Description

TF 7928 HOUGHTON HOUGHTON PARK

10/16 Church of St.
5.6.53. Martin.

G.V. I

Parish church. C14, C15, details largely C18 and C19. Squared and knapped flint,
stone and carstone dressings, galleting; slated roofs. West tower, 4 bay nave
and aisles, north porch used as vestry, 2 bay chancel. West tower 1726. Built
by Sir Robert Walpole in memory of his grandfather. Gothick, perhaps pointing
to the involvement of William Kent. 4 stages with set off angle buttresses.
4-centred arched entrance with bulbous piers. 4-centred window above with
switch tracery division, boarding behind, platband below and above with drip
mould indentation. Quatrefoil with boarding above. One 2-light window with
bulbous shafts with quatrefoil in spandrel and ogee arch with crocketting,
detached drip mould arch above, to each face of bell chamber. Battlemented
parapet with 4 crocketted angle spirelets. Angles have set off buttresses with
stone quoins to bell chamber level, with quoined angles above. North and south
faces have blank ground floor 2-centred arches with detached horizontal drip
mould above. 2 centred switch tracery boarded windows above. South aisle has
one C18 or C19 2-light Perpendicular style east and west window, 3 C19 south
3-light straight headed windows. North aisle, connected with a donation of
1573, has one C18 or C19 Perpendicular style 2-light east window. 2 3-light
Perpendicular north windows with some original surviving tracery, one 3-light
east window. 5 north and south clerestorey 2-light switch tracery windows of
same details as tower. Aisles have limestone parapets, clerestorey has carstone
cornice, both of C18 classical inspiration. Chancel has one 2-light south and
one 3-light north C15 or C19 Perpendicular style window. East window mid C19
Decorated style. Interior: 4 bay north and south double hollow chamfered arches
on alternate octagonal and quatrefoil piers, C14. Chancel arch has trefoil
piers and moulded arch, possibly C13. Early English piscina in re-cut setting.
C17 stalls with arm rest figures. 4 bay Gothick west family tribune with 4
quadripartite piers, blank tracery against gallery front, probably 1726. Many
Walpole family hatchments. Box pews in aisles, some benches in nave. Early
C19 Gothick pulpit, carved stairs. In front of chancel arch table tomb monument,
said to be of 1307. Figure in mass vestments of a Prior of Cockesford, under
ogee arch head with finials. Said to have been removed here in 1522. Sir Robert
Walpole, 1st Earl of Oxford and his three successors, included Horace Walpole,
buried here.

Listing NGR: TF7937028382

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• St Martin at Tours' Church, Houghton at Wikipedia
• St Martin at Tours' Church, Houghton official website
• Wikidata Q17536214

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hertfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)