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Meppershall, Bedfordshire

Location
(52°0′44″N, 0°19′48″W)
Meppershall
TL 147 362
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Bedfordshire
now Bedfordshire
  • Hazel Gardiner
  • Ron Baxter
  • Hazel Gardiner
  • Ron Baxter
12 July 2020 (RB)

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=13564.

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Feature Sets
Description

The chapel, which is now used as a storage shed, consists of an aisleless nave and chancel. The chancel was replaced in c.1500. It is the same width as the 12thc. nave. 12thc. sculpture is found on the blocked N doorway. The chapel is constructed of Totternhoe stone, ironstone and brick.

History

The Domesday Survey does not mention the chapel, but records that Gilbert, son of Solomon held land in Meppershall.

The chapel belonged to the Gilbertine Priory at Chicksands which had been founded by Rohesia and Payn de Beauchamp, c. 1150 (VCH, 1:390). It is not known who orginally bestowed the Chapel on the Priory. Clutterbuck, quoting Nathanial Salmon's History of Hertfordshire of 1728, suggests either William de Mandevil or Simon de Beauchamp (son of Rohesia and Payn de Beauchamp), the latter on the grounds of documentary evidence provided in Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum (Clutterbuck, 59). The chapel is first documented in Papal letters of 1291. The chapel remained in the hands of the Priory until c.1324, when it was sold in order to pay debts.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Comments/Opinions

The chapel is now on private property and the author is grateful to the owner for allowing the doorway to be recorded.

Bibliography

Domesday Book: Bedfordshire, Ed. J. Morris, Chichester, 1977, 48, 1.

The Victoria County History: A History of the County of Bedford, London, 1906, 1: 390.

The Victoria County History: A History of the County of Bedford, London, 1908, 2: 293. (photograph of doorway facing page 292)

C. Isherwood, 'The Chapel of St Thomas, Meppershall', Antiquary, London, 42, 136-38.

Clutterbuck, The History and Antiquities of the County of Hertford, London, 1815–1827, 3:59-60.

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England, Bedfordshire and the County of Huntingdon and Peterborough, London, 1968, 125.