St Mary, Guilden Morden, Cambridgeshire

I Location

Site Location: Guilden Morden
National Grid Reference: TL 279 442
County: traditional: Cambridgeshire
now: Cambridgeshire
Diocese: medieval: not confirmed
now: Ely
Dedication: medieval: not confirmed
now (or name of monument): St Mary
Type of building/monument: Parish Church

II General Description

: Ext. general view from SE

: Church Plan

The church consists of an aisled nave and aisleless chancel of flint with re-used ashlar (including 12thc. moulded stones but no sculpture) and tile and brick repairs. There is a W tower of ashlar with a Hertfordshire spike. The nave has doorways to N and S, the S being larger and protected by a flint porch. An ashlar vestry has been added to the N of the chancel. At the junction of nave and chancel on the S is an octagonal stair turret. Inside it becomes clear that the nave has been lengthened. The three E bays of the S arcade date from c.1300, while the three W bays and the entire N arcade are later. The only Romanesque feature is the font.

V Furnishings

1. Fonts

(i)

: Font from NW

At W end of S nave arcade, a tub-shaped bowl on five shafts, all probably later than the bowl, but the shafts to NW, SW and SE are circular and that to NE is polygonal, as is the central shaft, which is fatter than the others. The bowl is in two parts, with a disc-shaped bottom mortared to an inverted truncated cone. The upper section is decorated with a narrow fillet well below the rim, and the rim itself has a cable decoration consisting of broad concave bands alternating with narrow strips of beading.

Dimensions

total h. of font	0.88 m
h. of bowl	0.435 m
ext. diam. of bowl at top	0.89 m
int. diam.of bowl	0.62 m

VII History

VIII Comments/Opinions

Johnson reports fragments of chevron voussoir in the S wall of the nave and the S porch.

IX Bibliography

G. R. Bossier, Notes on the Cambridgeshire Churches. 1827, 37.
The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England: Cambridgeshire (Architectural Institute of Great Britain and Ireland), Oxford 1852, 120.
C. H. Evelyn-White, County Churches: Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. London 1911, 85-86.
F. S. L. Johnson, A Catalogue of Romanesque Sculpture in Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. M.Phil (London, Courtauld Institute), 1984, 257.
D. and S. Lysons, Magna Britannia. Cambridgeshire II, pt I, London 1808, 237-38.
N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Cambridgeshire, Harmondsworth 1954 (2nd ed. 1970), 398-99.
The Victoria History of the County of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, VIII, 1982, 108-09.