Update on Knight Funds August 2023

The latest sale for the knight raised just under £400, which is an amazing result. People started arriving at about 9.30 a m and the cakes flew off the table – well, like hot cakes! We had a huge selection available and very few left by the end of the morning, and some of those have since been sold.

Margaret sold a lot of jewellery and other treasures from her stall and the jams and pickles sold well too; there was a lovely atmosphere, with many people stopping to have a cup of coffee and a chat. We are always so grateful to those who support us, many from outside the village.
We will be having a stall for the knight at the Art Festival on 2 and 3 September so do come and say hello.

Update on the Knight 27th July 2023
We are still waiting for the papers that allow us to ask the
Chancellor for a faculty to complete the knight project in St.
Margaret’s Church. The DAC gave us permission to go to the
final stages of this journey at a DAC meeting on 25 April. Adrian
Ringrose, architect and DAC member, gave us this news the next
day. The DAC secretary told us formally of this permission a
month later and we are still waiting for the papers that we have to
fill in to arrive. It is now almost the end of July. We are getting
increasingly frustrated, as we desperately need to get on to the
toilet and servery project.
We are still fundraising as the constant delays keep increasing the
costs of everything. We have paid the architect for our second set
of plans as required by the DAC. This means that we are back to
the basic amount that we have saved to pay Hugh Harrison for the
knight’s tomb chest. We still have to find the funds to pay our
mason to lay a new floor under the new tomb chest. Neill Taylor
and Cuttle Mill have very kindly said that they will cover the cost
of the York stone and aggregates needed for this job. Our fund
currently sits at £12,988.
Our next knight sale will be in the church on 26 August with its
usual offer of lovely edibles and beautiful items. We will also be
part of the Art Festival with even more lovely things to offer.
Thank you all for your support so far. We really are nearing the
end of this journey but it is an agonizingly slow one. Please keep
faith with us – we will get there!

April 16th 2023

Our last Knight sale on 25 March was a lovely social event. Visitors who were unable to come to the February sale arrived and new visitors who had never visited us before came, which was really nice. Coffee flowed and cake flew off the table, as did some of the jewellery and ‘desirable’objects. The atmosphere was warm and friendly and visitors stayed after they had made their purchases to chat with each other and us. We took the grand total of £363.10 towards the fund for the relocation of the Knight. I had previously sold some scrap gold that had come in with the
jewellery and because gold prices are so high, this brought us another £150, bringing our total currently in the fund up to £13,732.53.
We are still waiting at this time for movement from the DAC to allow a faculty to be applied for from the Chancellor. Hope, however, is on the horizon as finally, after a wait of 5 months, the church architects have visited the proposed new site for the Knight’s tomb chest in the chancel and a new set of plans has been sent to the meeting of the DAC which was held on Tuesday 18 April 2023. The DAC has already agreed that the Knight should be moved to the north side of the chancel and wood from the choir stall that currently resides there would be reused to make
panelling along the wall at the back of the tomb chest, offering both protection and presentation.
We still have to find additional funds to pay for the new stone floor to go under the chest and this will cost in the region of £2,500, as we need to pay a mason to install the floor and aggregates and repurposed stone to complete it. We also have an additional bill from the church architects for £1,700 to pay for a new set of plans. Hugh Harrison Conservation has already sent plans and images of the proposed tomb chest but the DAC has
requested that the church architects draw additional plans. There are no changes in the design.
Let us hope that the next report will bring major movement and a new beginning for Sir William!

11 February 2023

Sale for the Knight was a lovely occasion; friends from Alderton and other villages including Potterspury and Paulerspury came along and there was something for everyone to buy.  There was a huge number of cakes including Val’s delicious carrot cakes, together with cut priced jam and new season marmalade, a wide variety of jewellary, glassware etc.   People stayed to enjoy a coffee and a chat and the proceeds from this morning were £210.

NEXT SALE will be 25th March 2023.

Update at 1st January 2023.

The last Knight Sale of the year was held in December on a cold but bright morning.  There was a delicious array of home made cakes, jams, pickles, Jellies and Christmas Goods. This sale although not as well attended as some of the others, possibly due to the cold, raised additional funds to the tune of £332.27.

Many thanks go to the people that regularly contribute home made cakes and other goods throughout the year.  Jane Treharne, who not only donates and cooks but helps as well.  Val Kliene who is responsible for the delicious carrot cakes that fly off the table and are amazing.  Linda for delicious cakes, sweets, jams and pickles.  Margaret for wonderful cakes and jams.  Thanks to all others that help throughout the year.

We now have enough money to pay  for the tomb chest and the additional drawings as requested by DAC. We are well on our way to pay for the stone floor to go under the tomb chest.

1st April 2022

We have still havent heard from DAC secretary with regard to the approval of the new design for the tomb chest and the installation of the effigy of the knight into the chancel. The DAC has approved both of these issues but the external conservation bodies had to be consulted and this is where the hold-up seems to be at the moment. We have been waiting for a response from these bodies since November. The DAC meeting that approved the new chest and the new location was on 2 November 2021; the DAC secretary informed us that DAC approval had been given in December but since then we have heard nothing.

Once all of the external approvals have been given, we can then go to the Chancellor to ask for his approval and the issue of a faculty (church planning permission). Our current faculty, which is specifically for the agreement of the new chest and location, runs out on 29 April. We can do nothing to hurry this along at this end other than continue to nag.
We now have the final estimate for the new tomb chest and its installation from Hugh Harrison. The final estimate is: £12,170. In addition to this we have to re-lay the floor under the current choir stall on the north side of the chancel with York stone. This has to be done before the tomb chest can be installed, and by an independent mason. The estimate for this was £1,900 but this was a year

ago and will now undoubtedly be more. Again, we are not allowed to do anything until all the final approvals have been met. Thanks to your incredible support our fund is just £200 short of £10,000, (the proceeds from the sale in February was £223) – altogether a huge achievement. Thank you all for your generosity and support. You have all absorbed a great deal of ‘things you can’t live without’, preserves and cake! Not to mention the independent events and generous donations that we have received. What an amazing village and what amazing friends! Linda and I are looking forward to seeing you all at whatever celebration event we can come up
with if – and hopefully when, we succeed in finally ending this very special project. We can then put all our efforts into the toilet and servery project and our services and events – all of which we love to do and are looking forward to holding in comfort.

St Margaret’s Church Alderton, Northants is home to an 800-year-old wooden effigy of a knight.  The effigy is reputed to be the tomb figure of either Sir William de Combemartyn, a very successful wool exporter in the reign of Edward I or Payn de Charworth, Crusader and Edward I’s Captain of the English troops in his Welsh border wars, as well as rebuilder of the inner ward of Kidwelly Castle in Carmarthenshire.  William died in 1318 and Payne in 1279, aged about 30. Both men would have lived in the ‘castle’ in Alderton.

Victorian rebuilders decided that the knight was Sir William de Combemartyn, who died in 1318.  The wooden effigy is a good example of a work of art of this character and represents the man in the usual hood, hauberk, chausses etc.  It is accurately carved in an attitude of easy repose, and although it has lost every particle of colour and is sadly decayed in its looped and windowed raggedness, it still exhibits much that arrests the attention.  The loose fit of the mail about the right arm and neck is well expressed, and the repair of the block by the sculptor before he handed it over to the painter is evident, as is also the ‘straight’ under-eye line, the favourite fashion of Medieval sculptors of this the best age.  The effigy formerly lay in the south aisle, but when this was pulled down in 1848, it was relegated by the process of ‘restoration’ to an upper stage of the tower.  In 1907, the effigy was removed from the tower and placed on the floor of the south side of the chancel. From then on, each time a special service was held, the knight would be moved to another location in the church. The combination of continual movement and the ‘restoration’ work applied in the 1920s added to the effigy’s vulnerable state.

Current Restoration

Because of his age and the history that he has passed through, he has been in dire need of conservation. Through the passage of time the knight’s identity has been lost. He could be Sir William de Combemartyn, an incredibly successful wool merchant and exporter, or Payn de Charworth, Edward 1’s trusted captain of the English troops on the Welsh borders and Marcher Lord.

Since we began conservation work in 2019 we have made many discoveries. Thanks to the careful work of conservator Elizabeth Cheadle from Hugh Harrison Conservation, we now know that our knight was brightly coloured with vermilion surcoat and grey chainmail. His head rested on red and green cushions. He had gold knee guards, a sword and shield and his feet rested on a tawny lion.

Alderton is a tiny village and the only public building we have is St Margaret’s Church. We need to make a space in the church to provide public access and install a toilet and facilities to serve refreshments. Our knight has been in the way but since the conservation work has been completed he has been moved to a temporary position until we can raise all the funds needed for his tomb chest. He will then move to a permanent position on the north side of the chancel.

It has already cost more than £20,000 to conserve and clean the effigy and we still have at least £10,000 to raise to complete the work. We have a long way to go but having come so far on this journey already we are hopeful that with help, we will get there! We would be grateful for any contribution. Thank you.

Update November 2021

We are now at the stage of installing a tomb chest for our Knight. We are waiting for final agreement from various conservation bodies and the DAC.  We need to repair the floor that the Knight and chest will stand on so we still need to raise enough money to complete our project.  Hopefully the project will be complete early 2022.