St Andrew's Church, Langford
The material in this section has been taken from Saint Andrew’s, Langford, Bedfordshire, A History of Church Events and People (2nd edition, 2011) by kind permission of its author, Ralph W Turner. The booklet contains much more information on the church’s history and its incumbents and 8 pages of photographs and is available from St Andrew’s Church, price £2.
Saint Andrew’s is one of the most ancient Churches in the country. There were almost certainly two, if not three, earlier Churches on the same site. The site was chosen, we must presume, because of the raised elevation on the river terrace from the banks of the River Ivel at the bottom of Mill Lane. There could well have been a Saxon Church on this site.
We assume that there was already a Church in 1142, as this is when a Church was endowed for the Knights Templar by Simon de Wahull. The Templars then built a new Church, which was almost completely demolished later and the basis of the present Church was rebuilt in the years after 1312. During the rebuilding only parts of the old Templar Church were preserved. The oldest being the North and South walls of the Chancel. At that time there would have been no doors or windows in the Church.
Langford in the Lincoln Diocese
Langford was part of the Diocese of Lincoln which was was the largest diocese in England, extending from the Thames to the Humber, and included the present Dioceses of Oxford, Peterborough and Leicester as well as the present Diocese of Lincoln. Only the northern part of our own Diocese of Saint Alban’s was within it, the southern part was in the Diocese of Rochester. In 1838 Langford became part of the Ely Diocese and was incorporated in the new Diocese of Saint Albans in 1914.
Lincoln Cathedral Choir Stalls
In Lincoln Cathedral there are choir stalls dating from the 14th century and they have tablets hung in them, these indicating the daily obligation which each new canon must fulfil, ‘if nothing hinders’. On the tablets, above the Latin of the Psalms, are the names of villages or towns. Langford has two tablets in the stalls of Saint Hugh’s Choir, one on the North side for Langford Manor, this shows the figure of Saint Hugh and the head of a man wearing a circlet, on the left elbow of the stall. The Latin inscription translated to English reads:
‘LANGFORD MANOR. REMEMBER LANGFORD MANOR AS FAR AS, EVEN TO OVER THE RIVER.’
The other one for Langford Church is on the South side. The Latin inscription translated to English reads:
‘LANGFORD CHURCH OUR GOD AND GREAT MASTER HAS BROUGHT ALL PEOPLES TO LIGHT’
The Church
The Porch and Tower
This is unusual as it stands on the south side of the Church, probably because it was the last part of the Church to be rebuilt. Some of the original work can still be seen in the outer doorway. The porch windows are of the 14th century style.
There are three bells in the Tower:
Tenor Bell (1855); Second Bell (1780); Treble Bell (1772)
The Tenor bell was recast in 1855.When the bells were rehung in 1924 the ringing gear was never finished so the bells could only be chimed. In fact, from 1974 the bells could not even be chimed until the Tower timbers were treated and repaired after death watch beetle was found. The repairs cost £7,000, and to celebrate they were chimed again for Christmas 1980.
The Nave
The Nave of the Church is made up of four bays with octagonal columns and moulded bases. At the tops of the columns there are stone heads and, although quite thick with whitewash, you can still make out that some are human, some appear to be leering and there is even a devil with the ears of a pig!
At one time there must have been a Rood Screen, as the corbels which supported it can still be seen. Some of the columns have ledges and niches in them, which could have held saintly images or some form of lighting. There was a smaller Screen erected after the Rood Screen was removed, but this was removed in the early 1960s to open up the Church.
The tracery in the windows in the Nave has the graceful lines of the Decorated style. The windows in both aisles at the East end have geometric tracery. The window in the North aisle was at one time filled with wooden organ pipes.
The South windows are quite simple, with a leaf tracery at their heads. In some of these windows can be seen small pieces of stained glass and it could be that some depict the signs of Saint George who was patron saint of the Knights Templar.
The centre West window of the Nave is a fine window with net tracery at the head of each light.
The Lady Chapel
The Lady Chapel in the South aisle was abandoned and all traces, except the piscina or basin for the vessels used for Mass, were destroyed. In 1958 the Lady Chapel was restored and the High Altar was removed and put in the Lady Chapel; it was backed with a reredos which is a memorial to the Rev C C Ewbank, Vicar from 1870 to 1933.
A new High Altar made of English oak was consecrated in the same year. In April 1874, restoration of the Nave was commenced and when the lead was removed from the roof, the old roof fell in. A new roof with pitched gables was erected in place of the old nearly flat roof. The new roof was made of unstained fir and covered with the old hand-made tiles. It has been retiled with new hand-made tiles in recent years. The side aisles were covered with Bangor slates. In 1982 the south aisle roof was removed. New timbers were put in, it was covered with copper sheets and at the same time the new roof was erected. In 1874 the Church interior was whitened and the old brick floor was replaced with one of wood under the space occupied by the seats. The aisles were then paved with Staffordshire tiles.
The first four pews each side of the Nave date from the 16th century while the rest were reseated in oak in 1884, replacing the old sheep-pen style of seating.
The Chancel
We are led to the Chancel through its arch by a pattern of red chevrons. This is old work which was probably part of the old Rood Screen decorations. The East window has the centre light in a stained glass representation of the ‘Risen Christ’.
The Chancel itself is quite modern having been built as it is now in the late 1700s. In 1872 work on the Chancel restoration was completed.
The old open roof was taken down and a new wagon-headed roof substituted and it was at this time the Chancel windows were renewed. It is believed that it was during the building of the Chancel that the entrance to a large Crypt was covered in. In the early 1800s the Chancel was used as a schoolroom.
In the Chancel floor are two memorials on two identifiable tombs: Rev Moses St Eloy who died March 27th 1746 and Rev Thomas Hundon who died on 21 December 1520.
Inside the organ chamber is a memorial tablet to the Rev George Mossop, Vicar from 1785 to 1838, a total of 53 years.
The Vestry
When the Rev Ewbank arrived in the parish in 1868 he complained that as there was no Vestry, the clergy were expected to robe in the Porch. This was too much for him and, not long after he arrived, a Vestry was erected, at his insistence, as a memorial to the Rev H Addington, MA, Vicar from 1850 to 1870. The Vestry and organ chamber were erected on the North side of the Chancel. There is one window containing fine Medieval glass, but this is hidden by the organ chamber, so its beauty is lost.
When the Vestry was built a singing and musicians’ gallery at the West end of the Church was removed.
The Font
At some time in its history the font was broken and repaired. It was most probably repaired in 1875, when other repairs were being carried out. The reason for thinking this is because the 14th century Font is set on an octagonal central shaft of the 19th century.
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