Church Of St Martin

TF 7928 HOUGHTON HOUGHTON PARK

10/16 Church of St. 5.6.53. Martin.

G.V. I

Parish church. C14, C15, details largely C18 and C19. Squared and knapped flint, stone and carstone dressings, galleting; slated roofs. West tower, 4 bay nave and aisles, north porch used as vestry, 2 bay chancel. West tower 1726. Built by Sir Robert Walpole in memory of his grandfather. Gothick, perhaps pointing to the involvement of William Kent. 4 stages with set off angle buttresses. 4-centred arched entrance with bulbous piers. 4-centred window above with switch tracery division, boarding behind, platband below and above with drip mould indentation. Quatrefoil with boarding above. One 2-light window with bulbous shafts with quatrefoil in spandrel and ogee arch with crocketting, detached drip mould arch above, to each face of bell chamber. Battlemented parapet with 4 crocketted angle spirelets. Angles have set off buttresses with stone quoins to bell chamber level, with quoined angles above. North and south faces have blank ground floor 2-centred arches with detached horizontal drip mould above. 2 centred switch tracery boarded windows above. South aisle has one C18 or C19 2-light Perpendicular style east and west window, 3 C19 south 3-light straight headed windows. North aisle, connected with a donation of 1573, has one C18 or C19 Perpendicular style 2-light east window. 2 3-light Perpendicular north windows with some original surviving tracery, one 3-light east window. 5 north and south clerestorey 2-light switch tracery windows of same details as tower. Aisles have limestone parapets, clerestorey has carstone cornice, both of C18 classical inspiration. Chancel has one 2-light south and one 3-light north C15 or C19 Perpendicular style window. East window mid C19 Decorated style. Interior: 4 bay north and south double hollow chamfered arches on alternate octagonal and quatrefoil piers, C14. Chancel arch has trefoil piers and moulded arch, possibly C13. Early English piscina in re-cut setting. C17 stalls with arm rest figures. 4 bay Gothick west family tribune with 4 quadripartite piers, blank tracery against gallery front, probably 1726. Many Walpole family hatchments. Box pews in aisles, some benches in nave. Early C19 Gothick pulpit, carved stairs. In front of chancel arch table tomb monument, said to be of 1307. Figure in mass vestments of a Prior of Cockesford, under ogee arch head with finials. Said to have been removed here in 1522. Sir Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Oxford and his three successors, included Horace Walpole, buried here.

Listing NGR: TF7937028382