Gents Mag 1849 part 2 p.586
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Gentleman's Magazine 1849 part 2 p.586
Guisnes and his wife Christian, who were grantees of the Crown, but subject to a pension of 33s. 4d. payable to the said abbey. It appears to have become subsequently vested in Joan de Coupland, as by an inquisition taken in 49 Edw. II. after her death, it was found that she held by grant of the king during her life the advowson of Wynandermere, then valued at 100s. The patronage afterwards reverted to and continued in the Crown till the seventh year of Queen Elizabeth, when it was granted to William Herbert and John Jenkins, to hold of the queen in free socage by fealty as of the manor of East Greenwich. After several mesne conveyances it was in the last century purchased by Sir William Fleming, of Rydal, bart. who devised it to his four daughters, from who it has descended to the Rev. Sir Richard Fleming, of Grasmere, baronet. The church consist of an embattled square tower, carrying a peal of three bells, into which a low recessed arched doorway, not now used, gives access to the western front. A vestry, of modern addition, at the west end of the north aisle, whose original integrity of form it totally mars. A nave, with north and south aisles. A porch, at the south side, through which is the principal entrance into the church. A narrow arched door is near the east end of the same aisle, and a door of like design near the west end of the north aisle. The south aisle is lighted on the flank wall by four square stone-mullioned windows of four round-headed lights each, while the windows in the wall of the north aisle are five in number with three lights only. At the west end of the south aisle and east end of both aisles there are larger windows of similar form of four lights each, in some of which a few remnants of ancient coloured glass are observable. Besides these windows additional light is admitted from six clerestory windows on each side of three lights each; but that which contributes most to illuminate the interior is the large semicircular-headed east window, which is of great size, of the latest and most debased Perpendicular, and divided by plain stone mullions into seven lights. On entering I found myself within a large structure devoid of any particular architectural distinction, but interesting from its antiquated and hallowed character. The arches dividing the nave from the aisles are pointed and square-edged, and spring from square multangular piers that are without imposts or mouldings. So much however are they enveloped with the defilement of plaster and whitewash, that their original form or ornamental details, if of the latter they ever had any, cannot be defined. Like many of the old churches and chapels in this part of the country, it has once, in obedience to the directions of the eighty-second canon, been profusely embellished with texts of Scripture painted on the walls, and towards the west end of the flank wall of the north aisle sentences from Colossians, c.iii. v.5, and James, c.iv. v.7,8, are still legible. The date of these admonitory texts, which are all that have escaped the hands of the whitewasher, are about Edward VI. or Elizabeth's reign. They are rubricated, and each is enclosed within an ornamental scroll or border crowned with the winged heads "of rudely painted Cherubim." Formerly the spaces between the windows in both aisles were covered with similar chosen quotations, or, as an eminent poet has called them, "Scrolls that teach thee to live and die,"but through want of care some were obiterated, while others were broken to make room for modern monumental tablets. Close to the door, near the east end of the south aisle, there had been on the wall an ancient painting, either on parchment or leather, my informant could not recollect which. That not long since was also removed and carelessly thrown by in the vestry, in order to afford space for other displays of mundane ostentation. The disfigurement of pews and seats of all shapes and sizes are also to be seen; and a gallery has been introduced into this part of the church. A mean wooden altar-piece, painted light blue, on which the Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Commandments are inscribed, occupies the space underneath the great window, and hides the lower portion of it from observation. The roof, which is open to the framing, is of oak, black through age, and |
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