The Botolphian Newsletter of The Society of Saint Botolph www.botolph.info The above icon of Saint Botolph is copyright © Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Brookline, MA and used by permission. All rights reserved. Admin: Denis Pepper, 17, Cliffe House, Radnor Cliff, Folkestone, Kent, CT20 2TY. Tel: +44 (0)1303 221-777 [email protected] President: Revd Timothy L'Estrange, Vicar of St.Gabriel's Church, North Acton. Issue Number: 23 1st March 2015 Highlights this month St Botolph’s Church, Lullingstone. Welcome to new members: George & Sue Vittay (Charing, Kent), Valerie Sadler (Coggeshall, Essex), Dorothy Latham (Dymchurch, Kent). Readers’ emails from Tony Connolly and Dick Pascoe. Dates of my proposed visits to Ratcliffe, Shepshed, Sibson, Burton Hastings, Newbold, CwC Brampton and Slapton. Editorial If this missive were more of a ‘blog’ and less There are however, two Saint Rumbolds! dedicated to Saint Botolph, its content this month would be describing in detail my visits to two St Rumbold of Buckingham (aka Rumwold, fascinating ‘other’ churches. Rumoalde, Rombout etc.), is what I would call a ‘fabricated saint’. He is reputed to have been born One such visit was to St Leonard’s Church in in 662 and able to speak from the time of his birth Hythe, Kent, with its famous ossuary consisting of whereupon he immediately professed his 1200 skulls, 8,000 femurs and other bones. Christianity by saying three times “I am a Christian”. He gave a sermon before predicting his death, making his own funeral arrangements and dying at the age of three days. The story to us may be unbelievable but it had a serious motive in that it was apparently written shortly after the Norman Conquest with a view to befuddling the brains of the new upstart French priests who were taking jobs from the English clergy and claiming that their saints were better than ours. It is not quite clear how St Rumbold’s story helped but it is full of symbolism and seems to have had a serious point. St Rumbold of Mechelen hailed from a similar The second was to St Rumbold’s Cathedral in period. It is believed that he was an Irish/Scottish Mechelen (which lies in Belgium just a nudge missionary who was murdered by two men whom north of Brussels and halfway between the latter he had denounced. Originally he was thought (as and Antwerp). It deserves a longer visit, which I has also been claimed for Botolph’s ‘brother’ hope to accomplish later, but from the Botolphian Adulph) to have worked with Saint Willibrord aspect it is interesting because of its patron saint. (658-739), the first Bishop of Utrecht. In 2004 1 however his (presumed) relics which are and known as Lullingstone House until it was preserved in Mechelen Cathedral were carbon- renamed in 1740). These other features are all dated. This revealed that the subject died between bonuses however. The object of this article is the 580 and 655 at the age of about forty. church - which one might erroneously assume was the castle’s private chapel. It is however used for This would put him in the same time-scale as regular public worship and, considering the size of Botolph and his brother and in the same locality as the parish, sports a large congregation. Adulph. We can perhaps therefore bring Rumbold on to the stage as another potential character in the ‘Botolph Story’. Church Feature Lullingstone (Kent). Approach:- Head for Eynsford along the A225 and then turn across the bridge and follow the Darent stream towards Lullingstone Roman Villa. Keep straight on past the villa over a slight rise and you will soon see the Castle Gatehouse on your left. Park neatly on the grass outside. Key: The church is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Priest in Charge: Revd Gary Owen, The Rectory, Pollyhaugh, Eynsford, Dartford, Kent DA4 0HF. Tel: 01322 863-050. Email: [email protected]. Church services: Sundays 11 a.m. (Holy Communion each 3rd Sunday of the month). Location: Lullingstone Lane: 51.3584, 0.1960. NGR: TQ529644. DA4 0JA. Listed Grade: I There is a lot more to St Botolph’s church, Lullingstone, than initially meets the eye. One might at first be shocked by the sight of the C18 porch sitting incongruously against the C14 knapped flint south wall but do not let this cloud your judgement - the porch is very functional and there are even better things to come. Your second observation might be the red brickwork between the walls and the roof gables. Be forewarned: there is so much to see in this The placing of these bricks was contemporaneous small area that you might consider ‘making a day with the building of the porch and signifies the of it’ - so perhaps think: flask and sandwiches! raising of the church’s roof in order to You could, for example, spend a couple of hours accommodate new moulded ceilings of the same exploring the Roman Villa; an hour visiting St period. Botolph’s church; an hour looking around the World Garden designed and built by Tom Hart- Although the building has never been the castle’s Dyke; and another hour on a tour of Lullingstone private chapel, its preservation and improvements Castle. (The castle, incidentally, was built in C15 are almost entirely due to the castle’s owners (the 2 Hart-Dyke family) who trace their residency here As you enter the church, the first thing that strikes back to C15. you is the rood screen. In many churches these The church existed before this however. It is have now been removed but this one is a fine thought that a wooden chapel existed on the site example of early C16 craftsmanship. Before you before it was replaced by a two-cell Norman stone study this more closely though, look behind the building (dedicated to Saint Botolph) after the entrance door and you will find a unique font: a Norman Conquest. The last rector of the two-cell small marble basin in a wooden case. This, like church was John de Rokesley and his brass the beautiful moulded ceilings and many other memorial lies under the gateway of the rood- structures, was the C18 gift of Sir Percyvall Hart. screen. The bird on his shield is a rook (a pun on his name) and the brass records the date of his At this point it would seem useful to list the main death as 1361. Rokesley built a new church in the benefactors and personalities: Decorated style that is the basic structure we see Sir John Peché (Peachey) d. 1522 today. Sir Percyvall Hart (I) d. 1580 Sir George Hart d. 1587 Sir Percyvall Hart (III) d. 1700 Sir Percyvall Hart (IV) d. 1738 Sir Thomas Dyke d. 1756 Returning to the c.1525 rood screen, close inspection will reveal the rose of England (representing Henry VIII) and the pomegranate of Aragon (representing his first wife Katharine) who were frequent visitors here. There are also peach stones embossed with the letter ‘e’ to give a clue to the provider (Sir John). The pulpit (seen below on the left) is late C17 and was donated by Sir Percyvall Hart III. We tend to consider Christianity in England as starting from the time of St Augustine’s arrival in 597 but the religion was of course practised by many of our Roman ‘ancestors’ before it went out of fashion when they departed at the end of C4. The first recorded place of Christian worship in Lullingstone was a ‘House-church’ within the Roman villa (which is just down the road). It dates from A.D. 385. This area has been a centre of Christianity for more years than most. 3 Turning to look back at the western end of the nave you can see the font on the south wall, the beautiful moulded ceilings (c. 1723) and the black and white floor tiles and oaken pews (the wood was locally-sourced from the Lullingstone estate) of even date. Passing through the rood screen into the chancel, to your right is the 1581 tomb of Sir Percyvall (I) and Lady Hart. Turning one’s back on the tomb one sees, on the western wall of the chapel, a complex heraldic (c. 1740) memorial to Sir Percyvall Hart-Dyke (IV), the provider of the ceilings, the font and the porch etc. On the north wall is a mural tablet memorial to Anne Dyke (née Hart) who died in 1763. Turning away from this you are looking across the tomb of Sir John Peché (1473-1521) into the C16 North Chapel. This was built on to the church with the specific view of housing his body. Stained glass windows. Many of the stained glass windows are of importance due to their early provenance. Sir John Peché (1473-1521), who provided the rood screen and the north chapel etc., also Seventy years later the tomb of his sister’s contributed the three panels in the south window grandson, Sir George Hart, was to take up of the nave. This work was done by the Anglo- residence at the east end of the chapel. The tomb Flemish glaziers of the Southwark School is magnificent and bears the effigies of Sir George established by Henry VII. They depict St and his wife clasping hands in eternal affection. Erasmus, St John the Baptist and St George and On the plinth supporting a cherub to the right is the dragon. the inscription ‘LABOR’ and one to the left ‘QUIES’ (rest). Sir John also donated the glass (c.