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Copyright of Ian Lyell

St Nicholas's (or St Matthew's) Church,
Hatherop Village,
Hatherop, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or had) a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded before 1578, and we understand it is still open.

The foundation of St Nicholas's is uncertain, as it was rebuilt by Henry Clutton (architect) in the early 1850s for the lord of the Manor, William Ponsonby, first Baron de Mauley. It consists of chancel, nave, aisles, north porch and a central saddleback tower containing 6 bells, which were gifted to the church in 1715 by Sir John Webb. It also has a clock, with chimes, presented to the church in 1868 by Sir Thomas Bazley. Attached to the church is a beautiful mortuary chapel, with a marble monument, by Raffaelle Monti, to Barbara, Lady de Mauley (d.1844), erected by her husband, the Baron. He also restored Hatherop Castle, said to date from the time of Henry VII, around the same time.

There is a description of Lady de Mauley's monument (their Monument of the Month, in April 2012) on the Church Monument Society website - "one of the most beautiful memorial monuments in Gloucestershire".

The Castle was formerly the residence of the Blomer family, and afterwards of Sir John Webb, whose third daughter Anna Maria married James (Radclyffe), 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, beheaded on Tower Hill in 1716. Barbara, daughter of Sir John Webb, 5th baronet, married Anthony, 5th Earl of Shaftsbury. Their daughter Barbara, their sole heiress, married Baron de Mauley. It was also owned briefly by the Maharajah Duleep Singh. [Sources: Kelly's Directory of Gloucestershire (1923) and an Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-2) on the Vision of Britain Through Time website]

Note: most sources state the church is dedicated to St Nicholas, but the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/340/3/12/17) records it as dedicated to St Matthew. It was said to have been consecrated before 1800, and had 280 sittings. The recording officer did not sign his name.

There may be more information available by by selecting one or more of the accompanying images on the right.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church is located at OS grid reference SP1537805092. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Nicholas's (or St Matthew's) Church, Hatherop shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Hatherop shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Hatherop, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• “For everyone who is fascinated by tomb carvings, from medieval effigies to modern gravestones” - Church Monument Society (null) (verified 2018-11-16)
• Particularly useful as a reference source for Boundary Changes - the Vision of Britain Through Time (null) (verified 2018-10-15)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.