Northaw

St Thomas a Becket - no, no, no but then a bit yes which is slightly disturbing for a late Victorian build. It gets worse on the inside but turns out to be rather glorious; it's a fine example of a Victorian attempt to recreate the Gothic past on a grand scale.

It reminded me of All Saints, Cambridge and Geldart's work in Essex although Geldart is much more flamboyant.

Put simply I loved it and this disturbs me.

ST THOMAS THE MARTYR, 1882, by Kirk & Sons of Sleaford (GR). In its rock-facing, its pinnacles on the W tower, and its flowing tracery quite alien in the county. The tracery of the W window is in fact very Sleafordish. - PLATE. Chalice and Paten, 1636; Paten, 1668; Flagon, 1749; Paten, 1785.

Northaw. Charles Lamb, who loved this countryside, would climb up here from the deep wooded valley where the rivulets flow to the Lea on the east and the Colne on the west. Centuries before Lamb came this way to spend his holidays, this pleasant country attracted someone else, for James I took part of Northaw Common to complete his Cheshunt estate of Theobald’s Park. The money he paid for it still brings the village a few hundred pounds a year as the interest of what is called King  James’s Fund. Theobald’s Park is no more, and the old church by the green has given way to a handsome new church, which has kept from the old the 15th-century font with crosses and Tudor roses, and a Stuart chalice. On the green is the striking memorial to the men who fell in the Great War, a cross rising 25 feet high with the figure of Our Lord.

Flickr.