Thrale history
Historic Sandridge. The story of a Hertfordshire parish (1952).
The first substantial chronicle of Thrale history, written by R.W. Thrale (1931-2007) & E. Giles. Reproduced in full with consent of the author.
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In the year 1729 the church expenses were as follows:
| Church repairs | 14s. | 4d. | |
| Altar cloth | £2. | 8s. | 0d. |
| Bread and wine | 16s. | 4d. | |
| Six prayer books | £2. | 6s. | 8d. |
| Churchyard | 18s. | 7d. | |
| Bell ringing | 9s. | 0d. | |
| Three new bell ropes | 4s. | 0d. |
The bells, as has been related, were inside the church and were rung on three occasions, namely, for the coronation of George II, for the King’s birthday, and for Guy Fawkes Day. Each time the ringers got a shilling each, in addition to the previously listed seven items there were the fees for the two visitations. Each visitation involved a journey to St Albans by the vicar and churchwardens, and each time the latter allowed the vicar five shillings for his dinner, though the crafty fellows allowed themselves ten shillings and sixpence each. Nowadays there is only one visitation a year; the vicar is not expected to go and the Parochial Church Council makes no dinner allowance to anyone. The parish churches were not then insured in the same manner as they are now, but if a church was burnt down, other parishes would come to the rescue and help to bear the cost by means of a levy called a brief; These briefs are mentioned in the prayer book, in the rubric after the Nicene Creed. In 1732 Sandridge helped twelve churches in this manner, including St. Peter and St. Paul, Llandaff, which is now a Cathedral.
The visitations already mentioned were in fact visits by the vicar and churchwardens to the Archdeacon of St Albans; the churchwardens made their report on the slate of the church and the fabric. This was, and is still, the normal procedure each year. Occasionally, however, there was an energetic archdeacon who, declining to accept these reports at their face value, mounted his horse and visited the churches for himself. Such an untoward event occurred in 1757, when Archdeacon Ibbetson visited St. Leonard’s and found the chancel in a poor condition as regards fabric, roof, windows, pews and doors. The chancel was the responsibility of Lord Spencer, the lord of the manor and lay rector. The archdeacon, need it be said, was not pleased; he ordered the church to be whitewashed on the inside; the seals, floor, porches and windows to be repaired, and a new cover for the font to be provided. He also ordered that "the Ten Commandments be fairly written on the wall at the east end of the church". The churchwardens were allowed less than two months in which to see the matter through. The fabric of St. Leonard’s was satisfactory in 1760, except that the chancel floor was uneven; probably there had been some burials under it and the floor not properly relaid.By 1780 the lower had been down for ninety years and the upper part of the nave walls with the clerestory windows were removed as follows: "William Paul lowered the old roof without taking off the lead, having put in fresh beams, laying planks on the old original tier walls which had a row of small windows on each side, and then lowering one side about six inches, and then the other, and so on, using wedges. The wall removed was about a yard high and very tender. The attic windows then put in were made by William Paul."10
For the next hundred years the nave and side aisles were spanned by one ugly low pitched gable roof. Two windows were pierced in the wall which blocked the western lower arch, and external buttresses were built at the four corners of the tottering nave walls, the two on the north side consisting of ugly masses of brickwork. There were two attic windows, one of which can be seen in the picture on the title page, in front of the bell turret which was added a few years later.
The outward appearance of the church at the turn of the century has already been noted. The inside furnishings also left much to be desired. The nave was filled from the west wall to the screen with box pews. The walls of these pews were so high that those sitting or kneeling within them could see nothing but the lofty pulpit. Each pew was entered by a separate door, and within the box were seats, some facing east and some west. It was a black period for English church furnishing; many of our wonderful churches had almost ceased to be places of worship and had become mere preaching halls. The disfigurement of the chancel by while marble memorials to the departed gentry began during this period, for which the vicar Robert Welton must be largely held responsible; no doubt though, it would have been almost impossible to deny his more fortunate parishioners their marble whims. Originally they were more offensive than now for they were situated in the sanctuary, one each side, and thrust their front towards the altar. Such then was our church within and without when the eighteenth century closed.
Footnotes
- The St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, in their TRANSACTIONS 1904, p.42 note..↩︎
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