Hampshire Church Monuments

St Mary's Church, Hartley Wintney - Monuments

Hartley Wintey Parish Church.

St Mary's Church, Hartley Wintney is modestly sized, cruciform, made of flint and puddingstone, with brick transepts, and a bit of rendering, and pitched tile roofs: the whole gives a pleasing mix. The tower, of flint, is clearly 19th Century, the rest far older, in part dating to the 13th Century, other parts 14th-15th Centuries. The Church belonged to the Cistercian nuns of Wintney Priory, established in the 1150s, and the Church was apparently commenced in 1234; part of the nave and chancel likely date from this time. The priory disappeared with the dissolution, and the Church survived without much alteration until 1834, when the brick transepts were added, the tower following shortly afterwards in 1842: it is of three stages, nicely buttressed, and with battlements and tall pinnacles. But the village had moved somewhat away, and a new church being built in 1869-1870 (St John), St Mary’s became effectively redundant.

The interior is charming, with box pews, a little gallery, deep set windows of varying dates, and a gallery. There are just four simple monuments:

Monuments

    Brass panel to Charles Palmer, d.1859.

  • Charles Felix Palmer, d.1859, a child, erected by his aunts and uncles. Brass panel, with typical Gothic lettering, red capitals, and a repeating border, and fixed to a dark marble backing, which is less usual.

    Manderson of Dublin's panel to Annie Hawley, d.1861.

  • Annie [Gumbleton] Hawley, d.1861, wife of Lt. Col. Robert Beaufoy Hawley. A Gothic white-on-black panel, with round-shafted pilasters to the side, an entablature with a repeating pattern of clover leaves carved in low relief, and the tri-cusped Gothic top with the IHS emblem [for Jesus] within it; at the base, a shelf, with two nicely carved corbel supports, and the shaped black backing panel is signed by Manderson of Dublin, a Victorian monument maker and supplier of marble. The monument is unusual in being Gothic rather than Manderson’s usual Classical style, and in being there at all: I have not come across another piece by Manderson outside of Ireland. The reason is because Annie’s family came from Fort William, County Waterford, and must have turned to their more local supplier.

    Robert Glover, Edith Lethaby.

  • Capt. Robert Coke Glover, d.1864, killed in the Tauranga, New Zealand, in the attack on Wharangi Pah, and his brother Frederick Guy Eaton Glover, d.1864, from wounds in the same attack. They were sons of the Revd. E.A. Glover and his wife Mary, the monument being erected by their aunt, Elizabeth Mary Hawley. Classical white-on-black panel, with upper shelf and cut to pediment shape, lower, thicker shelf and feet with mouldings. By Thomas Gaffin of Regent Street, the most prolific firm of statuaries of the 19th Century.

  • Edith Lethaby, d.1927, the wife of the Arts and Crafts architect William Richard Lethaby; they are both buried in the Churchyard. A modest wooden panel of wood, with a carving of a dove perched on a sprig of oak.

Also in the Church:

  • Fragmentary wall paintings survive, mostly with simple patterning in red, with a St Christopher. Biblical quotations are written in panels and circles on the walls.

  • An ancient wooden chest reinforced with irregular metal strips, pictured below right.

  • There is a painted Royal arms on a panel, dated 1705; see picture above left.

St Mary's Churchyard

Outside, there are a few 18th Century headstones, and a couple of unusual ones of indeterminate date with Maltese crosses with cut outs.

There is also an early 20th Century wooden headboard style monument, not so usual.

Field Marshal Alanbrooke is buried in the Churchyard.

Wooden headboard in Hartley Wintney churchyard.

The Church is now under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust; the website is https://www.visitchurches.org.uk/visit/church-listing/st-mary-hartley-wintney.html. On that page is a link to a history of the Church with information especially on the wall paintings.

Petersfield Church, another parish church in Hampshire