St Mary the Blessed Virgin Hartley Wespall
The first Rector of Hartley Wespall, Edmund de Bedwyn, was appointed in 1286. However, it is thought that the oldest parts of the church date from about 1330.
Although the church was largely rebuilt under the supervision of Revd JC Keate and George Gilbert Scott in 1868, the original massive beams in the half-timbered construction survive in the West Wall along with the internal roof structure. At that time the Bell Tower was moved from the West to the North side of the church.
‘The west wall of Hartley Wespall church incorporates a spectacular early 14th Century decorative timber frame. It is conceived in two stages. At the lower level, the massive timbers give the illusion of strength and solidity appropriate to their position in the base of the building. Above, in the gable of the roof, the framing is much lighter and lace-like.
Particularly satisfying throughout the design is the way that small decorative projections or cusps are used to punctuate the curving lines of the timbers. There is no clear documentary evidence to date the frame, but the sinus form of its timbers suggest that it was erected in about 1330. The intersection of the braces bears generic comparison to the great scissor arches erected to support the buckling central towers of Wells Cathedral in 1338 - 48.
This wall at Hartley Wespall, part of a frame extending throughout the churches is a reminder that timber never passed entirely out of use in church architecture as well as that timber buildings in the Middle Ages could be every bit as spectacular as their stone counterparts. Nevertheless, to a mediaeval audience, timber frame displays of this kind were most familiar in grand domestic buildings, such as halls.’ (Country Life 2016)
The windows showing traces of the 14th and 15th-century design, date from 1868. The chancel, which was rebuilt in memory of Dr. Keate, has at the north-west an arched opening to the tower, while on the south are a modern credence, aumbry, and tomb recess of 14th-century design. There is no chancel arch, but chancel and nave are separated by a fine modern screen with open traceried panels surmounted by a large cross, with medallions at the ends of the arms carved with the symbols of the four evangelists. The figure of Christ on the cross was added in 1923 as the village’s war memorial.
The nave is in three bays, with heavy story posts between each bay having filleted half-round shafts on the face, from the moulded capitals of which spring arched braces to the underside of cambered tie-beams. On the tie-beams are king-posts with struts, and the rafters are very heavy and have arched braces beneath. The tie-beam at the east of the nave is level and not cambered, and has formed the head of a wooden screen perhaps of much the same character as its modern successor. The struts and principals over it are cusped like those in the west wall of the nave. Both doors of the nave are original, but only on the north can the outer elevation be seen. It is a most interesting piece of detail, the doorway having a two-centred arch, with a label of the same section as that of the architrave of a rectangular frame in which it is set, and with which it mitres at the springing. The spandrels are filled in solid, the whole framing being extraordinarily massive.
The pulpit contains a little 17th-century carving, but the seating, fittings, &c., are all modern. There is a record that the church was re-seated in 1759 from the proceeds of Paice's Charity. The font is modern, in 12th-century style, with an arcade of interlacing arches, placed in the church by Dr. Keate in 1852.
In the chancel, under the modern recess in the North wall, is a raised tomb with a brass cross and marginal inscription to Dr. Keate (1773 - 1852)
In the chancel floor is a brass inscribed, ’Johannes Waspail quondam huius ecclesie patronus viam universe carnis vicesimo die mensis Novembris anno domini quadringentesimo quadragesimo octavo transiens, ac Johanna relicta Johannis Pakenham vidua eius quae obiit vicesimo die mensis maii mcccclij hic tumulantur, quorum animabus propicietur Deus. Amen.’
(John Waspail sometime Patron of this Church, who went the way of all flesh on 20th November 1448, and Jane, his widow, relic of John Pakenham, who died on 20th May 1452 are buried here, upon whose souls may GOD have mercy, Amen
The tower contains three bells. The treble and second bear a plain cross, a shield of the three leopards of England, and the mark of Robert Crowch a London founder of c. 1440; the third was cast by Mears and Stainbank in 1883.
