with a central fluted carpel, and to each side of it an ovoid lobe, presumably intended for a petal. The stem of the flower is in the tuck between the two shields.

N face: a short, fat, vertical stem decorated with a spiral groove, topped by a rounded boss, and flanked by irregular wing-like leaves.

E face: similar to the N face, but the central stem is not spiral-grooved but bears traces of vertical grooving, and the flanking leaves are furled, oval and vertically fluted.

S face: similar to the E face, but the stem is completely plain, crudely cut and broader at the bottom than the top. The flanking leaves are at the top of the stem and retain traces of grooved ribs (but no spine). The lower edge of the R leaf is damaged.

The main decoration of the base is in the form of vegetal motifs in relief in the recessed field of each shield. These are:

W face, L shield. Simply roughed out; a broad ovoid leaf with a central spine that forms a short stem at the bottom. Scribed lines on the two halves indicate setting-out for more surface articulation that was not completed.

W face, R shield. Similar to the L shield, but instead of a central spine there is a vertical space, dividing the ovoid into two separate lobes.

N face, L shield. A symmetrical design arranged around a central vertical stem that rises through a triangular leaf with grooved ribs, forming its spine. Above the apex of this leaf it continues vertically, almost to the top of the field, where furled leaves spring from it to L and R; their ribs indicated by grooves decorated with drill holes. A similarly articulated leaf emerges from the tip of each of these side-leaves, curving downwards to produce a fountain effect.

N face, R shield. A tree-like motif, with a central trunk decorated with single cable and drill holes, from the top of which emerge two mirror-pairs of leaves; the lower oval with grooved spines and ribs, and the upper pair more-or-less triangular with scalloped upper borders.

E face, L shield. Similar to N face, R shield but the central trunk is undecorated and at the top is a single pair of oval leaves with grooved spines and ribs.

E face, R shield. As L shield, but the leaves are furled and hang down abruptly from a slightly dished stem at the top of the trunk.

S face, L shield. A fan-shaped flower on a short, conical stem. The outer section of the fan is reeded with a cusped outer edge, and each reed is decorated with a drill hole. The inner section is imprecisely decorated with grooves.

S face, R shield. A fan-shaped flower on a short, cylindrical stem. The outer section of the fan is reeded with a cusped outer edge, and the inner section is similar.

The bowl is lead-lined and there are inserted repairs to the rim; two at the NE and one each at SW and S. There are remains of staples at the NE and SW of the rim.

Dimensions

VI Loose Sculpture

(i) Corbel with double cone motif.

Broken in two horizontally, immediately above the double cone, and held together with wire.

Dimensions

(ii) Cylindrical shaft section with spiral beading.

The shaft is flat at its bottom face while the top face is irregularly broken. It is decorated with three-strand cable, alternately a broad roll, a thin roll and a row of beading. The decoration extends over three-quarters of the circumference, indicating that it was a nook-shaft.

Dimensions

(iii) Octagonal shaft section with chevron decoration.

Again the bottom face is flat while the top is irregularly fractured. The decoration is of lateral nested chevron consisting of a repeating sequence of a thin roll, a fat roll, a thin roll and a row of beading.

Dimensions

(iv) Carved slab with arcading.

The slab is curved in plan, and may have been part of a font of which the upper rim, with a rolled edge, survives. Below the rim the front face is decorated with intersecting, round-headed arcading in the form of flat fillets in relief. The broken lower edge is above the level of the arch springings, and three of the five fields formed by the intersecting arches contain some remains of relief decoration. At the far L are signs of a reeded motif, towards the centre is a trefoil with long lobes, and to the R of this, apparently a saltire.

Dimensions

(v) Part of a window head.

The block is the L or (more probably) the R half of the head of a round-headed window. It is chamfered on its inner edge, and outside the chamfer is a row of nailhead, and then a row of large, flattened hemispherical bosses.

Dimensions

(vi) Chevron voussoir

The voussoir has a heavy inner angle roll decorated with parallel rows of lateral centrifugal chevron: starting at the soffit there is a groove, a row of beading between fillets, a groove, two fillets with a groove between them and finally a row of beading. The face of the voussoir is similarly decorated with lateral centrifugal chevron: a row of beading between fillets, a hollow, a narrow fillet, a groove and a broad fillet. The soffit of the voussoir is carved with a row of beading between fillets, pointing towards the back of the voussoir.

Dimensions

VII History

Bledlow was held by the Count of Mortain himself in 1086. It was assessed at 30 hides with woodland for 1000 pigs and meadow for 18 plough-teams. There was a mill there rendering 24 summae (packhorse loads) of malt. The manor was held by Eadmaer Atule, a thegn of King Edward, before the Conquest. Robert of Mortain granted the church to the abbey of Grestain in Normandy, and the administration of the endowment was granted to Wilmington Priory (Sussex). On the forfeiture of the Mortain lands in 1104, the manor was held directly from the Crown by knights’ service (as was also the case with Wing). Alien priories in French hands were confiscated by Edward III during the Hundred Years’ War, and the church of Bledlow was given to the royal college of St Stephen’s Chapel in the Palace of Westminster in 1351/60, and the royal college still held land there in 1535. The parish of Bledlow was amalgamated with Saunderton and Horsenden in 1973, and in 1998 the joint parish became part of the Risborough Team Ministry. This consists of four parishes: Princes Risborough with Ilmer; Monks Risborough with Owlswick; Lacey Green with Speen and Loosely Row; and Bledlow with Saunderton and Horsenden.

VIII Comments/Opinions

The font belongs to a group of 22 (according to Pevsner) centred on Aylesbury, of which thirteen (not all complete) are in Buckinghamshire. These are at Aylesbury, Bledlow, Buckland, Chearsley, Chenies, Great Kimble, Great Missenden, Linslade, Little Missenden, Monks Risborough, Pitstone, Weston Turville and Wing. Of these the finest are at Aylesbury, Chenies, Great Kimble, Great Missenden (base only), Weston Turville and Wing (base only). Others in the group have shallower or less complex carving, while a further three in the county, at Ludgershall, Saunderton and Haddenham, are less adept copies of the design. Outside Buckinghamshire there are related fonts at Duston and Eydon in Northants, and at Barton-le-Clay, Dunstable, Flitwick and Houghton Regis in Bedfordshire. These fonts are normally dated late in the 12thc., c.1170-90. Thurlby suggests, on the basis of comparisons of foliage forms on the Aylesbury, Great Kimble and Weston Turville fonts with sculpture at St Alban’s Abbey dating from the abbacy of Simon (1167-83), and on the resemblance between these fonts and liturgical chalices, that the sculptors were copying St Albans metalwork, perhaps of the kind produced by one Master Baldwin according to an account by Matthew Paris. Bledlow font is a simplified version of that at Great Kimble, carved in lower relief and with simpler plant forms. In this it is related to Monk’s Risborough (which has lost its original base). The Bledlow font is interesting in being unfinished; the vegetal motifs on the W face of the base being roughed out only. Of the loose stones, the two shaft sections and the voussoir (2, 3 and 6) are from a doorway, and the window head (5) from a window of the same campaign assumed to date from c.1130–50. The font bowl fragment (4), if that is indeed what it is, might well date from the same period, but it is surprising that it was replaced so soon after its manufacture. The simple corbel could be of the same date or later, and the plain doorway is dated to the very end of the 12thc. by its impost profile.

IX Bibliography