Old St. Bartholomew Church, Lower Sapey

History

The earliest mention of Sapey is in a grant made by Offa, King of the Mercians, in 781. Clearly there was a settlement here in the Saxon period. At the time of Domesday Book (1086) it belonged to the Fitzrichard family and there was a priest, implying the existence of a church. The manor was later divided into two parts, belonging to the Sturmy and Pichard families, the latter giving Lower Sapey its former alternative name, Sapey Pitchard (cf. Ocle Pychard in Herefordshire). The name Sapey itself is from the Old English ‘saepige’, meaning sappy – perhaps a reference to the fertility of the soil. By 1361 both parts of the manor were reunited and belonged to the Cooksey family.

Some remains have been found of a deserted medieval settlement in the vicinity of the church, now mostly ploughed out
but leaving a few humps and bumps corresponding to former roads and house platforms.

There is evidence that the parish declined in the later medieval period; and the greatest concentration of houses now is
in the hamlet known as Harpley, on higher ground to the north-west. Since the mid-19th century, a substantial part of Lower
Sapey has been owned by the Evans family.
The church was built in simple nave-and chancel form, with no elaboration, probably at the very end of the 11th century. From that date survive three original tiny Norman windows, one in the north wall of the chancel and others in the south and west walls of the nave, with the remains of a fourth at the east end. The south doorway dates possibly from a little later in the Norman period. In or about the 14th century a desire for increased daylight, and the more ready availability of glass, resulted in larger windows being made in the south walls of the nave and chancel – the former very simple but with an elegant hoodmould, and the latter a little more sophisticated. Substantial expenditure on the church in the later Middle Ages is evidenced by the
attractive timbered porch added then and the complete re-roofing of the church in the period c.1465–c.1490, as confirmed by recent tree-ring analysis.

Also, a concentration of rubble and part of a compacted lime floor were discovered in 1997 a short distance from the west wall of the nave: these might have belonged to an added west tower – possibly timber-framed like several others in Worcestershire – which has since vanished.

In the early 17th century the original chancel arch and east wall of the nave were removed, presumably because of structural failure, and the space between roof-slopes was filled in with stud-work. Finally, at the beginning of the 19th century the present elliptical plaster ceilings were introduced, including the plaster arch between nave and chancel, and the church was almost entirely refitted in pine with box pews, three-decker pulpit and gallery – of which only the last now remains.

In this state the church continued to be used for worship during the first four decades of Queen Victoria’s reign until the
new parish church of St Bartholomew was built in 1876–77, in what was perceived to be amore convenient position in the hamlet of Harpley, about a mile away. The site was given by Edward Bickerton Evans and the building was designed by the Herefordshire architect Frederick R Kempson. It is said that the old church was then ordered to be pulled down within six feet (1.8m) of the ground; but mercifully this order was never carried out. Rural remoteness, sentiment and a useful addition to the stock of buildings at Church House Farm no doubt played their part, and for the next hundred and more years Old St. Bartholomew’s survived – if at times precariously – to delight and inspire new generations.

Exterior

The church is built mostly of brown and grey sandstone rubble quarried within the parish, but some tufa is also included, notably for the quoins at the corners and in the original windows and south doorway. This is a remarkable honeycombed material much used hereabouts by Norman builders, for instance in the similar-sized church at Shelsley Walsh.

From the beginning, the walls have always been predominantly lime plastered and limewashed, outside as well as in, to protect them from the weather. In the recent repairs the old material of various vintages has been consolidated on the south and west sides while the north and east have been re-rendered.

The roofs are covered with an assortment of local handmade clay tiles, recently relaid on riven oak battens in the traditional manner. The most prominent feature outside is the porch (cover), an oak-framed structure dating probably from the 15th century and having attractive wind-braces and carved bargeboards. The oak has weathered to a beautiful silvery-grey colour. Of similar date is the splendid south door with its original hinges. The doorway is Norman, of two orders with scalloped capitals, and a good deal simpler than its more ambitious counterparts at Upper Sapey church.

The (later) north doorway and chancel south doorway, both now blocked, were simpler still. The windows, all with their clear glazing meticulously reinstated along the original lines as part of the recent repairs, are of various dates, as already mentioned. The chancel east window, originally remarkably high in the wall, was later enlarged downwards (and was initially left partially unglazed in 1995 in deference to a rare colony of Natterer’s bats which was roosting in the church at the time). The chancel south window has the beginnings of 14th-century reticulated tracery, now somewhat decayed, while the much later nave west window beneath the gallery is more domestic in character. The newest window, provided to shed more daylight onto the early 19th-century reordering of the interior, is the large one in the north wall of the nave, with its elegant late-Georgian glazing pattern.

About 1925 the western corners of the church, which were threatening to burst asunder, were provided with the existing wrought-iron straps which were effective in preventing any furthermovement until these corners were thoroughly consolidated in 1994–95. The lack of tombstones in the churchyard is presumably because Lower Sapey was for a long period a chapelry of Clifton-upon-Teme, which is where burials normally took place until the new church and churchyard came into use in 1877–78. However, there is archaeological evidence that Lower Sapey churchyard was at least occasionally used for burials in the Middle Ages and probably in later years also.