Crofton Old Church

Crofton Old Church (St Edmund the Martyr), Titchfield Road, Crofton

This is a medieval church of cruciform plan with substantial evidence of development spanning from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. The building comprises a west nave with a bell turret on the ridge, an east chancel, a south chantry chapel, a south porch, north and south transepts, a Victorian vestry, and a north-east early twenty-first century toilet extension. The church is constructed in ashlar, rubble and brick with tiled roofs.

The chancel and south chapel possibly originate from the thirteenth century. The north transept dates to the fourteenth century, the nave to the fifteenth century, the early eighteenth-century south transept was rebuilt in the mid-nineteenth century, and the vestry is Victorian.

Exterior

On the south elevation, the nave roof is half-hipped to the west and pitched to the east. A simple square boarded bellcote with pyramidal tile roof sits on the ridge; the date is unknown but it may be contemporary with the bell dated 1710, and it is shown in this form in a mid-nineteenth-century illustration prior to Victorian restoration. The stone rubble nave has ashlar quoins. A two-light square-headed window west of the south porch is in fifteenth-century style although restored in the late twentieth century. The gabled south porch and south transept are rendered. The transept is wide and dominates the south elevation, featuring two three-light Gothic Revival windows. The junction of nave, chancel and south chapel roofs is somewhat awkward. A further south-side door gives access to the chapel and chancel, both constructed in stone rubble with ashlar quoins. The chapel has a two-light east window of fourteenth-century date, while a simple lancet to the chancel suggests thirteenth-century origin. Stepped brick buttresses flank the three-light east window, much of whose stonework has been repaired in the late twentieth century. Ties run to the gable on the rendered east elevation, which has a steeply pitched roof.

The north elevation is largely of rubble construction with traces of alteration to the west and centre. It incorporates re-used small round window heads which stylistically may have come from the pre-Conquest church. The north transept and chancel north wall are rendered. Buttresses employ a combination of brick and stone. Square-headed two-light nave windows appear on this elevation as on the south, probably of fifteenth-century date. A leper's squint with cusped head is located west of the door into the north transept. The chancel north window and north transept east window are similar, simple flat-headed two-light windows of fourteenth-century date. A large three-light north window to the north transept displays curvilinear tracery of fourteenth-century character. The north-east modern extension is not of special interest.

The west elevation is largely brick built of eighteenth-century date apart from the south-west and north-west corners (ashlar) and further stonework below the early twenty-first-century west window.

Interior

The nave and chancel are not on the same axis. The chancel and south chapel have simple fourteenth-century arches. An unusual half-arch between chapel and nave is of similar form but springs from a thirteenth-century south springer, suggesting the chapel may be of earlier origin than its present appearance indicates.

The nave has an oak roof of Queen post construction with massive tie-beams. An interrupted wall-plate and the form of the roof to the west suggest remodelling, probably to support the addition of the belfry turret. The wall-plate to the east is supported on a wooden pier, which was inserted when the south transept was added, resulting in a half-timbered north wall to the transept. The chancel roof has an unusual form featuring a Crown post and Crown plate arrangement. The south door and porch have four-centred arches with double panelled doors. Floors are tiled with some memorial slabs.

A simple stone font, probably of fifteenth-century date, stands in the nave. An oak panelled pulpit of late seventeenth-century or early eighteenth-century date is mounted in the church. A bell is inscribed 'John Pafford Churchwarden Clement Tosear cast mee year 1710'.

The oldest stained glass is in the north transept east window, displaying an eighteenth-century pattern of stripes, fleur-de-lys and leaves in gold and red. Most other stained glass dates to the nineteenth century, though some bears World War Two blast damage. A round west window of 1988 symbolises the crown and martyrdom of St Edmund. Many pews were replaced in 1970 using examples from Holy Rood Stubbington, while those made for this church in the mid-nineteenth century echo the form of the chancel panelling. Box pews in the north transept probably date from the early eighteenth century.

A wall-mounted decalogue is mounted either side of the chancel east window, painted in 1815 by Robert Smith (signed). A small painted panel above the east window displays a rare tetragrammaton (sacred word of four letters), appearing to be of the same date and style as the decalogue: painted on a sunburst are Hebrew letters spelling JHVH, signifying Jehovah.

An enormous marble monument dominates the south transept, taking the form of a tapering wall-mounted slab commemorating Thomas Minnis (died 1733). A bust of the deceased is positioned above a pedimented tablet with inscription applied to a fluted sarcophagus supporting urns. The monument is topped by a coat of arms. Naghten family memorials occupy the north transept with a crypt below. Other memorials commemorate naval figures.

History

A church existed at Crofton in Anglo-Saxon times, being mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Crofton Church of the Holy Rood. However, the fabric of the present building is essentially fourteenth-century or later except for some pre-Conquest re-used window-heads incorporated in the north nave wall and hints of a possible thirteenth-century origin for the chancel and chapel. From 1232, the church was a possession of Titchfield Abbey and functioned as a chapel-of-ease for the parish church of St Peter, Titchfield, continuing in this role after the surrender of the abbey to Henry VIII in 1537 severed its monastic link. Crofton with Stubbington became a separate parish in 1871, and a new parish church, Holy Rood Stubbington, was built in 1878 to designs by T Goodchild. This reflected the population decline of Crofton village and the expansion of Stubbington in the mid-nineteenth century.

In a 1331 charter, the church is recorded as St Edmund's but appears as Holy Rood in the Liber Regis of 1534. Its most recent rededication to St Edmund the Martyr took place in 1878 following the construction and dedication of Holy Rood Stubbington. Thomas Minnis built the south transept in 1725 to accommodate his family pews and mausoleum. He was Member of Parliament for Southampton and the merchant responsible for victualling Gibraltar. He was presumably responsible for the shaped gable and segmental windows to the south transept shown in a mid-nineteenth-century illustration in the National Monuments Record. The transept now has a pitched roof with Gothic Revival windows, which must date to the major mid-nineteenth-century restoration commemorated by the gift of the Lectern Bible in 1865.

The church was renovated in the late twentieth century following the establishment of The Friends of Crofton Old Church in the 1980s. The roof was repaired and restored in the early twenty-first century with some rafters and tiles replaced.