It doesn’t look much from the outside, does it? There are, at least, two interesting things outside as it happens but I wanted to see the inside and the church was locked. Lucky me that a gardener was strimming and let me in.
Harefield is within the M25 near Ickenham in NW London, not where you would expect to find such a gem of a church. Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner in London 3: North West give a flavour.
The prevailing impression inside the church is one of happy crowding: tall pews, a Gothic Revival gallery … plenty of other furnishings, and more funeral monuments than any other church of similar size anywhere near London. The chancel especially is as cram-full of curious objects as the rooms of the Soane Museum. The reredos, with sumptuous acanthus scroll and ribbon work carving and two elegant kneeling angels on top … the equally sumptuous late 17th C altar rails and the chairs are said to come from a Flemish monastery.
It is the monuments that are the knock-out. Alice Spencer, Countess of Derby, died in 1637. Back to Pevsner.
Her tomb is a four-poster, old-fashioned for its date, with the Countess lying on a tomb-chest in whose west wall three kneeling daughters are set up in niches. The four columns with thick looped-up curtains of stone support a baldacchino (a ceremonial canopy of stone, metal, or fabric over an altar, throne, or doorway) with crests at the corners.
That’s on the right of the altar. Here’s another monument and Pevsner can do the honours again.
A famous carver of a later generation, Grinling Gibbons, showed his more up-to-date version of the Countess of Derby motif in his monument to the left of the altar to Mary Newdigate and her husband Richard. Here again reclining figure and a canopy with curtains, but now all is white, and the lady lies in a comfortable position, half sitting up; she displays a simple loose Roman robe and no emotion whatever.
I’ve just given you a taster of the inside of this extraordinary church. Now we must pop outside before we run out of space. First a memorial plaque to Robert Mossendew, gamekeeper to the Ashby family who died in 1744. The relief depicts him with gun and dog.
The inscription is a bit worn so here it is.
In frost and snow thro’ Hail and rain
He scour’d the woods and Trudg’d the plain
The steady pointer, Leads the way,
Stands at the scent then springs the prey
The timorous birds from stubble rise
With pinions stretch’d divide the skys
The scatter’d lead pursues the sight
And death in thunder stops their flight.
His spaniel of true English kind
Who’s gratitude reflam’d his mind
This servant in an honest way
In all his actions copy’d Tray.
I suppose his dog was called Tray? Now a picture of the newer part of the graveyard.
In WW I Harefield Park, thanks to its generous American owners, was turned into a hospital for wounded Australian troops. Some 50,000 came here of which 112 did not survive and you are looking at their graves. You may notice that the headstones are unusual in not conforming to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission template. There is a memorial to them in the church and many Australians, judging by the visitors’ book, visit.
Looks like a real gem, will visit when in London next time. Thank you for bringing this church to my atttention.
I can drive you there but next time I will make an appointment. It was a stroke of luck my finding the gardener.