Newsletter No. 12

Dear Friends,

Welcome to another newsletter. I suppose the most significant occurrence over the past 6 months has been the arrival of our new "priest in charge" Fr Patrick Eastman and his wife Maureen. They arrived at the end of May, just in time to put in an appearance at our Open Morning. Father Pat has been in the USA for about 20 years so he has much to discover about us and the Diocese. It is early days to concern him with the maintenance of St Mary's (put in pretty good shape during the tenure of Fr Richard), so we intend to be low key and try not to spring any leaks or court other disasters. 

our Open Day. Unfortunately the rain gods were in the ascendancy, and we were a little short of visitors. We raised £254, which was good in the circumstances. In June we held a Ladies Pamper Evening, this time unfortunately in competition with a popular WI event, and again were short of support. 
Nevertheless we raised £130. There are more funding initiatives planned for later this year which you can read about in the Events section. I urge you to support them if you 
can, and if you are not able " to do so a "bottle" or ", something similar for the inevitable raffle would be much appreciated.

 
This promises to be a bumper edition of the Newsletter with three very different and 

interesting articles. I thank Mrs Beryl  Treglown, David Tetlow and Edmund Lee for finding time to research and present their articles.

 
Finally, I reiterate my earlier remarks regarding support of our fundraising functions. It is so discouraging to spend time and effort preparing for an event which is poorly attended. I realise that not every function may be to 
your taste, if you have other. suggestions the committee would welcome fresh ideas. Fundraising helps to provide the funds to maintain St Mary's. Your support is vital to the success of these events. 

See you in September, October and November ...... please. 

Bernadette Yarnold

Graffiti is often thought of as merely vandalism - and often that is the case. 

Looked at in another way however, it can provide building historians with insights into the way a building has been used over time, a sort of 'unauthorised biography'. This is the case at St Mary's. 
Some of the best known 
church graffiti is found at Ashwell church in Hertfordshire, where hastily carved inscriptions commemorate the effects of the Black Death of 1349. We don't have anything that spectacular, but there are some interesting features. 
I believe the earliest 'unofficial' markings in the church are to be found on the pillar adjacent to the pulpit, about two metres up on the west face. A finely incised narrow 'X' shape can be seen, with small additional lines in the angles formed by the X creating small diamond shapes. At each end of the main arms of the X, small lines form 'arrowhead' like projections. The fine nature of the carving, its position and the fact that it is exactly centred on the stone leads me to believe that this is a 

stone-mason's mark - a mark used by craftsmen preparing the stone to identify who has done what. Ordinarily these would be 
Most of the other graffiti in 
the church are concentrated on the pillars of the North and South arcade. The graffiti on the pillars is usually sets of initials, carved with a drilling action to create the points of letter, joined up with scratched lines. Clearly these date from after the 16th 
century construction of the pillars. In some cases the form of the letters - for example, a 'W' with the central lines crossing over to form an X suggests a fairly early date, perhaps in the 18th century. Other graffiti are so placed that they would have 
been almost impossible to carve with the pews in place, suggesting that they pre-date the 1860's renovation of the church. 
One interesting study is to look at the distribution of the graffiti. Mostly they are on the west side of the pillars, which perhaps suggests that they were carved during services, the west side being sheltered from the gaze of the vicar. However, one remarkable graffito is on the 

second pillar in the north arcade, facing the pulpit and in full view. Here there is a column of nine sets of initial letters reading from the top WP , RD, WT, RL, IT (or F?), TC, AT, TM, CT. All look like they have been carved as a group. It seems unlikely that these were carved during a service, which suggests that the church was open and unattended for some considerable time. 
Few dates occur in the graffiti in the church. One significant exception previously could be seen on the East wall of the North chapel, giving initials (possible RP?) and the date 1898. This is now obscured by the recent redecoration, but serves to prove that the recent work is probably the first time the chapel has been repainted since the Victorian era. 
Finally, on the biblical quote over the door to the church, one 'RB' has left for posterity his initials and the date 1968 - one unofficial but historically interesting reminder of the Summer of Love. 

Edmund Lee 

As the parishes of St Sampson's, St Mary's and St John the Baptist, Latton had been united some years before, St Mary's was used as a kind of Chapel-of-ease. The daily offices were said there morning and evening, communion celebrated each Wednesday morning and St Mary the Virgin remembered on her feast days. 

Our elder daughter, Elizabeth, had bantams in the orchard and once discovered a hen and eighteen eggs under the yew tree. I was planting some bulbs on the edge of the churchyard, which overlooked the Rectory hall when I came upon an old clay pipe. Claude Holbrooke, our churchwarden, suggested that if I'd dug deeper I might have come across the owner- his predecessor! 

Every year the snowdrops carpeted the churchyard and when Easter was early, a 
troop of young people picked and bunched them up to distribute on Mothering Sunday. 

It was when Sydney was doing repairs to the wooden sanctuary floor that he discovered tombstones underneath belonging to the Fullers, the Pleydell family who had lived in the Priory in the 18th Century. At the same time, the 17th Century oak altar table was revealed when the frontal was removed and the names of the then churchwardens were found carved on the sides.

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