A brief history of our Churches

St Nicholas, Hardwicke

Winebaud de Ballon in 1092 gave a church called Hardwicke, with its tithes and 6 yardlands, to Bermondsey Priory and the priory is said to have sold that church in the later 13th or the 14th century. About 1188 Hardwicke church was recorded as a chapel belonging to Standish church, but the record is of the establishment of a perpetual vicarage of Hardwicke, it clearly enjoyed in the late 12th century a degree of independence unusual for a chapel of ease.

The endowment of the vicarage included part of the great tithes, corn-rents from each yardland in the parish, the small tithes, and obventions, the great tithes passed to Gloucester Abbey presumably when the abbey appropriated Standish church. The separate parochial status of Hardwicke, exemplified by the right of burial there in 1493, was acknowledged in the 16th century.

From 1498 until the 20th century Hardwicke normally had a chaplain or curate, maintained and nominated by the Vicar of Standish. John Jennings, who was curate of Hardwicke in 1532, was in 1551 found to be poor in learning and in the same year he was reviled in the church while teaching the catechism. In 1563 Jennings was Vicar of Haresfield, but it was he whom the parishioners blamed for the failure to find a curate for Hardwicke. Later the same year the curate was Jarret Trye, presumably one of the Tryes of Park manor, and three later 16th-century curates were recorded. In 1650 the curate was a graduate, Thomas Holland, described as a constant preacher, and Hardwicke was thought fit to become a separate parish. In 1661 and 1662 there was apparently no curate, but curates for Hardwicke were recorded in 1676, 1716, and c. 1750. At the last of those dates the curate may have been maintained by Lord Hardwicke, who was said to be patron, but there was only one service each Sunday. In 1680 a glebe terrier for Hardwicke listed a house of 3 bays, much out of repair; unlike the land listed in the terrier, it was apparently unlet, and may have been for the curate's use. In 1705 the house was in good repair but of only 2 bays. In 1807 it was described as a thatched cottage, containing a kitchen and pantry, with two rooms above. The house stands on the south side of the churchyard, a simple timber-framed building covered with roughcast, of one story with an attic. In 1967, when it was called the Old Vicarage, it retained its thatch. In the mid 19th century the curates lived at the cottage, which became a private house in the seventies when a new glebe house was built of red brick in Hardwicke village. Successive curates for Hardwicke lived at Standish in 1784, at Eastington in 1820, and at Gloucester in 1831; from 1856 to 1948 the curates lived at Hardwicke, as in 1967.

The church of St Nicholas, so called by the late 18th century, but called St. Mary's c. 1708, is built of ashlar with a Cotswold slate roof; it comprises chancel, north and south chapels, nave, north and south aisles, south-west tower, and south porch. The arcade of 3 bays that until the mid 19th century divided the nave and the south aisle was said to be Norman, but it is more likely to have been of the early 13th century. The walls of the chancel, nave, and south aisle may have been rebuilt at that period, from which survive the plain chancel arch and the south doorway flanked by attached shafts with enriched capitals. Some fragments of the same period, perhaps from the nave arcade, have been reset in the south chapel. There are two plain piscinas side by side, one broad and one narrow. The embattled west tower, of three stages with an internal stair-vice and gargoyles at the parapet, and the porch, which was originally on the north side, were built in the early 14th century. The consecration of the great altar by the Bishop of Worcester in 1315 may have marked the completion of a phase of new building.

Additions apparently of the late 14th century were the rood-loft, and the three-light west window with a transom and early Perpendicular tracery. In 1348 the Vicar of Standish was made responsible for the chancel of Hardwicke church. The south chapel was apparently built in the 15th century, though the east window looks as though it may be of the 14th and is said to have been the original east window of the chancel. Also of the 15th century is the squint of two trefoil-headed lights on the south side of the chancel arch. William Trye (d. 1497) left money for reroofing and reflowing the nave. The south aisle was regarded as the property of the Tryes in the early 18th century, and the chapel at its east end as their mortuary chapel.

The church was restored in the 1840's, when the principal change seems to have been the replacement of the nave arcade and the rebuilding of the east end of the chancel to incorporate a 14th-century window, with head-stops to the labels inside and out, removed from Haresfield church. A more comprehensive restoration and enlargement, under Waller & Son of Gloucester in 1878, included building the north aisle to seat the boys of the reformatory, with a chapel at its east end to house a new organ in place of one introduced in 1868, removing the galleries, and transferring the porch from the north to the south doorway. In 1927 the tower was restored; in 1938 the organ was moved from the north chapel to the west end of the north aisle, and given a new case.

The monuments in the church include a large number in the south chapel to members of the Trye family, the earliest having lost their inscriptions but thought to be to John Trye (fl. 1450) and William Trye (d. 1497). Six are altar-tombs, and that to John Trye (d. 1591) has a stone effigy under an arched canopy piercing the wall of the chancel. The 13th-century font has a pedestal of 8 engaged shafts and a circular arcaded bowl. There were 4 bells c. 1703, of which a medieval bell inscribed in Gothic capitals Sancta Maria or a pro nobis MWTA, one of 1639, and one by Abraham Rudhall of 1693 have survived. Two bells were added in 1819 (one was recast in 1841) and another in 1836. Six were rehung and dedicated in 1927, but they did not apparently include the medieval bell, which was on the floor of the nave in 1967. The plate includes a chalice and paten-cover inscribed 1572. The registers begin in 1566 and are virtually complete. The oak chest is dated 1676.

The lich-gate to the churchyard was opened in 1921, as a war memorial.

From: 'Hardwicke: Church', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 10: Westbury and Whitstone Hundreds (1972), pp. 187-88. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=15818&strquery=hardwicke%20church. Date accessed: 16 March 2006.

St John the Baptist, Elmore

Elmore is a parish in the middle division of the hundred of Dudstone, county Gloucester, 5 miles S.W. of Gloucester. It is situated on the eastern bank of the river Severn. The greater portion of the land is meadow and pasture. A rock here obstructs the course of the Severn, and renders it un-navigable at low water. The church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, is an ancient stone structure with an embattled tower at the W. end. The north aisle was the original chancel and the lower of the three sections of the tower is from the 13th century. The Church was restored in 1879-80 by F.S. Waller when the chancel was re-roofed and the nave and aisle roofs repaired. The font, pulpit and vestry screen are also of this date. A tomb chest dates to 1472 having an incised line portrait of a knight in armour and inscriptions commemorating "Johannes Gyse and Alicia his wife". In the Churchyard stands the remains of one of the finest table-tombs in the county. Elmore Court, the ancient seat of the Guise family, is a handsome Elizabethan mansion, situated on a nearby eminence".

From: 'The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland' (1868) Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003 [and other material from Pevsner]

St Laurence, Longney

Elsi, lord of Longney until 1086 or 1087, built a church there and invited St. Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, to consecrate it. A luxuriant nut-tree blocked the daylight from the church, and when Elsi said that he would rather not have the church consecrated than lose the tree the bishop cursed the tree so that it withered. The history of the rectory estate, held by Wulfwin the priest c. 1115, is given above. A vicarage had been established by 1291, to which Great Malvern Priory presented until the Dissolution. Thereafter the Crown retained the advowson; in 1953 the vicarage was united with the perpetual curacy of Elmore, and the patronage of the united benefice was shared by the Lord Chancellor with the Archdeacon of Gloucester as patron of Elmore.

The vicar had the small tithes, the great tithes of 3 yardlands, and c. 3 a. of meadow. The tithes were commuted for corn-rents at inclosure in 1815. The vicarage house was recorded, as being out of repair, in 1563; it presumably stood on the site of the 18th-century brick house immediately north of the churchyard that was the vicarage until 1869. A new, larger house was then built with the help of a grant on Windmill Hill, 700 yds. east of the church.

A chantry of St. Mary the Virgin in Longney church had been founded by 1283, when it had a chaplain called William; Stephen the chaplain of Longney, recorded c. 1267, and John the chaplain of Longney, before 1300, may also have been chantry priests. Lands in Longney that had been for the maintenance of the chantry and its priest were granted by the Crown in 1564.

Robert Brether or Bryther, who evidently belonged to a family holding land in Hardwicke and Longney, became vicar in 1466 and was still there in 1498. A curate was employed by Roger Mathew, vicar in 1540, and by his successor John David, who was said in 1548 to neglect the quarterly sermons but was very nearly satisfactory in doctrine in 1551. Robert Clayfield, vicar from 1563 to 1609, was described as but a mean divine and no preacher in 1576, when he had another benefice and lived elsewhere, but later he lived at Longney and preached. Another long incumbency was that of Richard Littleton (d. 1713), whose monument in Longney church records that he was minister there for 58 years. Littleton's successors until 1865 were non-resident, usually employing curates to serve Longney; the last three held the perpetual curacy of Elmore also. E. R. Nussey, in whose time the new vicarage was built, held the living of Longney alone for 39 years from 1865, and J. R. Rowland for 41 years from 1912.

The church of St Laurence, which may earlier have been called St. Helen's, is built mainly of Lias stone, formerly covered externally with a yellow wash, and has a tiled roof. It comprises chancel with a south chapel, long nave, south tower set as a transept, and north and south porches. No trace of the 11th-century building is to be seen. A rebuilding in the 13th century is represented by the opening from the chancel to the south chapel, a two-bay arcade of two chamfered orders resting on a cylindrical central pier with a moulded capital, and by two plain piscinas in the chancel and chapel. In the 14th century the two lower stages of the tower were made; the bottom stage has a simple window of two pointed lights, and there is a similar window in the south wall of the nave. The west window is of three cusped 14th-century lights, and the east window was once like it. The north doorway, the timber north porch, the two-light windows in the north wall of the nave, a sepulchral recess in the chancel with an ogee moulded arch, and the priest's door to the south chapel are apparently also of the 14th century. Other windows in the chancel, nave, and south chapel were made in the 15th century. The nave has a trussed rafter roof, retaining its panelling at the east end, with moulded tie-beams.

The south porch and the upper stage and short diagonal buttresses of the tower, all of oolitic ashlar, were added in the late 15th or early 16th century; the former chancel arch, springing from the wall, and the three-light south window of the nave were made in the same period. The tower is embattled and has large gargoyles, and its three stages are separated by string-courses. The large south porch is also embattled; both inner and outer doorways have continuous moulded arches with quatrefoils carved in the spandrels, and are surmounted by mutilated niches, the outer one incorporated in a row of trefoil-headed panels; within the porch are stone benches and the octagonal shaft of a stoup.

The nave and chancel were restored in 1873-4, and the arches between the chancel and south chapel, which had been filled in the later 18th century, were unblocked and the chancel windows and chancel arch were rebuilt. The chancel was refurnished in 1906, and the tower restored in 1916. There were two or more bells in 1543, and five in the early 18th century. Of the eight surviving bells one was cast by John Palmer in 1635, one by Abraham Rudhall in 1712, and the other six by John Rudhall between 1796 and 1833. The organ was bought in 1905. The font, which has an octagonal panelled bowl and buttressed pedestal, was made in the 14th century; from the later 18th century to the later 19th it was in the churchyard, disused. The mural monuments include two by John Pearce of Frampton on Severn. The church plate is of 1804 and 1805. The registers begin in 1661 and are virtually complete. In the churchyard are the socket of an ancient stone cross and two stone coffins carved with crosses.

From: 'Longney: Church', A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 10: Westbury and Whitstone Hundreds (1972), pp. 203-05. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=15834&strquery=longney. Date accessed: 16 March 2006.