This is a sequence of letters concerning the building of St Martin’s, Preston. It includes Canon Hensley’s objections to the burial ground at Preston, and information about the building fund. There is also a letter about the history of Anglican religion in Preston.
Dear Switzer
Preston Church Building Committee
I am glad to hear of the settlement of the committee and of the progress made by the meeting at the Vicarage and by your interview with the Bishop in giving shape to the design and making a beginning by resolutions.
My doubt is respecting a Burial Ground which I have never contemplated, which appears to me to involve many difficulties and to require much consideration.
After the policy of closing Burial Grounds and providing for burials by means of a Cemetery governed by the representatives of all the ‘Parish Meetings’ or ‘Parishes’ interested, it seems to me doubtful whether it will be wise to open a new one.
1) This would be for the sake of two or three burials a year and would involve expense and a small system of Registration outside the existing system.
2) The desire for this arises out of the old feeling of the Parish Church with its churchyard around it for the burial of worshippers after death.
The law has altered this and it would be equally for those who worship there and elsewhere. But it would be only for parishioners. I think this is inconsistent with the position of Preston which consists not only of part of the parish of Hitchin but also of St. Ippolyts (sic) with Kings Walden close at hand and Langley hamlet not very far off. Surely there would be all sorts of claims and unpleasant feelings called out.
The only reason I can think of for a Burial Ground is the anticipation that someday a new parish might be constructed out of the neighbouring parishes to be independent with an independent Burial Ground. This is not now contemplated and seems far too difficult to be thought of now.
Apart from that, nothing seems to me more lonely and melancholy than a churchyard with their few graves with some difficulty in making provision for their proper custody.
From what I remember of the advice of the Chancellor, Mr Hempe, on new Burial Grounds, I believe that it will be found that to vest the land in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners is the proper way to avoid difficulties and considerable expense.
Will you let me know what is the size of the site offered?
L. Hensley
5 August 1898
The Rookery,
Stevenage.
10 July 1898
Dear Canon Hensley,
My direction has been drawn to a paragraph in the Herts Express (see below) concerning a part of the Parish (the hamlet of Preston) with which I was intimately connected (as you know) some forty years ago. The paragraph to which I refer contains some rather sad reading and I am sorry to see that funds at your disposal for Church matters in your Parish are at so low an ebb! Indeed, I suppose it would be difficult to find any Parish in these times where it was otherwise.
If I remember rightly, one of your late curates, Mr Arkwright I think, took up the idea of a church for Preston but on his leaving Hitchin, it fell through I suppose
I do not at all know whether it is the intention of any large-
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely
J. E. Eadon
Hertfordshire Express
PIETY, ANCIENT AND MODERN
An interesting revival
An opportunity of rare occurrence is now before the parishioners of Hitchin and all others interested in this district of Hertfordshire. It is the revival of the ancient Chapel of Ease to St Mary’s, Hitchin which existed at Preston before the Reformation, upon the famous Temple Dinsley. Chauncy (A.D. 1700) in his history of Hertfordshire Antiquities tells how elaborate the provision was for due religious services in ancient days. The substance of his information amounts to this: that an agreement existed between the Knights Templers and the Abbess and nuns of Elstow (Beds) that the nuns should find a chaplain to reside at Dinsley. His duties were strictly laid down: he was to celebrate Mass on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays in every week in the mornings and vespers in the afternoons unless it should happen that a festival should fall in the week – then that should be accounted one of the three days.
The chaplain or minister of Hitchin was bound by oath to see that these duties were performed. Rigid provision was also made for the Preston chaplain’s stipend. The Knights Templers who held the estate had to pay “with all integrity all the tithes of corn issuing out of all lands which they ploughed in Hitchin” and also the tithes for all ground newly broken up and sowed. This was previous to the year 1348 A.D. At that time, it was incumbent upon the Templers to find ‘yearly two chaplains to celebrate divine service in the chapel of the manor for ever for the souls of the feoffees of the Templers for all secular services’.
For two centuries this arrangement seems to have held good, the inhabitants of Preston having the privilege of worshipping at their own chapel served by two chaplains secured to them by the religious devotion of the Nuns of Elstow. Here is an instance of the value of monasteries in the Middle Ages. Where there was a need for it they provided the people with the ministry of the Christian religion and both planted and fostered mission churches throughout the country.
Next we come to what the historian calls ‘the fatal year of the dissolution of monasteries’. When Elstow was dissolved, Temple Dinsley fell to King Henry VIII and then we began to see some of the crying abuses which followed in the track of ‘The Reformation’. Did the King care for the religious privileges of his subjects in Preston? Not at all – he sold them. One of his principal Secretaries of State at that time (1542 A.D.) was Sir Ralph Sadleir, Knight. To this gentleman, the manors of Temple Dinsley and Temple Chelsin with all their ‘rights, members and appurtenances etc.’ were granted in consideration of the sum of £843 2s 6d! What was the result? In private hands, with no friendly religious overseers such as the monastery at Elstow provided, Preston Chapel soon fell into decay and ruin and the modern historian chronicles, ‘No trace of this building now remains’ (Cussans). The history of Temple Dinsley is easily traced for the last 350 years as it passed successively into the hands of the Sadleirs, the Ithells, the Harwoods, the Dartons, till it rests with the present owner. Preston is in the Manor of Temple Dinsley and Temple Dinsley is in the ancient Chapelry of Preston (or as it was written, Prestune)
Little or nothing seems to have been done for religion in Preston for the long spell
of three centuries and it is not yet fifty years ago that Thomas Harwood Darton built
the present schoolroom which was licensed by the Bishop of Rochester and has ever
since been used for Divine worship. We can now form an opinion as to the ancient
(pre-
The Observatory,
Crowborough Hill
Sussex
12 July 1898
Dear Canon Hensley,
I am very interested in your letter and very pleased with the announcement of Mr Eadon’s gift, which, as you say, shows that help will come from unexpected quarters. I may be wrong but I have never thought that one subscription list in a parish seriously interferes with another in the long run because by all such lists generosity is drawn forth and one class of minds will respond to help in one direction which would not be drawn to help in the other...and a little kindly rivalry in such things is not without its stimulus for the parish.
I shall hope that the school fund will get on all the better for the existence of this other one because its need will be brought more into prominence. Statements at intervals in the magazine as to its condition would, I think, be of use.
Mrs MacMillan says in a letter this morning, ‘“You may begin your subscription list with our name for £100 and I hope to have some others to add to it before your return’. Will you thank her personally?
Mr Cazenove also writes giving himself £25; his aunt Mrs Henry Cazenove, £10 and a promise of a further donation when the work is in hand. Mrs Cazenove will now I believe renew her correspondence with the Bishop so that you may have a letter from him before long
B.N. Switzer.
