Why We Celebrate Before Christmas (22 December 1978)

I will be surprised if, among your Christmas cards, you do not receive one with a village church pictured on it, and from the start I warn you that this piece is not going to comprise the kind of tinselled trivia that passes as Christmassy, but is going to be about a village church and a particular one at that.

Either last week or the week before, I indicated that the Gazette office is in Simpson, if only by the width of an unnamed stream. It would be mete at any time to write about ‘our’ village church, but it is more apt to do so now than at any other time, for Simpson Church is dedicated in honour of St Thomas the Apostle and his ‘saint’s day’ is December 21.

So if you are afraid of good solid meat, or don’t fancy it just now, you had best turn to another page. Most of the meat in what follows is taken from a very small, 1.720 words booklet written for the church in 1948 by the professional historian Warren Dawson, who lived at Simpson House for the last ten years of his life, or more. In all his writings I have caught him out only once. I wish I could say the same myself. So herewith his story.

Preserved

It is probable that there was a Saxon church in Simpson before the Norman Conquest, but no trace of it remains. However, there was certainly a church in the 1200s, for the list of rectors preserved in the records of the diocese of Lincoln, of which Simpson formed a part, begins with the presentation of a rector in 1231. He was probably not the first rector, the names of earlier ones having been lost. That old church was evidently in a dilapidated condition, as the greater part of the present structure dates from 1340.

It is a true cruciform building, comprising a nave and a chancel, the arms of the cross being the north and south transepts, with a lantern tower at the point of intersection. The tower is smaller in area than it should be. This is because the piers that support it formed part of the previous church which was smaller than the present church and had a tower to match. There were never any aisles.

In about 1400 the tower was highered (sic), the nave was reroofed at a lower pitch and the stairs in the north transept were built. The stairs gave access to the roof loft which, before the Reformation, crossed the chancel arch. The roof loft doorway can be seen in the north-east corner of the nave and by means of a modern wooden staircase it now gives access to the bell-ringing chamber in the tower.

Alterations

The windows have undergone frequent alterations. All the original windows in the chancel have been replaced by modern ones. The large square-headed window in the chancel’s south wall was probably enlarged from the original window in the 1500s. It was bricked up when the Hanmer monument was erected in 1789. No trace of it is visible from within, but its form can be seen from the outside of the wall.

In the nave, the west window was built in the 1400s, but the others date from the 1300s although they have evidently undergone alterations. In both transepts there is a small rectangular opening, “the purpose of which is difficult to understand”. These openings have been glazed in modern times and now form miniature windows.

There used to be a vestry in the angle between the north transept and the chancel. It had two doorways. One led into the transept and is still in use as an external door. The other is in the north wall of the chancel and is blocked.

The original floor of the chancel, like that of other medieval churches, was on the same level as the nave and was formed of leger stones. In modern times it has been considerably raised and tiled.

There are no ancient monuments in the church. The wall monuments are to various members of the Hanmer family, who held the manor from 1717 to 1806. Their manor house stood in the meadow to the south of the church and was demolished in 1810.

In the chancel is the circle-headed tombstone of William Gal, who died in 1638. Originally this was in the churchyard, but it is the oldest-dated tombstone in the whole of Bucks and has been placed inside for its greater protection.

In the nave the oldest monuments are the marble slabs to the memory of Charles Warren, who died in 1872, and to his first wife, Leonora, who died in 1841. Warren built Simpson House in 1823 on the site of the ancient farmhouse of the Goodman family, into which he married.

The roof has some fine timbering of the 1600s. For many years this was concealed by a lath and plaster ceiling, but when this was removed in 1904 the Royal Arms were disclosed above the chancel arch. The arms are painted directly on the wall plaster – a very unusual feature. The arms are those of Queen Anne, but above them are the letters GR, with the date 1742 in the lower border. So although the arms were painted in the reign of George II, the model used by the painter was many years out of date!

The six bells in the tower formerly included two from the famous Chandler foundry at Drayton Parslow, but were recast about 70 years ago.

The church registers formerly dated from 1538, but the earlier books have been lost. Those extant begin in 1710, although there are some transcripts in the Bodleian Library dating from 1600.

The advowson was acquired by the Hanmers in 1761 and although they parted with the Simpson estate in 1806, they retained the advowson. This may have had something to do with the fact that the Rev Graham Hanmer was rector from 1777 to 1807 and was succeeded by his son, the Rev Thomas Walden Hanmer, who ‘reigned’ for 64 years up to his death in 1871 at the age of 92. Thus father and son between them held the living for no fewer than 94 years!

That is the end of Mr Dawson’s information.

Patron Saint

Some 20 to 30 years ago an old font was discovered in the Rectory garden. The rural dean at the time, the Rev A Campbell, expressed to me his intention or hope of adopting the font for the new church of St Frideswides at Water Eaton, but I have no recollection whether this was actually done.

For a fair number of years there was a doubt among the Simpson parishioners as to whether St Thomas or St Nicholas was the church’s patron saint. In fact, they were teased as the people who knew everything else but did not know this. There should never have been any doubt about it. The old village feast was always held on December 21, St Thomas’s Day.

St Nicholas’s Day in the ecclesiastical calendar is on December 6 and no disturbance caused by the alteration from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian could possibly account for such a wide difference. Actually, the doubt was due to a clerical error in the lettering of an early edition of the Ordnance Survey map. This was corrected in later editions.