CHURCH.
The church mentioned at
Teversham by 1086, one of the few then
recorded in Cambridgeshire, was attached to the
hide appropriated from the abbey of Ely by John
son of Waleran, (fn. 3) whose father had already
granted tithes from Teversham to St. Stephen's
abbey, Caen (dep. Calvados). (fn. 4) That abbey's cell,
Panfield priory (Essex), received in 1291 and
later a tithe portion of 10-12s. yearly, (fn. 5) much in
arrears by 1340. (fn. 6)
Patronage of the church, which has remained
a rectory, was recovered, however, by Ely, and
exercised by its bishop from the 12th century
into the late 20th. (fn. 7) Although William fitz
Auldelin, John's successor, presented during a
vacancy of the see, probably that of 1169-74
after Bishop Nigel's death, the bishop successfully asserted his right in 1205 against fitz
Auldelin's successor, William of Warbleton. (fn. 8)
The advowson was alleged in 1810 to be held of
the honor of Richmond. (fn. 9) The king presented in
1357-8 when Bishop Thomas Lisle was in
exile, (fn. 10) and during later vacancies of the see in
1436, 1586, 1594, and 1635. (fn. 11) The archbishop
of Canterbury presented by lapse in 1752. (fn. 12) In
1979 part of Teversham ecclesiastical parish was
transferred to Cherry Hinton. (fn. 13)
The rector's glebe, comprising in 1279 a messuage and 18 a., (fn. 14) produced in 1340, with the
tithes not arising from corn, wool, and lambs,
just over half of his income. (fn. 15) In 1810 the rector
claimed besides a glebe covering, as in 1639,
17½ a. and two leys (3 roods). He also received
all the tithes, save for those from 17 a. in Mill
Hill field at the southern extremity of the parish,
and from c. 24 a., possessed by Peterhouse
as impropriators of Cherry Hinton. (fn. 16) As
requested, (fn. 17) the next rector was allotted for his
glebe the Church crofts with 10½ a. in three old
inclosures, all lying near the rectory house. For
tithes he received c. 216½ a. in Causeway and
Mill Ditch fields and Fishers fen. (fn. 18) In 1935
Rectory farm, 119 a., was sold for £11,000 to
Marshalls to make their new airfield, the rector
hoping thus to keep Teversham separate from
Cambridge. (fn. 19) Another 110 a. remained with the
living until the early 1950s. (fn. 20) In the 1950s small
pieces were sold for road widening and to
enlarge the school site. (fn. 21)
The rectory was assessed at 20 marks c. 1217,
25½ marks 1256, (fn. 22) but c. 33 marks in 1276 and
1291. (fn. 23) One rector who retired in 1452, broken
by age and sickness, was allowed by the bishop
a pension of 10 marks, a third of the income,
with a chamber in the rectory house. Another
resigning in 1497 was allowed only 5 marks, (fn. 24)
although in 1535 the living was worth just under
£20. (fn. 25) In 1650 the minister William Sharpe
declined to pay his taxes until the rate set on his
benefice was reduced from £120 to £110. (fn. 26)
Reckoned as £84 a year in 1728, (fn. 27) the estimated
gross income fluctuated during the 19th century.
In 1832 it was £370 gross, of which £60 was
paid to the curate. (fn. 28) In 1841 the rectory land
yielded £300-350 in rent, depending on the
price of wheat. (fn. 29) From £350 in 1851 (fn. 30) the rector's income rose to c. £500 in 1873, but, coming
almost entirely from land, fell well below £380
net by 1885. (fn. 31) The Ecclesiastical Commissioners
gave temporary augmentations in 1911 and
1918-20, and one of £28 between 1928 and the
sale of 1935. (fn. 32)
The former rectory house, mentioned in 1403
and possibly remodelled by Lawrence Moptyd,
rector 1555-7, whose arms once appeared in its
hall window, (fn. 33) stood by 1639, when it had 15
rooms, in a 2 1/2-a. close north-west of the
churchyard. (fn. 34) In 1782, when it was let to a
farmer, much work was needed on its plaster,
tiling, and thatch. (fn. 35) In 1818 John Brocklebank,
presented in 1817, was licensed to be absent,
because it was unfit. (fn. 36) He complained that he
had found everything fallen into dilapidation,
and spent over £2,000, effectively of his own
money, on building in 1819 a new house, (fn. 37)
just west of the earlier one, which was then removed. The modern rectory house was repaired
in 1892, (fn. 38) 1933, and 1955. (fn. 39) The removal of
additions made on the east and north sides has
since left the two-storeyed brick house as it was
when built in 1819; its original rectangular plan
conformed to a standard pattern of rectory
houses, including a study for the incumbent near
the front door. The house has original plaster
cornice mouldings, and reeded doorcases and
fireplace. (fn. 40) It remained the incumbent's residence until c. 1980. (fn. 41)
A chaplain was serving the parish in the late
12th century, (fn. 42) and rectors were recorded from
the mid 13th: the ex-rebel William of Swaffham,
the first so styled, in 1267, was a pluralist. (fn. 43) His
successor by 1279, though Paris-born, was of a
Hauxton family. (fn. 44) In the 14th century the living
attracted a few clerics of some standing. The
pluralist graduate Walter Stratton, who in 1337
obtained leave of absence at the request of
Elizabeth de Burgh, had four successors by
1349, the first not in higher orders. (fn. 45) The right
of a king's clerk presented in 1357 was disputed
by a papal provisor. (fn. 46) In 1371 Teversham was
briefly held by another pluralist, Thomas
Eltisley the younger. (fn. 47) William Bridge, rector
1376-82, who like two successors before 1400
obtained Teversham by exchange, (fn. 48) was apparently resident: in 1377-8 he claimed a mortuary
from a widower and in 1378 denied one woman,
allegedly excommunicate, her Easter communion. (fn. 49) Bridge acted as commissary to the
archdeacon of Ely's venal official and was cited
in 1378 for misappropriating as executor a
deceased man's goods. (fn. 50) In 1403 the next rector
but two was wounded when attacked with
another priest in his house by a chaplain, (fn. 51) probably one of those occasionally recorded in the
14th and 15th centuries, who helped serve the
parish. (fn. 52) One gave a set of vestments c. 1370,
when a rector of East Hatley had given a
'Reymund', perhaps the canonist Raymond de
Penafort's book on penance. (fn. 53) Rectors were still
sometimes graduates in the mid 15th century: a
bachelor of theology who had been a college
fellow c. 1403 retired only in 1452. (fn. 54)
A church reeve was suing in 1378 on behalf
of the parishioners for breach of faith, presumably over some debt. (fn. 55) Under Ralph Hopwood
(d. 1538), who held the living with Fen Ditton, (fn. 56)
Teversham was probably still mainly served by
parish priests. Wills which they witnessed
included bequests for the lights of the sepulchre,
Our Lady, All Saints, and that of the sacrament. (fn. 57) There was probably then a guild of the
Trinity. (fn. 58) One priest who preached there in 1533
was later accused of supporting the Papacy and
criticizing the king's remarriage. (fn. 59)
After 1560 Teversham was often held by eminent university men, including John Whitgift,
1560-72, and Richard Bancroft, 1576-86, who
also succeeded Whitgift as archbishop of
Canterbury. (fn. 60) The queen's second nominee, in
1594, Thomas Neville (d. 1615), master of
Trinity College, Cambridge, acted with
Whitgift in the 1590s to uphold Calvinism. (fn. 61)
Matthew Wren, rector 1615-35, later the
strongly Laudian bishop of Norwich and Ely,
when made master of Peterhouse in 1625 was
dispensed not to reside and to hold other
preferments. (fn. 62)
Whitgift, though sometimes resident c.
1560, (fn. 63) was employing a curate by 1570. (fn. 64) In
1577 the churchwardens were admonished for
not checking the licences of clergy sent over
from Cambridge university to preach. (fn. 65) Curates
were again frequently reported under later rectors from the 1590s. (fn. 66) One man hanged himself
c. 1579 after being accused of fathering a bastard. Some parishioners were reported in the
1590s for carting on the Sabbath, absence from
church, and shooting in service time. (fn. 67) The
rector in 1638, a Crown nominee, (fn. 68) was ejected
in 1644. He reappeared in 1647 to attack parliament from the pulpit and hinder payment of
tithes to the successor whom it had appointed,
to whom parishioners were still refusing to pay
them in 1650. (fn. 69) That successor, who in 1658
adhered to the Cambridgeshire Presbyterian
classis, died in office in 1661. (fn. 70) In 1685 the
church still needed a new bible, and books of
Common Prayer and the canons. (fn. 71)
The rectors appointed between the 1660s and
the 1810s, some men of distinction, retained the
living for long periods, Joseph Beaumont,
master of Peterhouse, serving 1664-99, and two
successors, 1725-61 and 1768-1811. Until the
1760s they were usually pluralists, (fn. 72) dwelling at
their other livings and leaving the rectory house
to decay. (fn. 73) John Warren, 1761-8, chaplain and
secretary to successive bishops of Ely, later
himself received two Welsh bishoprics. (fn. 74) As
Beaumont had done, (fn. 75) they employed curates,
one of them paid £24 in 1728, who also often
lived in college at Cambridge. The curates held
two Sunday services in 1728, as usually in 1775,
besides the normal three annual sacraments. In
the 1810s a fourth was added. (fn. 76) In 1767, after
thirty years in office, one curate was as 'tired of
the parish' as it was of him. (fn. 77) By 1825, when
there were 12 communicants, John Brocklebank,
though also holding Willingham since 1824,
dwelt at his new rectory house and performed
Sunday services alternately morning and evening because the population was small. Half
paralysed from 1827, he left to take the waters
at Bath and Brighton, serving Teversham
through curates, one in 1836 a fellow of Queens',
who from 1833 held two services weekly. (fn. 78)
The elderly canon of Ely who was rector
1843-59 claimed in 1851 an attendance of 50 on
Sunday mornings, but 80 in the afternoons,
besides 20 Sunday-school children. (fn. 79) He did not
visit the poor. Services in his time were remembered as 'bald, meagre, and altogether disgraceful': in winter villagers might sleep in the
unlighted church through regularly recycled
sermons, and the village shoemaker as parish
clerk 'snuffled' through hymns in the gallery,
discordantly accompanied only by cello and
clarinets. (fn. 80) In the later 19th century few of the
rectors, though normally resident and serving
almost single-handed, stayed more than 8-10
years. (fn. 81) Two died suddenly in office, in 1881 and
1891, the former much mourned. (fn. 82) At communions, held monthly by 1873, weekly in 1885
and later, about half the 40 communicants, out
of c. 100 estimated churchgoers, a third of the
inhabitants, attended regularly in 1873, nor did
more than 28 of the 54 adult churchgoers in
1885. (fn. 83) In the 1880s evening services were usually best attended, but children's Sunday afternoon ones declined by 1886 into Sunday schools,
while special services, as in Holy Week, seldom
drew many people. (fn. 84) A choir and bible class had
been started by the early 1890s. (fn. 85) In 1897 a
rector who visited the whole parish monthly
claimed 47 communicants. The church then had
140 sittings, all but 10 free. (fn. 86) Teversham continued to have resident rectors until 1979. (fn. 87)
Thereafter it was served by priests-in-charge
or from neighbouring parishes, c. 1990 from
Cherry Hinton. (fn. 88)
The church, named from ALL SAINTS
when it was reconsecrated in 1393, (fn. 89) is built of
field stones, flint, and clunch, partly dressed in
limestone, all tiled, as in 1744, and partly
cement-rendered. It consists of a chancel, an
aisled nave, west tower, and south porch. (fn. 90)
Inside it contains notable carving in clunch. In
the early 13th century were built the unbuttressed chancel, which retains one lancet in its
north wall, and the arcades of the nave, from
whose clerestory there survive, in the arcade
spandrels, vesica-shaped windows, two each
side, set horizontally. Both arcades, then of four
bays, have double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers, their capitals carved with stiff leaf,
with more elaborately worked, trumpet-shaped
east responds. In the 14th century the aisles
were rebuilt on a wider plan, that on the north
apparently reusing in its lower part rough limestone from its predecessor, below the squared
clunch blocks mainly used also in the south aisle.
The aisle roofs were made continuous with the
higher-pitched roof of the nave, so enclosing the
earlier clerestory. The aisles were also then
given windows, much restored c. 1890, (fn. 91) mostly
of two lights, foiled, some below quatrefoils.
The north aisle, perhaps the chapel of St. Mary
whose altar had its own chalice c. 1275, (fn. 92) retains
a piscina in its north wall. Another restored piscina is in the south aisle, which has a moulded
external string course and contemporary,
though renewed, doorway. The lower walling of
the south porch may be of that period, though
its upper parts are of c. 1890. Perhaps c. 1390, (fn. 93)
the chancel was remodelled, its partly chamfered
western arch being rebuilt in clunch upwards
from the capitals of the late 13th-century shafted
limestone responds; behind the southern one
survive traces of a stone screen. The chancel had
also had new foiled windows, mostly of two
lights, one square-headed, inserted in its side
walls, one with a low side below a transom. The
east window, in whose glass the arms of
Mortimer, Earl of March, survived in 1744, had
then five lights. Another chancel window then
contained emblems of the crucifixion. (fn. 94)
A 15th-century doorway in the chancel north
wall presumbly once led to a demolished vestry.
In the 15th century, too, a triple, stepped sedilia,
with arcading above nodding arches, some
ogeed, and a matching piscina, were inserted in
the chancel south wall. (fn. 95) Earlier in that century
the three-stage west tower with its crow-stepped
parapet, wide buttresses, and south-western
stair turret, was inserted into the western end of
the nave, projecting slightly westward. Its thick
walls fill the fourth nave bay, leaving only the
springing of the fourth arch visible. The tower
west window of three cinquefoiled lights retains
in its glass reset fragments of medieval canopy
work. Probably then squints were pierced
through the north and south chancel arch
responds, while a (later blocked) roodstair was
made at the north aisle east end.
The much-recut, perhaps 13th-century,
octagonal font stands on a 15th-century stem.
The ornately carved oak roodscreen, which
replaced any earlier stone one and was noted in
1744, when the chancel was 'stalled round', (fn. 96) is
of c. 1400. Above, it has six bays, the two central
ones being combined as an entrance below, with
thickly cusped and quatrefoiled tracery over
ogeed arches, and bears traces of original paint.
Two of the panels below were replaced with
Jacobean woodwork. (fn. 97) The oak-plank door to
the ringing chamber and seven oak benches with
panelled ends in the nave are also probably 15thcentury. Shortly after 1500 the boarded ceiling
to the tower's lowest stage was painted: sixteen
of its panels with flowers, the four central ones
with shields. That painting was renewed in
1891. (fn. 98) In 1643 William Dowsing destroyed all
but six copies that he could not reach of the
name of Jesus, still then inscribed in great capitals six times over the six nave arches, twelve
times in the chancel. The altar steps which he
also demolished had still not been restored in
1744. (fn. 99) A pilastered alabaster tomb chest for
Edward Steward, with effigies of himself in
Greenwich armour and his beruffed and farthingaled wife Margaret, and their arms, erected
by his son-in-law Thomas Jermy at the north
aisle east end, was in 1863 removed, with its
contemporary iron railing, to the south aisle
west end. (fn. 1)
About 1620 Matthew Wren complained that
through the churchwardens' neglect rain was
pouring into the nave through the unslatted
roof. (fn. 2) In 1695 the chancel ceiling was broken
down. (fn. 3) By 1744 the chancel east window's upper
tracery was missing and in 1782 its other windows were unglazed, and patched with tiles and
mortar. (fn. 4)
In 1862-3 the church was restored, partly at
parish expense, under Mr. Jeckell of Norwich.
The chancel was given a new reredos and threelight east window in Geometrical plate tracery,
and was reroofed, reseated in oak, and paved
with tiles. (fn. 5) Further substantial work, following
demands by the archdeacon in 1886, was undertaken on the nave and aisles, to designs by J. P.
St. Aubyn, in 1888-90. The aisle roofs, though
not lowered to reveal the old clerestory, as he
suggested, were renewed, while the nave was
refloored and its seating rearranged, and the
tower was screened off as a vestry. The tower
was reroofed and its parapet restored, and also
its tracery in 1891, when a Jacobean oak pulpit
discarded from Cherry Hinton church replaced
a stone one of the 1860s. (fn. 6)
About 1300 the church had, besides ten or
more service books, some poorly bound, two
chalices, (fn. 7) as in 1552. (fn. 8) The existing plate includes
a cup of 1638 and an early 18th-century paten,
given, after a cup and paten were stolen in 1698,
by Ralph Witty, rector 1689-1717. (fn. 9) An organ
replaced a harmonium in 1887. (fn. 10) A bell frame,
probably medieval, for three bells, presumably
housed the three reported in 1552, two invoking
St. Mary and St. Katherine. (fn. 11) One lay broken
by 1744, two in 1782, when their metal was sold
to help pay for church repairs, (fn. 12) leaving the
third, recast by Taylor of St. Neots in 1799,
which remains in the tower. (fn. 13)
The parish registers survive from 1592, the
first being composite. In the 18th century they
were apparently copied annually from draft
paper registers. (fn. 14) The churchyard, which contains carved 18th-century headstones, was
enlarged westwards in 1927. (fn. 15)
From the 1660s the church was partly maintained from Lady Joan Jermy's charity, out of
which it was to receive £1 a year for repairs after
1729. (fn. 16)