Lych Gate, Bridge and Retaining Wall to Churchyard at Church of St Mary is a Grade II listed building in the East Hertfordshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 20 April 1988. Lych gate.
Lych Gate, Bridge and Retaining Wall to Churchyard at Church of St Mary
- WRENN ID
- blind-grate-rook
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- East Hertfordshire
- Constituency
- North East Hertfordshire MP: Chris Hinchliff (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 20 April 1988
- Type
- Lych gate
- Address
- Lych Gate, Bridge and Retaining Wall to Churchyard at Church of St Mary, Church Lane, Bayford
- OS grid reference
- TL 309 088
- Coordinates
- 51.7627, -0.10373
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The lych gate, bridge, and retaining wall at the Church of St. Mary were built between 1870 and 1871 by Henry Woodyer as part of the church's outworks for William Robert Baker of Bayfordbury. The structure features an oak frame and a Kentish ragstone bridge with sidewalls. The wall consists of alternating bands of Kentish ragstone and red brick, topped with a hipped and gabletted roof made of red tiles, which has a wrought iron foliate cross on top.
The lych gate is a small square structure raised on the low parapets of the bridge, which spans a ha-ha and is supported by a banded retaining wall that serves as the new boundary for the churchyard, extended to the southeast and southwest when the new church was constructed to the south of the former church.
The gate is supported by four posts on sill beams running north-south, featuring convex quadrant bracing to the sill and arched bracing to the wallplates in both directions. The roof has a single bay crown-post design with square posts and axial curved braces. The gablets have pierced boarding infill, similar to the gabled vents in the church roof. There is ragstone infill between the side-posts and a simple double gate. The retaining wall has a special brick-on-edge red coping, and there is a pointed arch over the watercourse beneath the bridge.
Local climate
Lych Gate, Bridge and Retaining Wall to Churchyard at Church of St Mary sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 88% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 84% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 33 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 55% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- Sale history — 1 transaction since 2000
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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