200 DESTRUCTION OF ANCIENT MONUMENTS IN ESSEX.
to view each village church on his way, will cordially agree, we have
but to quote the following facts about some Essex churches, which
are vouched for by Mr. Arthur H. Brown, of Brentwood :—
" I took much trouble to visit Catfield Church, in Norfolk, a very out-of-the-way
place, in the district of the Broads, hoping to see the curious frescoes of the tree
of the Seven Deadly Sins, but to my great disappointment and vexation I found
that they had been obliterated eleven years previously by a former rector. A still
more curious and rare wheel of the Seven Mortal Sins, with remarkable inscription
surrounding it, c. a.d. 1400, was 'restored' away from Ingatestone Church, Essex,
in 1868. Only one, I believe, is now left to us, in Arundel Church, Sussex."
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Church restoration, as it is called, is often chargeable with the loss of brasses.
During the restoration of a neighbouring church (South Weald), under the late
vicar, the workmen were allowed to take up the Brasses, upon which they used to
cook bacon for their dinners. Fortunately I had taken rubbings of every fragment
some years before, and my copies were the means of tracing the Brasses and
restoring them to the church. No fewer than ten were taken, but three of them,
including a fish—a rare example—never found their way back. Of my collection
of rubbings, some eight hundred, many of the originals are now lost, and I have
had occasion several times to write to the local papers respecting the destruction
of monumental records. But what respect have modern church restorers for
history, for the noble benefactors of our cathedrals, parish churches, and chantries,
or for the memory and prayers of the faithful departed ? Wrench out their
brasses, mend the roads with their slabs, trample them under foot, obliterate the
pleading and touching prayers thereon, and then exclaim, 'Their memorial is
perished with them.' And all this mischief in order that a brand-new pavement, at
so much per yard, shall make all neat and correct in many a feeble and painfully
'sweetly pretty' chancel !
In this county of Essex, in this neighbourhood, restoration has wrought dreadful
havoc 1. At South Ockendon there is a fine brass to Sir Ingleram Bruyn, Lord
of the Ville, and patron of the church, a.d. 1400, under a single canopy, with
inscription and shields of arms. Across the breastplate is engraved, 'Ecce nunc
in pulvere dormio, sed scio quod Redemptor mats vivit.' Until the restoration of
this church, a few years since, this interesting memorial lay in the place of honour
at the north end of the high altar. Then, alas, the stone was 'stripped of its
monumental bravery,' and good Sir Ingleram's effigy was nailed to the wall of the
North Chapel, like the dishonoured body of Saul in Bethshan, the canopy placed
all askew, and other portions were rendered conspicuous by their absence. Surely
some charitable parishioner—a true Jabesh Gileadite—will urge the restoration of
Sir Ingleram's memorial to its long consecrated position. I have a copy of every
fragment that existed in 1851.
2. Gilbert Saltonstall, a.d. 1585.—Inscription and shield of arms, formerly on
the sanctuary pavement, now removed.
3. Mrs. Margaret Barker, a.d. 1620.—An elegant Elizabethan brass, with
inscription, torn from its slab and set up in the wall of North Chapel.
At North Ockendon:—1. Brass effigy and inscription to Thomasin Badby,
c. A.D. 1500. Originally placed in front of the rood screen when I first saw it in
1851, removed after 'restoration' on my next visit in 1856, and loose in the
parish chest when I saw it, four years ago.