The South Tower, we pass in front of the chancel arch and over a
floor slab to:
-
Anthony Crompton, gent., d. 21 May 1681; Richard Crompton, gent., d.
3 Nov. 1740, aged 66; Joan, wife of Richard Crompton, d. 18 Feb. 1781,
aged 93.
The tower is entered by a modern arch of two orders which replaces a brick
arch, removed in 1863. In the west wall is a blocked doorway; near it is a brass
plate inscribed: Gulielmus Westbrooke hoc fecit Anno Domi 1671
. Also on this
wall are memorials:
-
Oval stone tablet to Mary, wife of Charles Owen
Cambridge married in
this church, 26 July 1787 and d. 14 Feb 1788.
-
Stone tablet
to the nine men of this parish
who were killed in the 1939-
1945 war [see list here].
The
window in the south wall
of the tower is in memory of Edward Pigott
Cooper Johnson (1853-1875); below is a fine, modern altar
of polished stone
carved with a pelican in her piety - a sacred character typifying maternal
solicitude. In the east wall is a recess accommodating a 14
th century tomb
displaced from the north wall of the chancel when the organ chamber was built.
This tomb has dwarf shafts carved with foliage, and a moulded segmental arch
with four openwork cusps, now broken, defaced figures at the extremities and
slender pinnacles above them; the tomb is finished with a straight-sided
pediment with foliaged crockets and finial. When it was in the chancel, this tomb
probably served as an Easter Sepulchre, but it now shelters an early coffin slab
with hollow mouldings which was found in the chancel floor and was in the
churchyard for some years before being placed in its present position.
There are four floor slabs in the tower:
-
To a member of the Heberden family, but now illegible.
-
John Heberden, d. [?] 4 Jan. 1735, aged 54.
-
Ann, wife of Thomas Booker
of Steep, daughter of John Heberden, d. [?]
2 May 1765.
-
In remembrance of Jean Margaret "Peggy" Coltart
, 14 Jan 1910 - 7
March 1979, a true friend of everyone in this Parish. From the many
memorial gifts the work of repair to this chapel was completed.
