1000 Years of History in One Church

Laughton-en-le-Morthen

A few days after my trip to Laughton-en-le-Morthen, I posted this photo on Notes, with a comment:

It generated a lot of interest so I thought today I would show you a little more of the church as it goes back to the Anglo-Saxon period, demonstrating many changes over the centuries. As I read more, I realised that this place, this one church, bore witness to key events in English history.

This was an accidental visit - it wasn’t on my hit list for the day, being a little over to the west of the area we were exploring. But as we were driving along towards our next church, we spotted it, or rather spotted the spire. A quick look in Pevsner (the major guide to English churches) and I determined it was worth a visit. This happens a lot on church crawling days. We headed to the village and, after a first wrong turn, eventually found the church on the edge of the village. The name of the place gives you a clue about the history: Laughton-en-le-Morthen. The first word is solidly Germanic (Law Town), the rest of the name Norman French.

The church is famous for its spire, which Pevsner describes as one of the finest in the area, and which I think is 185 feet high. As you can see, it is currently undergoing maintenance.

As we approached the door and rattled it, it was, expectedly, locked. But as we turned away, someone approached from inside and unlocked it for us. A couple of parishioners were in doing the cleaning and so we were lucky - they were happy to accommodate us and one of them even pointed out particularly interesting things.

Note the lady with a dusting brush in her hand here.

This is a view of the nave, and already you can see it is an elegant church, with lots of interesting things in view. The east window is a beautiful example of Perpendicular window tracery, though the stained glass is much later. The columns are a mix; 12th century on the left, 14th century on the right. But first, let’s start with the Anglo-Saxon church, or what remains of it. This church was first built around 937, an interesting period in English history. King Alfred the Great died in 899, but he only ruled part of what we now called England, effectively the south and west of the country. To the north and east, the land had been settled by people from Scandinavia (who we often call Vikings or Danes). Further Viking invaders co-opted these people to attack King Alfred’s kingdom. Alfred resisted successfully, but this whole period was unsettled. When Alfred died, disputes arose around the succession so strife continued (I’m cutting a very long and complicated story very short!) but Edward, Alfred’s son, began to push northwards in the early 10th century and expanded his territory before dying in 924. At this point he hadn’t taken control of the area of our church. His eldest son Athelstan succeeded him. In 927 Athelstan pushed into what is now Yorkshire (where our church lies) and took York from the Vikings.