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I Location

II General Description

Wing is in the E of the county, in the ancient hundred of Cottesloe. It is a substantial settlement on the road from Aylesbury to Leighton Buzzard, 6 miles NE of Aylesbury and a mile from the Bedfordshire border. The village stands on a hill in the Vale of Aylesbury, with the church in the centre.

The church at Wing is one of the most important Anglo-Saxon churches in the country. Its precise chronology is a matter of some dispute, but it seems certain that there were at least two pre-Conquest campaigns. It consists of an aisled nave with N and S doorways under porches, a polygonal apse raised above a vaulted crypt, and a W tower. The following account of the building and its chronology is largely based on the conflicting published views of Fernie (1983) and Gem (2003). The 7-sided apse is decorated with tall thin pilaster strips at the angles, which carry semicircular blind arches. Above the arches can be seen the worn traces of triangular pediments. At ground level are arched windows into the crypt, enclosing niches inside. The crypt is vaulted; the vault carried on four rectangular masonry piers that define a central chamber surrounded by an ambulatory. The original entrance was via narrow passageways from the church, but these are now blocked and entrance is from the exterior on the S side. In Gem’s account, the lower parts of the outer wall, including the crypt windows and their niches, may date from the 8thc. The upper part of the apse is a 9thc. rebuilding, and the crypt vault and ambulatory is either contemporary or slightly later. For Fernie the outer crypt walls are early 9thc. and the ambulatory and upper apse walls are late 10thc.

The central vessel of the nave is a narrow rectangle, almost three times as long as its width. High above the chancel arch at the E end is a double round-headed E window with arched heads divided by a central shaft; the only surviving Anglo-Saxon window in the nave and probably of c.1000. The nave walls rise to a height of 35 feet (10.7 m), and their upper parts are much thinner than the lower parts, with a sloping offset partway up the clerestory zone. This may represent an Anglo-Saxon heightening of walls that were originally lower, but there is no obvious change in construction on the exterior. The nave aisles, with a 3-bay arcade at the W end of the nave are an original feature of the church according to the accounts of Fernie (1983), the Taylors and Jackson & Fletcher. Gem, on the other hand says that they are not an original part of the building, and are an Anglo-Saxon or, at latest, an early Norman addition. 8th-9thc. fabric is certainly to be seen around the NE angle of the N aisle, including a blocked arch in the E wall. For Fernie this confirms that the entire aisle is early, while Gem suggests that there were side-chambers at the E end of each aisle in the original design. There is now a 4-bay arcade; the 3 western bays being round headed and carried on square piers with stepped imposts, while the E bay on either side is 13thc.-14thc. and represents a later piercing of the wall for chapels; St Katherine’s on the S side and the Lady Chapel on the N. There are some traces of 12thc. work at Wing: the base of an Aylesbury-group font on the S porch and various loose stones. Two of these have chip-carved decoration and another is an engaged trefoil capital. There was much replacement of windows in the 14thc. and 15thc., and the S porch, bearing the arms of Mowbray and Rokes is 15thc. too. The 15thc. W tower is of three storeys with angle-buttresses and an embattled parapet. Dates have been added to the exterior clerestory walls in decorative ironwork ties, representing churchwardens’ repairs in 1649, 1657, 1669 and 1792. The church was restored by George Gilbert Scott in 1850, by George Gilbert Scott junior in 1881 and by John Oldrid Scott in 1892-93. The 12thc. font base and loose stones are recorded in detail below. A pre-Conquest date has here been accepted for the arcades, but photographs of them are included for the sceptical.

V Furnishings

1. Fonts

Dimensions

(i)

Font base in S porch

The monolithic base is set in the NE angle of the S porch and is mortared in place. It is of the Totternhoe clunch. The base is in the form of an inverted double scallop capital with recessed shields containing foliage decoration and decorated fillets between the cones and in the angle tucks. The necking is a single cable roll emerging from a short cylindrical stem with, at the top, another roll decorated with single cable. Since it is mortared into the angle of the porch alongside the bench, only the two shields on the W face and the W shield on the S face are visible. The last of these is entirely missing, but the other two are described below. W face, N shield. Two stems emerge from a semicircular boss at bottom centre, each running out to the edge of the shield and following it to the apex, where they terminate in a pair of worn furled leaves. Side-shoots from these stems terminate in a mirror-pair of larger furled leaves whose tips meet in the centre of the shield. There are two smaller side-shoots on the outside of each stem. W face, S shield. Two stems emerge from a semicircular boss at bottom centre, each running up to enclose an oval field containing a pair of leaves in the centre of the shield. Outer side-shoots run down from the upper ends of the main stems, ending in furled leaves that fill the outer angles of the shield. This area of the base is much worn with no surface detail remaining. Between the cones of these two shields is a worn narrow, lanceolate leaf with traces of a row of beading running down the spine. In the NW angle tuck is a similar leaf, its spine decorated with a single cable roll. These two are all that remain of the decorations between the cones. The base is generally worn, with major losses to the cable roll at the upper rim. A significant area of wear affects the SW angle, where the cones are worn away as if it had been used as a seat, and the decoration of the SW shield is entirely worn away. There is a loss, repaired with mortar, between the shields of the W face, and a crack across the SW cone that ends in a loss in the area of the W shield of the S face, also repaired with mortar.

VI Loose Sculpture

(i) Engaged trefoil capital

The capital is of Totternhoe clunch, carved on two faces only. The recessed shield is surrounded by a plain roll border, the cones take the form of flat leaves with small volutes at their tips and drilled beads in the notches between them at the bottom of each shield. The tuck on the main angle is decorated with a row of beading. The capital has no necking.

Dimensions

(ii) Large chip-carved block

The block is of dense chalk or limestone, not clunch. Its front face only is chip carved, and at the back the block is carved in an arc of large radius with a tapering hollow chamfer between the arch and the long lower face of the block.

The carved face has a long, straight lower edge, short sides approximately at right angles to it, but broken and irregular, with the R side rather longer than the L, and a long, curved upper edge, also broken. The front face only is decorated. There is an angle roll at the lower edge, then a band of chip-carved triangles with a fillet marking its upper edge, and above this is the remains of a row of large chip-carved daisies in circles with small half-circles along the lower edge of the field between them. Parts of three of the large daisies survive, and two of the half-circles.

The stone is reddened in places, suggesting fire damage.

Dimensions

(iii) Small chip-carved block

As 2, with a similar carved back. The carved front face has one of the large chip-carved daisies and a broad flat fillet along one edge. It likewise shows signs of fire damage.

Dimensions

VII History

The earliest reference to Wing appears in the will of Aelfgifu, a member of the West Saxon royal house, dateable between 966 and 975. She held the estate of Wing at that time, and could conceivably have had a hand in the building of the church. The first notice of the church dates from shortly after 1066, when the priest Goldric held it and its associated lands. In 1086 the manor of Wing was held by the Count of Mortain himself. It was assessed at 5 hides with meadow for 25 ploughs, and was a large vill with 51 villans and 20 bordars. Before the Conquest the manor was held by Ulf, a man of Earl Harold. The Mortain lands were forfeited to the crown in 1104. It was held by Hugh Talbot in the 12thc., and by his descendant Quintin before 1198. Henry fitzGerald held it in 1218 and the Lady Ermentrude in 1234 and 1235. Later lords of the manor came from the families of Talbot (before 1239, 1247), de Warenne (before 1239, 1304, 1328) and Arundel (1331, 1376).

The church meanwhile had been given to the Benedictine abbey of St Nicholas, Angers by Bodin de Ver some time before 1086, and in 1216 the Abbot of St Nicholas arranged that the office of Vicar of Wing should be funded from the church revenues, although he retained the right of presentation. This suggests that it had previously served as a minster church, and now became a parish church. The possessions of St Nicholas, Angers passed to the Priory of St Mary de Pre at St Albans during the Hundred Years’ War. After the dissolution of St Mary de Pre in 1528 the priory’s rights in Wing were acquired by Robert Dormer, who had acquired the manor in 1515. The Dormers became Earls of Caernarvon in 1628, but the direct line failed at the beginning of the 18thc. The parish is now in the benefice of Wing with Grove.

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. Of these the closest to the base at Wing are Aylesbury itself, Great Kimble and Bledlow, all of which have double-scallop bases with foliage decoration. These sophisticated fonts are normally dated late in the 12thc., c.1170-90. Thurlby suggests, on the basis of comparisons of foliage forms on the Aylesbury 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.

The trefoil capital probably came from a doorway with nook-shafts. The trefoil form is found as early as c.1130 at Reading Abbey, but the combination of trefoil shields and flat-leaf cones suggests a later date, perhaps as late as c1160-80. The two chip-carved stones are enigmatic. Their decoration points to a date around 1100, and if they were not shaped at the back they could have come from a tympanum or a lintel. It may be that the shaping represents a reuse of the stones as vault springers.

IX Bibliography