St Mary And St John

MATERIALS: flint with sandstone dressings, clay tiled roof with pierced and fretted ridge tiles, tower has copper covered setback spire on 'Hertfordshire spike'. PLAN: nave, north aisle, west tower and spire

West doorway C15 style, C19 oak plank doors, arch with ogee and band and cavetto mouldings to jambs and intrados, cusped quatrefoils in spandrels, dripmould with angel bosses

West windows above 2-light, with restored C15 roll mouldings, irregular quatrefoil heads, central cusped quatrefoil, 3 centre head and dripmould

2-light louvred openings at belfry stage, C14 style with cusped trefoil heads and roundel

South porch with gabled parapeted roof, C14 style doorway with chamfer and double ogee mouldings, dripmould with undercut moulding and foliated bosses

Nave of 2 bays externally with flint buttress with stone quoins, restored C15 2-light windows with elliptical inner heads to left-hand, cusped quatrefoils on right both under flat moulded dripmould

Chancel roof runs through from nave at same height, external stonework of C13 structure renewed 1890

Single lancet window on south wall with long and short quoins, parapeted east end, with cross finial on range, long and short quoins, east window restored C13

Three 2-light windows, 2 with segmental pointed heads with C15 stonework, window at right has flat head and is more fully renewed

Door from south porch C14 style moulded surround with dripmould with carved ball florets

4 bay nave with deep reveals to C15 windows in south wall

Tall C15 tower arch with attached octagonal columns with moulded base, caps and elliptical arch, moulded outer surround

North aisle of 4 bays, cavetto mouldings around window openings restored C15

C13 chancel of 4 irregular bays, restored and altered 1890. south wall has large arched opening to organ chamber and vestry, south window in wide chamfered reveal, with moulded clunch inner head with undercut ogee roll and chamfers

East window C13, triple lancets with engaged colonnettes between with undercut bell caps, bases with undercut roll ogee moulding, north wall with single lancet in wide chamfered reveal

Reredos of red and pink veined marble, central arched niche for cross, 3 niches either side with colonnettes and ogee trefoil heads, elaborate fretted pierced and carved top

Below north window is a 2 seat sedilia in pink and white veined marble, C14 decorated style with ogee heads and carved flowers and fleur-de-lys

Below south window is piscina, 2-light surround C19 in C13 style with heavily undercut mouldings but incorporating medieval heads in dripmould

Pulpit in nave, green and pink alabaster, elaborate Gothic frontal with ogee heads and shields

Lectern in form of alabaster angel with book rest supported on wings, font elaborately carved alabaster bowl on octagonal column with 4 carved lions sejant

Pews have bench ends in Rococo style, carved in 1893 by Joseph Mayr of Oberammergau

fruit swags, rope, shell and scroll motifs, carved panelled frontals with moulded surrounds, the craftsman's name recorded on a plaque on the first pew

MONUMENTS: Cowper Chapel built 1890-94 over the family vault, C13 style, divided into 2 bays with heavy moulded clustered shafts and moulded arches supporting quadripartite ribbed vaults

Principal memorial to Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper (d.1905), life size recumbent effigy with shield at feet on a panelled Italianate style tomb with carvings, mouldings and shields, by Henry Poole 1909

On east wall monument to William, second Earl Cowper (d.1764), white, black, pink and yellow veined marble, break front black marble base with panels with carved swags of fruit and flowers, moulded cornice, life sized angel pointing to a weeping putto who holds an elliptical shield with a relief head and shoulders portrait of the deceased earl

The angel's left-hand points to a cluster of putti heads surrounding a sunburst high up on the pink marble obelisk

Spencer Cowper d.1727, judge of the pleas, memorial in window embrasure on north wall, black marble cartouche with inscription, above a scrolled and pedimented surround in black marble, with a relief of Cowper in judge's robes, seated between the figures of Wisdom and Justice, made 1752 by Roubiliac

Chancel: south wall, C14 style recessed monument to Henry Cowper of Tewin d.1890, Clerk to the Church, colonnettes with stiff leaf caps, cusped arch with dog tooth ornament, dripmould with ball flowers

Nave: S wall above pulpit, Renaissance style marble armorial plaque, painted in polychrome, to Sir Christopher Vernon of Haddon, Derbyshire, official of the exchequer

Sir Gore Ousley (1770-1844), Ambassador to Shah of Persia, black marble surround, white monument with Persian urns and ornament

Tower: On south side altar tomb of Sir William (d.1637) and Lady Harrington and their daughter, black marble slab with 2 recumbent marble figures, with an effigy of their daughter kneeling in prayer, attributed to Epiphamious of Evesham

On north wall monument to Anne, wife of George Calvert, who was Secretary to Robert Cecil of Hatfield House, black slab with alabaster recumbent draped figure resting on cushions with mural cornice supporting 3 shields with armorial bearings and richly moulded swags of fruit

Brasses on north wall to Thomas Ellis, 1608, and his wife 1612 who lived at Armores, and one C13 or C14 to Phelipe and Isabel, children of Robert de Louth with inscription in Norman French

The most important monuments are separately listed (qv). (Victoria History of the Counties of England: Hertfordshire: London: 1902-1912: 467-8

Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England): An Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Hertfordshire: London: 1910-: 114