Church Of St Martin Of Tours

The Church of St Martin of Tours

The Church of St Martin of Tours at Ruislip has origins stretching back to at least the 11th century, when a priest is recorded here in the Domesday Book of 1086, suggesting a church existed at that date. The earliest surviving feature is the late 12th-century font. The chancel arch, nave and aisles were rebuilt in several phases during the 13th century. The chancel is largely 15th century, as are the south aisle and the west tower. Around 1500, the north aisle was rebuilt and the south chancel chapel was added. The tower staircase was inserted during the 16th or 17th century. The church underwent restoration in several phases during the 19th century, with the main restoration carried out by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1869-70. The west porch was added later in the 19th century, and further work was undertaken in the 20th century.

Materials and Construction

The church is built mainly of flint rubble with dressings of Reigate and other stone. The nave and chancel roofs are covered in red tile, while the aisles and tower are roofed in lead.

Plan

The church comprises a nave with north and south aisles, a southwest tower and west porch. The chancel has a south chapel that continues the line of the south aisle.

Exterior

This is a long, relatively low church, externally largely dating from the 15th and early 16th centuries, but notably without the clerestory common to many churches of that period. The embattled southwest tower stands over the western bay of the south aisle and is divided into two unequal stages by a string course, the lower stage being much taller. There are three levels of windows: a three-light west window, small round-headed windows in the upper part of the lower stage to south and west (the south one blocked), and around 1500, two-light windows under square heads in all faces of the upper stage.

The nave has a relatively steeply pitched roof with a single dormer on the south side. Both north and south aisles have embattled parapets. The west window is 14th century and has three lights. Below it stands the embattled late 19th-century west porch with an ogee-headed outer opening and a statue niche above.

The walls of the south aisle and south chancel chapel are continuous, but the chapel is a later addition and has slightly different buttresses. There is a blocked south nave door. The north aisle, rebuilt around 1500, has three-light north windows with four-centred heads and a similar five-light east window. The north door has a four-centred arch set within a square frame with Tudor roses in the spandrels.

The chancel was rebuilt in the 15th century and features two-light north and south windows and a five-light east window with vertical tracery in a four-centred head. There is no parapet on the chancel.

Interior

The interior is plastered, though some medieval wall paintings have been exposed. The core of the interior, including the chancel arch and both nave arcades, dates from the 13th century but was extensively remodelled in the later Middle Ages.

The mid-13th-century chancel arch is of two chamfered orders on semi-octagonal responds with moulded capitals and bases. The chancel is largely 15th century, but the scar of an earlier, more steeply pitched roof remains above the chancel arch on the chancel west wall.

The five-bay south nave arcade is early to mid-13th century and has one square and one chamfered order on alternating round and octagonal columns. The corbel at the west end is 19th century. The south aisle was rebuilt and widened in the 15th century, but its roof was redone in the 16th century to flatten its pitch. The southwest tower stands over its west bay and opens to the aisle through a tall two-centred arch of two continuous chamfered orders, and to the nave through a similar but smaller arch. A stair for the tower was inserted into the southwest corner of the nave.

The mid to late 13th-century north arcade has six bays with two-centred arches of two chamfered orders on alternately round and octagonal columns. The north aisle was rebuilt, and probably widened, around 1500, at which point a rood stair was also inserted into the southeast corner of the aisle where its east wall joins the back of the arcade.

Roofs

The church retains its late medieval roofs. In the chancel, there is a 15th-century arch-braced and wind-braced roof of three bays. In the nave, 15th-century wall plates and braces form four-centred arches; the boarding behind has been renewed. In the aisles are 16th-century roofs, both low-pitched, with moulded ridges and tie beams. The spandrels of the curved braces are carved with foliage, and there are bosses at the main intersections. The posts in the south aisle rest on stone corbels from an earlier roof, while the posts in the north aisle rest on timber corbels.

The chancel north door, north aisle north door and the rood loft door are all late medieval.

Principal Fixtures

The church has very good fittings, including many surviving from the pre-Reformation period.

Liturgical Fittings

The late 12th-century Purbeck marble font has a square chamfered bowl supported on a central shaft and four corner shafts, the latter renewed. There are late 15th-century piscinas in both the chancel and the south aisle. A rood beam on original brackets at the east end of the nave supports a late 19th or early 20th-century rood. The early 17th-century pulpit is hexagonal with a short hexagonal stem. The outer faces have arches with faceted rustication. The upper and lower bands have rounded cabochons and arabesques, and there are half-balusters on the angles.

Floors

Some 14th-century tiles survive in the chancel with intersecting designs of fleur-de-lys, heraldic motifs and foliage. There are also a number of good ledger slabs in the chancel.

Seating

In the nave are some 15th-century benches with moulded top rails and ends, two with traceried backs, one of which is renewed. There is a 16th-century bench with linenfold panelling in the chancel.

Stained Glass

The stained glass is mostly 19th and early 20th century, but in the northwest window of the north aisle is part of a 16th-century roundel with the letter M. In the chancel, the northeast window of 1953 depicts St Martin. The other two chancel north windows show the life of St Martin by C E Kempe, around 1900. In the south aisle are four windows of 1870 showing the life of Christ by Lavers, Barraud and Westlake.

Wall Paintings

Several medieval wall paintings have been exposed and others probably remain under the plaster. On the chancel east and north walls are diaper patterns of foliage. In the nave above the north and south arcades are scenes from the life of a saint, probably St Martin. Also on the north side are the Seven Deadly Sins and on the south the Acts of Mercy. In the north aisle by the rood stair door is St Michael weighing a soul, with the Virgin to the left, and below, St Lawrence with his gridiron.

Monuments

The church has many good monuments, including a 14th-century incised slab to Roger de Sothcote. In the chancel are a number of memorials to the Hawtreys of Eastcote who farmed (collected on behalf of the owners) the tithes in the post-medieval period. There are two late 16th-century brasses to Richard Hawtrey, died 1574, and wife, and to John Hawtrey, died 1593, and his wife.

On the chancel north wall is a large alabaster and marble tablet to Ralph Hawtrey, Justice of the Peace, died 1638, and Mary his wife, died 1647, by John and Matthias Christmas, with busts in oval recesses, black marble pilasters and banding, and a cornice with a central pediment and scroll, shields of arms and achievements. There are also several other 17th-century marble wall tablets and a large number of 17th and 18th-century floor slabs to the Hawtreys in the chancel.

Also in the chancel is a large marble wall monument to Thomas Bright, vicar, died 1673-74, and to five of his infant grandchildren, erected by his son, the children's father, Jeremiah Bright (see also bread shelf) in or after 1696. Mourning putti stand to either side of an aedicule with a heavy cornice on Corinthian columns, and there are also two cherub heads below the large black and white marble bracket. There are also some 17th and 18th-century wall monuments in the nave.

Miscellaneous Furnishings

The bread cupboard of 1697 has a broken segmental pediment with the arms of Jeremiah Bright surrounded by ears of wheat, enriched pilasters and four shelves on a Corinthian bracket. An inscription records Bright's gift. There is a very large collection of hatchments, mostly in the tower.

History

The church itself at Ruislip is first mentioned around 1190, but a priest is mentioned at Ruislip in the Domesday Book of 1086, and it seems reasonable to assume there was also a church there at that date. The font is late 12th century, but the earliest visible fabric in the church is mid-13th century, and successive rebuildings have obliterated any traces of an earlier church.

Ruislip was given to Bec Abbey in Normandy in the late 11th century, and the monks of Bec set up an administrative centre at Ruislip, although the parish church was never used as a monastic church. After the English property of all foreign monasteries was seized in the mid-15th century, the church was given to the Dean and Canons of St George's Windsor.

Ruislip remained very rural well into the 19th century, and the church of St Martin served the whole parish until 1854, when a new parish was formed in Northwood. The parish was further subdivided later in the 19th and in the 20th centuries as suburban development spread in the area.