CHURCHES.
In the early 12th century
Bottisham church had been attached to the
Giffards' manor. Shortly before his death in
1164 Earl Walter Giffard (II) gave it to his
family foundation in England, Crendon Park
(later Nutley) abbey (Bucks). The abbey permitted the son of the then parson to succeed
his father as rector. Giffard's successor, Earl
Richard de Clare, however, gave his rights in
Bottisham church to Anglesey priory, shortly
before 1213 when the two monasteries disputed
the right to present. (fn. 20) In 1222 Nutley abbey
released its claims to the advowson to Anglesey
in return for a pension intended to increase, on
the then rector's death, from 6s. 8d. to £4 13s.
4d.; (fn. 21) it was regularly paid by Anglesey until
the Dissolution. (fn. 22) Earl Walter had also c. 1155
granted the tithes of his Bottisham demesne
to his Cluniac foundation in Normandy,
Longueville priory (Seine-Maritime), whose
English cell at Newington Longeville (Oxon.)
was by the 1220s receiving 7½ marks yearly for
them. After Anglesey had claimed them in 1226,
a compromise of 1227 assigned those tithes to
Anglesey, which in return was to pay the cell a
pension of c. £5, (fn. 23) duly rendered until the
1340s (fn. 24) and in the 1360s. (fn. 25) Later it went to royal
nominees between the 1390s (fn. 26) and 1441 when
Henry VI granted its reversion to New College
(Oxford). (fn. 27) The Crown released both those tithe
portions to Serjeant John Hinde in 1539. (fn. 28)
A rector, a Lode man, was last recorded in
1222. (fn. 29) By 1225 John of Fountains, bishop of
Ely, had appropriated Bottisham church to
Anglesey priory, establishing a vicarage, (fn. 30) whose
advowson was possessed and exercised by the
priory, (fn. 31) despite attempts by the Crown to present in the 1390s during Mortimer minorities, (fn. 32)
until the priory's surrender in 1536. (fn. 33) Any rectorial fieldland had long been absorbed into
Anglesey's manorial demesne: in the late 1530s
a Crown lessee of the rectory vainly tried to
extract it from the priory's successor as lord,
Serjeant Hinde, who also claimed tithe exemption for some former Anglesey arable. (fn. 34) The
rectory, granted in 1541 to the King's Hall,
Cambridge, (fn. 35) was confirmed in 1546 to its successor, Trinity College, Cambridge. (fn. 36) Those
grants included both the advowson of the vicarage, retained by the college into the late 20th
century, (fn. 37) and the great tithes, but no land
except 10 a. of closes south of Bottisham church,
which from the 16th century surrounded the
rectory farmhouse and five-bayed tithebarn. (fn. 38)
About 1225 the bishop endowed the new vicarage with the 'altarage', including all small
tithes save those from the lands of Anglesey
priory, whose residents were also exempted
from rendering offerings. The vicar was to have
a house and glebe of 12 a., (fn. 39) which his successor
still possessed in the 1530s. Some 7 a. then lately
acquired had by the late 16th century enlarged
the vicar's glebe to 16½ a. (fn. 40) About 1720 the small
tithes were collected mainly in cash at customary
rates for each kind of beast, as were some offerings levied by household. (fn. 41) At inclosure in 1808
the vicar was allotted 11½ a. for his glebe and
267 a. for his tithes, (fn. 42) of which 22½ a. was sold
in 1803 to pay for internal fencing. (fn. 43) Vicarage
Farm in the fen (103 a.) was sold in 1918 and
some small plots later, leaving the vicar with c.
145 a. of glebe in the 1940s. (fn. 44)
The vicarial income, £5 in 1291, (fn. 45) was worth
under £8 c. 1450, (fn. 46) £16 in 1535, (fn. 47) and only £32
in 1650 (fn. 48) as c. 1728. (fn. 49) It increased to c. £270
by 1830 (fn. 50) and £340-60 gross c. 1865-85, (fn. 51)
before declining sharply with the agricultural
depression. (fn. 52)
By 1500 the vicar's house stood in a 1 1/2-a.
close south-east of the church, (fn. 53) which was still
vicarial glebe c. 1800. (fn. 54) The house, still recorded
in the early 17th century, (fn. 55) had before 1728 been
allowed by absentee clergy to fall down. (fn. 56) In
1838-9 John Hailstone, vicar 1837-61, built at
the south-east end of Bottisham street, on an
11-a. plot allotted to the living at inclosure, a
large new vicarage house. Designed by James
Walter of Cambridge, it is of grey brick, in a
free Tudor style, with a bargeboarded south
wing balancing a two-storeyed bay window.
Hailstone found a quarter of the £1,700 cost
himself. (fn. 57) That house, thought over-large by the
1920s, (fn. 58) was sold during a vacancy in 1938-9,
the proceeds being used to build on a plot facing
the church a large new vicarage, (fn. 59) still in use in
1991. The old house, later called the Grange,
had by the 1980s been converted into a nursing
home for sick or mentally infirm old people. In
1990 that home began building to the west a new
medical block, giving it 100 hospital beds. (fn. 60)
Vicars were often recorded from the 1320s, (fn. 61)
one being appointed penitentiary for his parish
in 1346. (fn. 62) Three successive vicars quitted
Bottisham by resignation, after brief tenures,
1396-9. (fn. 63) One 15th-century vicar had served as
chaplain to the patron, but graduates began to
be appointed from the 1440s, some of them
holding the living for 20 years or more. (fn. 64) Some
were perhaps non-resident, like their early 16thcentury successors. The church was probably
often served by parish chaplains, who numbered
three in 1379, (fn. 65) two in 1406. (fn. 66) One parish priest
served, regularly attending villagers' deathbeds,
1520-32. (fn. 67) Anglesey's last nominee as vicar,
although probably resident in the mid 1530s, (fn. 68)
was by 1538 chaplain to a baron. (fn. 69) Successive
curates, including a former canon of Anglesey,
paid by the vicar or rectory farmer, ministered
in the 1540s. (fn. 70)
In 1389 Bottisham had several longestablished guilds, whose masters were drawn
from the village notables, among them manorial
office-holders and two priests: the patronal guild
of Holy Trinity, which found lights before its
image on feastdays, and others, two also providing lights, of Corpus Christi, St. Nicholas, the
Nativity of the Virgin, All Saints, St. Peter, and
St. James. The Trinity guild, open to both sexes
and supported by subscriptions in barley or wax,
besides celebrating members' exequies with
masses, helped the poor avoid excommunication
by paying their church offerings. It also maintained the church fabric, books, and vestments.
Those guilds claimed in 1389 that their
resources had just been exhausted in replacing
vestments and ornaments lately stolen from the
church. (fn. 71) Guilds of the Trinity, All Saints, and
the Virgin were still recorded in 1525 (fn. 72) and a
guildhall was sold for the Crown in 1564. (fn. 73)
Bequests for requiem masses, trentals, and obits,
some substantial, and involving endowments
charged on land, continued to be made into the
late 1520s. (fn. 74) One man asked for such masses as
late as the spring of 1547. (fn. 75) Only minuscule gifts
for such purposes, including a sepulchre light,
were traced and sold for the Crown in 1549-50
and 1572. (fn. 76)
Trinity College began to appoint former fellows as vicars in the 1550s, (fn. 77) but not invariably.
The non-graduate in office in 1560, who was
neither resident nor qualified to preach,
employed a curate, (fn. 78) as did his successor. (fn. 79) A
Trinity man, also not a fellow, probably served
in person from 1575 to his death at Bottisham
in 1611. (fn. 80) His immediate successors until the
1640s were mostly youthful ex-fellows (fn. 81) and
probably often absentees, serving through curates. (fn. 82) About 1618 unlicensed outsiders were
apparently reading some services. (fn. 83) Theodore
Crosland, vice-master of Trinity, vicar from
1640, was accused, after fleeing to the Royalists
in 1643, by a Puritan group among his parishioners of such 'Popish innovations' as reading
prayers from the communion table, besides failing to examine intending communicants and
inaudibly preaching sermons that were not 'edifying'. His substitute displeased the godly party
by asserting complete baptismal regeneration.
On his death they procured a minister of their
own choice. The vicarage, sequestered in 1644, (fn. 84)
was held in 1650 by a parliamentary nominee. (fn. 85)
A curate was in charge in 1665. (fn. 86) Trinity recovered control after 1660, but, except for a Crown
nominee presented by lapse in 1668, who served
into the 1680s, (fn. 87) no vicars were appointed until
after 1800. (fn. 88) Instead by the 1760s Bottisham was
served by sequestration. (fn. 89) By the late 18th century the ministers were usually serving fellows of
Trinity. (fn. 90) Only after the Crown had presented
the master of the Charterhouse by lapse in 1801
did the college resume the formal appointment
of vicars in 1812. (fn. 91)
Although living in college the minister had
held two services each Sunday in 1728, when
30-40 villagers came to the thrice-yearly sacraments. (fn. 92) Those practices were continued from
the 1770s to the 1830s by ministers, including
those Trinity men whom the still absentee vicars
employed as curates in the early 19th century,
and who preached only once each Sunday.
There were usually 20-30 communicants. (fn. 93)
Only the diligent, but slightly eccentric William
Pugh, vicar 1812-25, rode out in person every
Sunday to take both services. (fn. 94)
The energetic John Hailstone, vicar from
1837, who came to reside at his new-built
vicarage, had before he resigned in 1861 also
restored Bottisham church and built one at
Lode, besides starting church schools for both
settlements, partly from his own resources. (fn. 95) In
1851, when Bottisham church had 469 sittings,
300 free, he claimed an average attendance of
almost 250 adults, besides 110 Sunday-school
children. (fn. 96) In 1862 his successor started a weekday evening service at the schoolroom to instruct
the labourers in Scripture. (fn. 97) In 1873, when he
preached twice each Sunday, there were c. 300
churchgoers, and only 40-60 people neglected
worship altogether. (fn. 98) Under the next vicar, who
claimed c. 360 churchgoers in 1885, the numbers
attending communion, held monthly into the
1880s and almost weekly by 1897, increased
from 20 to 35, but most of the older men went
neither to church nor chapel. (fn. 99) Bottisham continued to have a resident incumbent, shared
from the 1970s with the Swaffhams, into the
1990s. After 1910 most 20th-century vicars, still
Trinity men, served for 10-12 years each. (fn. 1)
Bottisham Church in the Early 18th Century
The church of HOLY TRINITY, so named
by 1345, (fn. 2) consists of a chancel, aisled and clerestoried nave with north and south porches, a west
tower and a western porch beyond it. It is mostly
built of clunch. The nave and aisles, with their
porches, have their lower courses, buttresses,
and windows dressed with Barnack limestone. (fn. 3)
From a preceding 12th-century church there
survive fragments of a tympanum carved with a
cross, and of a square font with chevron carving.
The church began to be rebuilt in the early 13th
century, from which period dates the chancel
walling. Its south wall contains a priest's door
of that time, and, inside, a simple piscina and
sedilia. The contemporary tower of three stages,
with plain two-light belfry windows, bears on
the inside of its east wall the outline of a steeper
former nave roof, and has triple-chamfered eastern and western doorways. To its west is a twostoreyed porch or galilee, originally opening
westwards with a tall arch, soon filled with
fieldstones, in whose lower part a new west doorway, also chamfered, was installed. The survival
of a 13th-century doorway between the upper
storeys of the porch and tower suggests that
their upper rooms may then have housed a priest
or clerk. In the late 20th century the decayed,
uncoursed clunch walling of the tower and porch
was largely renewed in whitewashed brick. (fn. 4) The
nave and aisles were rebuilt in the early 14th
century in five bays, the aisles being extended
westward partly to embrace the tower. The cost
of that work was perhaps met by the judge Ellis
of Beckingham, who gave a silver chalice to
the church before 1310 (fn. 5) and whose tombslab,
robbed of its brass, but retaining the indents
both of his robed figure under a floriated canopy
and of the surrounding inscription, occupies, as
it did in 1743, a place of honour in the centre of
the nave. The chancel arch was also probably
recut, soon after 1300, with new mouldings
facing towards the nave. The matching nave
arcades, with richly moulded arches on quatrefoil piers of clunch, have single-light windows
above their spandrels. The aisles have, in windows of two lights at the sides, three to east and
west, largely uniform tracery of pointed quatrefoils over cusped arches. At the aisle east ends
the string course rises over a rectangular panel
beneath a narrower, square-headed and transomed window. The one in the south aisle has
surviving, ornately cusped, sedilia and piscina
surviving beside the site of its altar. Under that
aisle's other five windows moulded segmental
arches, inside and out, their external spandrels
filled with knapped flint, cover shallow recesses
above apparent tombslabs: under one were
found in 1839 the remains of a priest. (fn. 6) The
matching north and south porches, gabled and
with three-light side windows, are also early
14th-century. Probably in the 15th century
the tower was embattled and pinnacled, while
the chancel, which Anglesey priory repaired
c. 1450, (fn. 7) received new windows with plain
Perpendicular tracery. Glass seen there in 1743
contained, besides two saints, the arms of the
manorial overlords Clare and Mortimer and of
William Gray, bishop of Ely 1458-73. (fn. 8) About
1450 a stone screen of three arches on slim piers
was installed under the chancel arch, while, perhaps after 1500, two two-light windows were
inserted above that arch.
The existing plain octagonal font is probably
13th-century. The roofs of the nave and aisles,
the former on kingposts, are in the main late
medieval, but that of the chancel was renewed
c. 1850. (fn. 9) In 1521 money was being collected
towards leading the church. (fn. 10)
From the late 15th century the north aisle
became a burial place for the lords of Alingtons
manor. A wooden screen, possibly late 14thcentury, whose eight elaborately traceried compartments, two including double doors, follow
three distinct designs, probably stood entirely in
the north aisle until it was rearranged across the
ends of both aisles c. 1839. (fn. 11) Under the north
aisle's eastern arch stands a tombchest, robbed
of the brass of an armed man; heraldry visible
in 1743 indicated it to be that of William
Alington (d. 1479). (fn. 12) A columned wall monument under the facing window, surmounted by
heraldry and strapwork, contained the kneeling
figures of Thomas Pledger (d. 1599) and his wife
Margaret (d. 1598). (fn. 13) Under the east window
two cherubs raise carved curtains to reveal the
effigies of two infant children of William, Lord
Alington. The south aisle east end, where the
Jenynses had their high-sided family pew into
the 1840s, (fn. 14) has under its east window the pedimented monument of Sir Roger Jenyns (d. 1740)
and his wife Elizabeth (d. 1728), whose loosegowned figures hold hands. The neighbouring
wall holds a tablet of 1796 to Soame Jenyns,
made by John Bacon. (fn. 15)
The impropriators or their lessees neglected
to keep the chancel in repair in the late 16th
century, (fn. 16) as in the 1660s (fn. 17) and c. 1680. (fn. 18) The
main restoration, undertaken as early as 1839-40
under Charles Papworth of Cambridge, renewed
much stonework, but involved little substantial
change to the structure. (fn. 19) Wainscotting and
stalls around the chancel, in place by c. 1678, (fn. 20)
were removed, the pews and seats were replaced
in deal, and a gallery was put up across the nave
west end to hold the school-children. (fn. 21) It was
still there in 1991 when it carried the organ,
installed c. 1845 and improved from a barrel
instrument to a fingered one c. 1864. (fn. 22) The west
tower and porch were repaired in 1849-50, some
windows being re-opened. (fn. 23) The chancel was
refurbished in 1867 and the south porch in
1870. (fn. 24) In 1875 the chancel east wall was rebuilt
in memory of the squire's eldest son, Col. S. F.
Jenyns (d.s.p. 1873): three stepped lancets,
designed by A. W. Blomfield, replaced its
Perpendicular window. (fn. 25)
In 1552 the church had, besides a silver gilt
cross and censer, three silver chalices, two
gilded. (fn. 26) The existing plate includes a cup,
paten, and flagon of 1840, given by John
Hailstone. (fn. 27) There were three bells in 1552, four
between the mid 18th century and the mid
20th, (fn. 28) including one late 16th-century one, one
of 1606, two of 1626, and one recast in 1829. (fn. 29)
A sixth was added in 1976. (fn. 30) The parish registers, which begin 1561 × 1569, are substantially
complete. (fn. 31) After the churchyard was closed in
1895, (fn. 32) 1 a. of glebe to its east was acquired by
the parish council for a burial ground, in use
from 1899. (fn. 33)
In 1852-3 John Hailstone erected at Lode a
chapel of ease consecrated in 1853, which seated
300; he gave £1,090 of the £1,765 cost of building it, and £710 of c. £1,000 raised to provide
£40 yearly for the permanent curate whom he
employed there. (fn. 34) In 1857 it was already claimed
that church activity there had greatly improved
the inhabitants' supposedly 'idle and disorderly'
way of life. (fn. 35) In 1863 Lode was constituted
a separate chapelry, incorporating, besides
2,590 a. of Bottisham, Swaffham Bulbeck Poor's
Fen; the southern boundary followed the Quy-
Swaffham road. The vicar of Bottisham then
resigned rights of presentation and supervision
in favour of Trinity College, Cambridge, (fn. 36) which
in 1925 ceded the patronage to the bishop of
Ely. (fn. 37) By 1864 £2,000 more had been raised, half
from that college, matched with £1,000 from the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, giving the new
incumbent, styled a vicar from 1869, an endowment worth £155 yearly by 1900. (fn. 38) The college
had also in 1863 given a plot north-east of the
new church, on which a vicarage house was built
in 1864. It was sold between 1974 and 1990. (fn. 39)
Incumbents of Lode between the 1860s and
the 1940s were mostly young clergymen starting
their careers; few stayed long. There were five
1863-70, and only three out of their thirteen
successors served for ten years or more. (fn. 40) From
the 1870s they regularly held two Sunday services, with communions at first monthly, by the
1890s weekly, attended by 50-70 people. Overall
churchgoers there were said to number c. 300 in
1873, 600 by 1897. By 1885 a mission room had
been opened at Longmeadow. (fn. 41) From 1974
Lode was left vacant, the church being served
from Bottisham, whose vicar held both benefices
by 1991. They were formally united in 1990. (fn. 42)
The church of ST. JAMES, so named from
1853, (fn. 43) standing east of the main street on a
plot given by Trinity College, (fn. 44) is stone-built to
designs by Rhode Hawkins in Decorated
Gothic. It consisted originally of a chancel with
vestry, nave, and south porch, the small western
bellcote containing two bells. (fn. 45) In the late 20th
century extensions were added on the north side
for a new vestry and church room.