Highways and Byways in Cambridge and ElyConybeare, John William Edward
History
Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely
Conybeare, John William Edward
Cambridgeshire (England) -- Description and travel; Isle of Ely (England) -- Description and travel
First comes a southward turn to Hardwick, the church of which is so
conspicuous an object in the view from the roof of King's College
Chapel. Here, in 1644, "Mr. Mapletoft, parson thereof, with a wife and
seven children, had these articles exhibited against him, viz., that
he refused to read anything from the Parliament, but read many things
from the King at Oxford with great boldness; that he prayeth not for
the Parliament nor hath found them any arms at all; that he is a man
devoted to many superstitious ceremonies, and commonly useth
altar-worship, east-worship, and dropping-worship,[182] and after his
sermon came out of the pulpit into the chancel and there made an end
of his will-worship." Whereupon, by the Earl of Manchester's warrant,
he was promptly ejected and sequestrated. The previous year the church
had been purified by Dowsing, who notes with disgust that for dealing
with "ten superstitious pictures and a cross" he was here paid only
3s. 2d. instead of the 6s. 8d., which was his regular fee.
[Footnote 182: _I.e._ genuflecting.]
The great iconoclast has the same grievance in the adjoining village
of Toft, where he got "only 6s. 8d." for a specially heavy
"purification" of the church, involving the destruction of
"twenty-seven superstitious pictures in the windows, ten others in
stone, three inscriptions, _Pray for the souls_, divers _Orate pro
animabuses_ [sic] in the windows, and a bell _Ora pro anima Sancta
Katharina_." The "pictures in stone" were doubtless the alabaster
images of the reredos, fragments of which are still preserved in the
church, exquisite in modelling and colour. The most noticeable is a
headless figure of St. Hubert, the mighty hunter of legend, who was
converted by meeting a white hart with golden horns (supposed to be an
emblem of Christ), and received from St. Peter a key wherewith to cure
hydrophobia. The key is here in his hand, with a dog beneath it, and
the golden-horned hart couched by his side.
Just before we reach the seventh milestone from Cambridge another
south-running lane diverges to Caldecote, with its retired little fane
on the hill-side over the Bourn, a very oasis of devotional peace and
quietude. Confronting it across the stream is the steeple of Kingston,
where there is a fine fourteenth century fresco in the north aisle,
and a delicious little niche in the western wall of the tower,
outside.
[Illustration: _Cottage at Toft._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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