St Mary's Church is a
redundant Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
church in the village of
Hartwell Hartwell may refer to:
Places
* Hartwell, Victoria, a neighbourhood of Camberwell in Melbourne, Australia
** Hartwell railway station
England
* Hartwell, Buckinghamshire
* Hartwell, Northamptonshire, a village
* Hartwell, Staffordshire, a loca ...
,
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...
, England. It is under the care of the
Churches Conservation Trust.
The church is now ruined, and stands in the grounds of
Hartwell House, to the north of the
A418 road.
[
]
History
The church was built between 1753 and 1755 to a design by Henry Keene for Sir William Lee.[ It is an early example of Gothic Revival architecture and was planned to be a feature in the grounds of Hartwell House. The church is now a ruin.][ On 21 December 1967 it was designated as a Grade II* listed building.]vested
In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property is acquired by some person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vested right to an ...
in the Churches Conservation Trust on 27 July 1975. When the Trust took over the church it was in poor condition and without a roof. In 2000 repairs were carried out, which included rebuilding the roof in its original design using Westmorland
Westmorland (, formerly also spelt ''Westmoreland'';R. Wilkinson The British Isles, Sheet The British IslesVision of Britain/ref> is a historic county in North West England spanning the southern Lake District and the northern Dales. It had an ...
slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
, repairing the roof of the east tower, and repairing some of the stonework on the exterior of the church.[
]
Architecture
Built in ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...
stone, the building has an octagonal plan with two towers, one at the east end, the other at the west. Its main windows have three lights and contain Y- tracery. Around the summit of the church is a battlemented parapet with crocketted pinnacle
A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...
s and a moulded cornice
In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
. Below this is a string course
A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the ...
. Between the string course and the parapet are quatrefoil
A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...
windows. On the north and south sides, and on the outer sides of the towers are rose window
Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' w ...
s. At the summit of the towers are openwork parapets and more crocketted pinnacles.[
]
See also
* List of churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust in South East England
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartwell, St Mary's Church
Grade II* listed churches in Buckinghamshire
Church of England church buildings in Buckinghamshire
Churches completed in 1755
Gothic Revival church buildings in England
Gothic Revival architecture in Buckinghamshire
Churches preserved by the Churches Conservation Trust