Parish Church of St Cecilia

Parish Church of St Cecilia

This is a parish church of outstanding architectural interest, largely rebuilt in the 14th century on the site of a small medieval church in a shrunken hilltop village, situated a little west of Hadham Hall.

The building is constructed of flint rubble with stone dressings for the nave, chancel and west tower. The north transept and 19th-century vestry are built of red brick. The roofs are finished with old red tiles over the north transept and timber south porch, and slates over the nave and chancel.

The unaisled nave has walls that may date to the 12th century, evidenced by a semicircular inner arch on the altered north door. The imposing late 14th-century west tower rises in three stages with diagonal buttresses and an embattled parapet. It carries a short leaded spire with a wind vane. The west door has a two-centred arch within a square surround under a dripmould with carved heads as terminals. The three-light west window features similar carved dripmould terminals and bears a marginal inscription in glazing reading 'Restituta AD 1845 Rectore T R'.

The 14th-century chancel is square-ended and of the same width as the nave, divided from it only by a timber screen and change in roof height. Diagonal buttresses mark the east end, with additional buttresses added at the west end of the nave.

The chancel was extensively restored in 1883 by Sir Arthur Blomfield for Mr Bury, the first rector of the newly separated parish. Blomfield refaced the east and south walls in flintwork and provided a new three-light east window, a pine hammer-beam roof, seating, an encaustic tile floor and steps, altar, carved stone reredos, iron altar rail, and a small vestry on the north side.

The south porch is a notable late 14th-century timber-framed structure of wide proportions with two bays and a gable. It features trefoil heads to the sidelights and a heavy cusped bargeboard with a central ogee. The door frame has a four-centred head.

The large late 16th-century north transept is constructed of narrow red brick with a tiled roof and a gable parapet. It has diagonal buttresses and is lit by three-light arched windows in the east and west walls, an arched doorway with a square surround on the east wall, and a four-light north window with intersecting tracery. A wide four-centred moulded arch on semi-octagonal piers with moulded caps opens from the nave into the transept. This architectural change converted the original linear medieval church plan into a T-shaped plan oriented as a Protestant auditory, focused on the pulpit positioned in the middle of the south wall. The transept appears to have provided a gallery and private entrance in its east wall for the Capell family of Hadham Hall.

An octagonal pulpit with a tester, dated 1633, now stands in the south wall position and has been converted to a three-decker form.

A layout plan of 1692 shows much of the present pew arrangement, though the south-east block now faces the altar. Fragmentary painted inscriptions with strapwork surrounds appear on the east and west walls of the gallery. Moulded cornices and wall-plates run along the east and west walls. Carved arabesques decorate the top row of wall panelling in the transept and on the south wall of the nave.

The nave roof dates to the 15th century and is of low pitch, with a queen post structure in four bays. It features moulded, cambered tie beams supported on long curved braces with cusped, pierced spandrels rising from sculptured stone corbels. The Royal Arms bearing 'GR 1825' is painted in the centre of the west-wall truss.

The 15th-century chancel screen is of moulded oak with five narrow traceried lights on each side of the entrance. The mullions are carved as stepped buttresses, and the rail bears pomegranate scrollwork carved on two panels each side of the entrance, with the remainder left plain and the mullions recessed to accommodate former side altars. Eight medieval tiles are used as a threshold in the entrance, with four more hung in the vestry doorway.

A late 14th-century piscina stands on the south of the altar. Two large 18th-century benefaction boards to Mr John Hammon and Mr Thomas Chapman hang on the west wall of the nave, each with an eared architrave, rounded head and broken pediment. An octagonal stone font, said to be 16th-century, stands in the church. Brasses on the south wall include a knight and lady dating to around 1485, and a 15th-century priest. Fine inscribed floor slabs north and south of the altar were raised from the Capel vault during the 1883 restoration. Late 16th and 17th-century pews remain in the nave.

The church is of outstanding interest for its 16th-century north transept and its conversion to a Protestant T-plan church with a complete nave layout and fittings. It forms a hilltop landmark and is part of a picturesque hamlet group.