Church Of St Edmund

St Edmund's is a medieval parish church with fabric spanning from the early 13th century to the present day, though its origins likely predate the visible remains. The building demonstrates several distinct building campaigns and has undergone significant alterations in both the mid-18th century and the Victorian period.

Historical Development

The earliest visible fabric is the lower part of the tower, dating to the early 13th century. The aisles, chancel, north porch and upper part of the tower were added in the 14th century, probably in several campaigns. The south chapel was added in the 15th century and the south porch in the early 16th century.

Major alterations and repairs were carried out in the mid-18th century, including the rebuilding or refacing of the chancel in ashlar, rebuilding the upper part of the tower, and many internal modifications which no longer survive except for the plastered ceilings in the porches. The south aisle roof had cast lead letters reading 'The Honourable Edward Bouverie Esqr 1764'.

The church was restored in 1868-69 by Robert Palgrave of London, who stripped out all of the 18th-century furnishings, replastered internally and restored the windows, including replacing the east window. Additional restoration in 1992-94 included opening up the north door and porch and work to the roofs.

Materials and Construction

The church is largely built of coursed, dressed ironstone rubble. The chancel has been refaced in ashlar, and the tower is uncoursed small rubble except for a coursed masonry rebuilding of the upper half of the upper stage. The nave, chancel and north aisle have lead roofs, whilst slate covers the south aisle and north and south porches. Internally the walls are plastered and painted with ironstone arches exposed. The roofs are open timber construction.

Plan

The church comprises an aisled nave with north and south porches and west tower. The chancel has a south chapel. Five-bay north and south nave arcades run the length of the nave, and the south chancel chapel opens through a single arch.

Exterior

The chancel, refaced in ashlar in the 18th century, has a coped east gable, parapets and very prominent quoins. Small, capped pilasters on the parapet create a slightly crenellated effect. The 19th-century three-light Decorated east window has a hood mould with headstops. Some patching, possibly of a blocked opening, appears on the south side.

The nave has a plain parapet on the south side only. Small, square clerestory windows are of post-medieval, probably 18th-century date. The north and south aisles have small buttresses, diagonal at the corners. The south aisle and south-east chancel chapel are continuous, but a diagonal buttress marks the line of the former east wall of the south aisle. The south aisle and chapel have heavily renewed Perpendicular windows with foiled lights under square heads; those on the north aisle are larger and have ogee-headed lights. Both aisle west windows are blocked, but appear to have been tall, single lights.

The north porch has a continuously moulded outer opening under a hood mould and an 18th-century pineapple finial on the gable; the inner doorway, also moulded, is very narrow. The ceiling is plastered. The south porch has a blocked, 16th-century depressed-headed arch with a hood mould, single light north and south windows, and an 18th-century obelisk finial.

The west tower has two stages separated by a string course with a battlemented parapet with obelisk pinnacles at the corners. It is unbuttressed except for a diagonal buttress to the south-west corner, and a straight buttress in the middle of the south wall. The lower stage is 13th century or earlier, and has a small lancet with a hood mould in the south wall. The north door dates to 1868-69; to the left is a blocked rounded-headed opening that may represent an older door or an opening into a now lost chamber to the north of the tower. The upper stage has a Decorated style two-light window in each face, the upper parts rebuilt in the mid-18th century. The parapet and obelisk pinnacles also date to the mid-18th century and once held metal vanes.

Interior

The interior was restored in 1868-69, when all the 18th-century fittings were removed, the roofs renewed, the walls replastered, and a new east window installed.

The early 13th-century tower arch, lower than the arcades, is of three plain, square orders on chamfered imposts. The five-bay north and south nave arcades date to the 14th century, both sides with moulded arches, hoodmoulds and moulded capitals on polygonal piers. The south arcade capitals and first bay on the north are flatter than the rest of the north arcade, suggesting a rebuilding of an older structure in several phases. The chancel arch is of two moulded orders, the inner on corbels with renewed moulded capitals similar to the north arcade, and a hoodmoulding with headstops. The nave roof has tie beams, king posts and struts, with arched braces, boarded behind the rafters.

The chancel has no windows to north and south. It opens to the south chapel through a 15th-century arch (now largely hidden by the organ case) of two chamfered orders on moulded capitals and bases with octagonal half responds. The south chapel opens to the south aisle without an arch. The chancel is raised several steps above the nave and has a vault below. The south porch, accessible only from the inside, is now used as a kitchen and toilet.

Principal Fixtures

The Perpendicular style font was a gift of the architect in 1869. There is another small, disused 15th-century font with a simple, moulded polygonal bowl on a polygonal stem and base.

The church contains a number of important monuments. In the south-east chapel stands an alabaster and black marble wall monument to Stephen Harvey (died 1606), his wife (died 1590) and three sons, with kneeling figures in two tiers in canopied recesses. Also in the south-east chapel is an alabaster monument to Sir Stephen Harvey, Knight of the Bath (died 1630) with recumbent figure on a chest, with some original colour surviving.

In the chancel, the sedilia in the chancel south wall is a table tomb recess with a late 16th or early 17th-century arch with guilloche and other Renaissance motifs, surmounted by an angel with a trumpet and the Tate crest. There is no inscription on the slab, but the Tate family held the rectory and a local manor from 1590. On the north chancel wall is a large and beautifully executed wall monument to Bartholomew Clarke (died 1746) by Rysbrack, with an inscription panel with volutes below a squat obelisk with two profile busts in medallions. A third medallion added by Rysbrack underneath commemorates Clarke's brother-in-law Hitch Young (died 1759). The chancel also contains a number of oval medallions to members of the Bouverie family. Other commemorative plaques are located in the nave.

Several faded windows by Hardman survive, along with an unusual window of 1929 by Ernest W Twining (1875-1956), who executed a number of windows in the Northampton area. The glass was painted, not stained, and the paint is now peeling off.

Historical Context

Hardingstone village is now a suburb of Northampton, reflecting the growth of the latter in the 19th and 20th centuries. Hardingstone was apparently given to St Andrew's Priory, Northampton at its foundation around 1093-1100, but it is not mentioned in documents until the early 13th century when a vicarage was instituted. The earliest surviving fabric is the early 13th-century tower base, but this was probably added to an earlier church. The funeral cortege of Queen Eleanor stopped at nearby Delapré Abbey in 1290, an event commemorated by an Eleanor Cross (one of only three surviving), but this left no apparent mark on the parish church.

Following the dissolution of the monasteries, the church became the burial place of the families living at Delapré Abbey: the Tates, Clarkes and Bouveries. The church was extensively restored in the mid-18th century by Edward Bouverie of Delapré, including reroofing and rebuilding the chancel and the top of the tower. The 18th-century interior fittings were removed during the restoration of the church in 1868-69. Further restoration took place in the later 20th century, when the north door and porch was unblocked and metal vanes removed from the tower pinnacles.