Church Of St Bartholomew

Church of St Bartholomew, Brightwell Baldwin

Church. Built in the 13th century and substantially rebuilt in the early 14th century, with the west tower remodelled and a north chapel added in the 15th century. The building was restored in 1895. It is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, partly rendered to the north, and has a gabled old tile roof. The plan comprises a chancel, north chapel, aisled nave and west tower.

The chancel has a reticulated 3-light east window. The south side of the chancel features three 2-light ogee-headed windows, a pointed chamfered doorway and a similar 15th-century transomed window. The 15th-century north chapel has label moulds with head stops over 2- and 3-light windows.

The north aisle contains three 2-light ogee-headed windows, a pointed moulded doorway and a similar window in the west end. The south aisle has three 2-light reticulated windows, flanking a pointed moulded doorway to a late 19th-century door with an ancient decorated lock. A porch with a pointed chamfered doorway was built in 1904; it has a 2-light window with radiating mouchettes in the east end and a 2-light ogee-headed window in the west end.

The tower features large offset corner buttresses flanking a 2-light window over a pointed doorway set within a revealed moulded arch with crocketed niches. A 13th-century stair-turret with a quatrefoil window is positioned to the south. 13th-century paired lancets (partly restored) are also visible to the south. The late 18th-century third stage is crenellated with blind lunettes and crocketed pinnacles.

Interior

The chancel contains a blind reredos arcade with roof and stalls of the 1860s. A screen was erected in 1903. A 14th-century piscina and aumbry are located to the south, with a trefoil-headed recess to the north. The head of a blocked 13th-century lancet is set over and to the side of a 15th-century chamfered doorway with a 17th-century studded door opening to the north chapel, which has its own piscina. An early 14th-century double-chamfered blocked doorway leads to the north aisle, which contains the Stone family chapel to the east, separated by an early 14th-century archway and a late 19th-century screen.

The nave has early 14th-century four-bay arcades of double-chamfered arches with linking hoodmoulds set on octagonal piers. It contains a complete Jacobean pulpit with tester, a 14th-century octagonal font with a 17th-century cover, a late 19th-century reading desk and lectern, and 18th-century pews. Medieval floor tiles are visible at the east end of the south aisle and around the font. A slab in the porch commemorates Stephen Rumbold, d.1687.

The south aisle has a trefoil-headed piscina and medieval floor tiles at its east end.

Monuments and Memorials

The chancel wall contains a brass to John Cottesmore (d.1439) and his wife, and a floor brass depicting the same couple under canopies with 18 children below. Also present are 17th and 18th-century floor tablets. The north aisle has a wall brass to John the Smith (c.1371), probably the earliest surviving wall brass written in English.

The Stone family chapel contains an alabaster tomb chest to John Carleton (d.1547) and his wife, with lozenges framing shields and foils and a brass inscription, and a similar tomb chest to Anthony Carleton (d.1562) and his wife. A monument to William Lowndes Stone (d.1772) by Westmacott features a white marble urn and bay leaf garland. A monument to Edward Stone (1696) is a cartouche with cherubs supporting drapery and flowers. The south wall displays a wall monument to Francis Lowe (d.1754) and family, with a broken pediment and crest set over three inscription panels flanked by four Tuscan pilasters. The east wall has a lavish Baroque memorial erected c.1690 by John Stone in memory of his father and grandfather (d.1660 and 1640), featuring a cornice of armorial crests and a skull against a background of black smoke and flames painted on the ceiling, with three white flanking urns set in black marble shell niches and white inscription panels. The north aisle contains memorials to servants from Brightwell Park.

Stained Glass

The east window dates from c.1860. 14th-century glass appears in the heads of chancel windows, and the south-west chancel window contains 17th-century armorial glass, 15th-century Archangel Gabriel and Virgin. The vestry contains a 15th-century Christ on the Cross inserted between Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. The nave has 15th-century glass at the heads of south-east windows.

The Stone chapel east window contains an early 15th-century Virgin Annunciate (restored) and St Paul with canopies above and 15th-century armorial glass in the traceries. The west window features 15th-century armorial tracery glass over St Peter and St Paul and scales, with a devil attempting to drag down a naked soul held in balance.