Ringwould Church: A Report in March, 1925

( 165 ) RINGWOULD CHURCH. A REPORT IN MARCH, 1925, BY PROFESSOR P. C. EELES. RINGWOULD is spelled Ridlingswould by Philipott, and Ridlingweald by Hasted. Its church consists of chancel, nave, north aisle, south porch, and tower engaged within the west end of the nave. The west and south walls of the nave appear to belong to a church built in early Norman days, although the south wall has been refaced in modern times and its character altered by the insertion of two new windows east of the porch, while the west wall has been somewhat obscured by the way in which the tower was incorporated with the rest of the building. The west window below the tower and that in the south wall of the nave west of the porch, belong to this period. They are small plain round-headed single lights characteristic of the transition between Norman and Gothic in its simpler forms. The plain rounded-headed south doorway, entirely without mouldings and ornament of any kind, is also of this date, and so is the lower part of the south-west corner of the church, which shows the same quoins, or corner stones, usually met with in work of this period. The fabric of the chancel belongs to the twelfth century, and was probably prolonged eastward in the thirteenth, of the six single light pointed windows in the side walls, the two eastmost on each side are wide in proportion to their height. The stone-work of the easternmost and westernmost on the north side is the original; that of those on the south, like the central window in the north1, has been in the main 1 This window was stopped up for many years by the erection of a • marble tablet to the Rev. John Monins, rector, died 1853. About 1925 this tablet was removed to the S. wall of the Nave and the light reopened, but unhappily the origmal stonework, after this blocking ordeal, required complete renewal.—V.J.T. 166 RINGWOULD CHURCH. c & ^ r°. &{ • £K ' ft <0 U V» • wMr-*m RINCWOULD CHURCH. Interior before " restoration," from a water-colour drawing made, probably, between 1853 and 1863, and belonging to Capt. John E. Monins. RINGWOULD CHURCH. 167 renewed. The trefoil-headed windows in the western part of each wall are insertions of the end of the thirteenth century. The east window is a conjectural restoration in thirteenth century style, carried out in the nineteenth century, and takes the place of a window, which the nineteenth century restorers disapproved. The two sedilia are of the thirteenth century, but much restored. Early in the fourteenth century the north aisle was added. The pillars and arches of the arcade of four bays are of this date, while the plain blocked doorway may be thirteenth century work reused, moved from the old north wall of the nave. The pillars are octagonal and small in size, the mouldings of the capitals being somewhat crude. The arches are of two recessed orders, chamfered, the chamfer of the outer order being stopped off on to the square immediately above the capitals. The stone is Kentish rag. The mouldings of the middle capital are a little richer than those of the others, and the mouldings of the responds, of square section, at each end, are also different. To this date belongs the opening of the east window of this aisle, of which the tracery is modern, though it is very likely a copy of the original. Each light has a trefoiled head, supporting a complete trefoil, and the three remaining tracery lights are also trefoil-headed. The west window of this aisle is a wide thirteenth century lancet, set high in the wall, and probably re-used from the north side of the old nave. The stone work of the outer part has been renewed. The roof of this aisle is ancient, and appears to belong to the fifteenth century, judging by the embattled wall plate. It is of the usual steep-pitched Gothic type in Kent, with tie-beams and plain king posts. The south porch, with short trefoil-headed windows on either sidee, appears to belong to the fourteenth century, though it has few definite characteristics, apart from its windows. The outer doorway is modern. Until early in the seventeenth century the church had a small wooden bell turret supporting a spirelet covered with lead. This was partly built on the west gable of the nave, but was mainly supported on a wooden framework built up 168 RINGWOULD CHURCH. within the church.1 Early in the seventeenth century this wooden spire fell into disrepair, and its place was taken by the present tower, which was built of flint with brick dressings in almost exactly the same position. The east, north and south walls of the tower with double buttresses at the corners are wholly built witnin the west end of the nave. The west wall of the tower is built upon, and incorporates, the west wall of the nave. The north and south extremities of the old west wall form the base of the north and south buttresses of the tower, and the western buttresses are built up outside the west wall of the nave. The tower rises into two stages above the roof of the church. All the dressings are of brick, including the belfry windows, which are of classical form with moulded pediments. The corners of the upper part of the tower, and the parapet, are wholly of brick. The parapet appears not to be in its original condition, but has a straight top finished in cement. At the south-east corner there is a projection above the level of the parapet resembling the familiar Kentish feature of the stair-case turret, although it does not actually contain the stairs, access to the roof being obtained through it by means of a ladder set on the bell frame. The top of this turret is crowned by an ogee-shaped spirelet of lead with a wrought iron base for the weather vane. The whole of the tower is extraordinarily picturesque, and forms a fine example of a tower of essentially Kentish late-Gothic type, carried out with Renaissance detail. It is of special interest because we happen to possess a contemporary account of its erection, in the form of an appeal, dated 1628, to the Archdeacon for permission to substitute it for the wooden structure formerly existing. A simple roundheaded arch leads into the church and another like a large doorway, leads into the north aisle. Another on the south side of the tower gives access to a staircase partly in the narrow space between the tower and the south wall of the church, partly overlapping the south nave wall itself, where 1 Similar examples are common in the South of England, especially in Surrey and Essex. It would be easy to mention cases such as Crowhurst in Surrey where the bell turret and spire are small, or Mountnessing in Essex where they are of larger size. RINGWOULD CHURCH. 169 £':'.:;•'';!!'-"•" m k & . W.H.E. "bwirflnhffingwould. 170 RINGWOULD CHURCH. the splay of the tweKth century window has been cut away to receive it. This staircase gives access to the second stage of the tower from which a ladder leads to a bell chamber. The church underwent drastic " restoration " in the nineteenth century. None of the old fittings survive, save a painting of the Royal arms of George IV., two benefaction boards and an old chest of the seventeenth century. The font is modern, as are also the roofs of the nave and chancel. There is a modern chancel arch, and modern windows have been inserted in the north wall of the north aisle, and in the south wall of the nave east of the porch, superseding those shown in Petrie's drawing. The chancel floor has been raised, thus stultifying the position of the sedilia ; the pulpit, reredos, choir stalls and seating are all modern. With the exception of the north wall of the chancel and the west wall of the nave, the east and west walls of the porch and the south-west corner of the nave all the external wall surfaces were refaced with flints of the nineteenth century. Recently the organ has been moved into the north aisle, a wooden door in a suitable frame with a window above it filled with plain Dutch glass of the eighteenth century, has been inserted in the tower arch to keep away draughts. A simple wooden lych-gate has been erected on the west side of the churchyard, and the churchyard paths paved with brick. All these improvements are due to the generosity of Sir Bignell Elliott. Ringwould does not occur in Cozens' Tour. It is mentioned in Parson's scarce work, but the then rector, Mr. Geo. Gipps, who communicated to Mr. Parsons on Sep. 21, 1790, the monuments in the church, has not mentioned any of the brasses. [Mr. Gipps' burial place is marked by a stone beneath the arch from the tower into the nave, stating that he died at the age of forty-one, on March 2nd, 1802 ; and there is a tablet to his memory on the nave wall east of the south door. There is one late inscription in English, in the floor of the nave, to Captain John Jeken, of Oxney, gentleman, his wife Susanna and three of his children. Hediedin 1720.—V.J.T.] » [Photo. : Edward Mills Exterior from the north-west. Interior from the north-west corner of the building. RINGWOULD CHURCH. RINGWOULD CHURCH. 171 The following note on the brasses has been kindly contributed by Mr. Ralph Griffin, Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London : The monumental brasses which existed in slabs on the floor at the restoration were dragged out of them and fixed in the plaster of the wall " out of harm's way." The slabs appear to have been destroyed. The brasses have been fixed in a rather haphazard way, so that it is difficult to tell from the inspection of them as they are now how many and what they were. But luckily old rubbings exist in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries, which make it possible to sort out the mixed fragments, that now remain of three separate memorials. The most interesting is the little effigy and inscription for John Upton, 1530. This is complete and unharmed, and furnishes a good example of a brass from a local workshop, probably at Canterbury. Such specimens of local Kentish workmanship are not common. Next is a mutilated inscription for Elizabeth Gaunt, 1580, which can be restored from the account given by Hasted in his notes on the church. The third was once a brass with effigies of a man, Wm. Abere, 1505, and his two wives, Alys and Amis. There was a scroll above, running from the man's mouth. Below was the inscription and below that probably two groups of children. Of all this only the upper portion of the wife on the man's right; the scroll; the inscription ; and one group of children, two sons and three daughters with, long hair remain. Glynne notes that at his visit he found the man's figure also " in good preservation." There is in the same collection a rubbing made in 1862 of a brass now entirely lost. It is noted by Hasted " In the north isle an antient gravestone coffin shaped on which is a cross patonce on a griece of three steps." The cross by 1862 had got much mutilated and the steps had vanished. The rubbing is endorsed "March 21, 1862. On a mutilated coped coffin slab in N.A."