Puttenham church, Herts

 

Puttenham is Hertfordshire's westernmost settlement and parish*, situated in that part of the county shaped rather like a rhino's horn goring Buckinghamshire. There are a few houses to the south, but otherwise the church is alone in the fields watered by Thistle Brook, a tributary of the Thame, and very picturesque it is. Externally the outstanding feature is the 15th century tower, which displays perhaps the county's finest chequerwork stone facings.

Rectangles of squared knapped flints alternate with larger rectangles of limestone. (I'd have called them clunch - the soft chalky limestone so ubiquitous in the county - but the Statutory Listing says they're Ketton stone. I'm suspicious of this as it looks nothing like the stone of the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, or Burghley House, Lincolnshire, (which are definitely Ketton stone), but presumably the authors of the listing know what they're talking about.) A large part of the appeal is down to the irregularity of the arrangement; the sizes of the rectangles, especially of the flints, vary greatly. 

Much of the rest of the church is also stone, unlike most other Herts churches which are generally of flint except for the dressings; presumably Puttenham, being nearer the quarries to the west, could afford to build in stone as the transport costs were much lower.

Three three-bay nave arcades and chancel arch are 14th century. There's no stained glass so the interior is attractively light.

Over the chancel arch are the unusually large arms of George III, which lead our eyes up to the interior's dominating feature, the nave roof. This is 15th century and uncommonly elaborate for a small, out of the way church. 

Each of the eight wall-posts has a fairly large figure, which are quite hard to see in detail but are presumably saints (at least one has a mitre and is therefore a bishop). They stand on smaller bird figures jutting from the wall; they're now decorative rather than structural as they're supported by plain stone corbels (possibly from the Victorian restoration). There are angels, now wingless, in the roof along with carved and painted bosses (some of them featuring the arms of the Zouche, Wykeham and Hutton families).

Much the most intriguing object in the church is the Jacobean pulpit with a repeated figurative carving; pulpits of this date generally have abstract patterns. The Statutory Listing calls it a 'coiled scaly serpent'; the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments mentions 'carved panels' but says no more; Bettley/Pevsner judge it to be 'very rustic' but don't comment any further; the Victoria County History describes them as 'fishlike and scaly monsters'.

These descriptions are all true so far as they go but none of them seem entirely adequate. It is a snake-like creature with a bifurcated tail, scales, what are apparently two vestigial legs at the front and a large not at all fish- or snake-like head with a grinning mouth containing a finialled tongue. Is it meant to look very cheerful and happy-go-lucky, or sinister? Is it the Leviathan (which is either a multi-headed sea serpent, a serpent or a sea monster, depending on which part of the Bible you refer to)? Or the large sea creature that swallowed Jonah? The pulpit is the place above all others from which a message is conveyed, so surely the carving must mean something, but we can't now know what. I love it for its manic exuberance. 

Puttenham church is usually locked.

Cartwheel light fitting

17th cen font cover

In this panel the design is reversed and the head bigger in proportion

Bettley/Pevsner suggest that this lectern was originally the tester of the pulpit.

* It hasn't been it's own county since it was merged with Tring in 1964.