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St Nicholas, Berden

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We are right beside the Hertfordshire border in that quiet landscape of attractive, prosperous villages set among quiet lanes. The M11 motorway threads through noisily a few miles to the west, but you wouldn't know it here. The town of Saffron Walden is not far off and the large village of Clavering lies just to the north, but Berden minds its own business, a small village clustered about a junction near the Hall. The church sits beside the Hall, and given that we are used to small churches in these north Essex country lanes it comes as some surprise, for this is a large cruciform church. You reach it up a pretty drive from the High Street. Pevsner identified a small Norman church at the heart of it, but the 13th Century brought transepts to north and south, the 15th Century saw the castellated tower built, and the chancel was extended as part of an 1860s restoration. There is a sense in which these parts don't fit together easily, but it is not unpleasing. You enter a nave which feels more intimate than you might expect, pretty much all of the 19th Century restoration but there are some interesting survivals, including the richly carved stiff-leaf capitals and niches either side of the chancel arch, an unexpectedly splendid moment. There are some early 17th Century brasses to members of the Thompson family, and from a few years earlier in 1598 an alabaster wall memorial to Thomas Aldersey, rendered here as Aldersaie, by profession a marchaunt wherein God so blessed him both in minde and wealthe as he was able to prform manie good acts both publicke and privat whereof a number is known to the worlde, a number to Him alone of whom he received the abilitie to prform the same. Aldersey was a staunch protestant who made an ambitious marriage into the Calthorpe family, the stars aligning for him after the accession of Elizabeth I so that he was soon a leading power among the London merchants. He was responsible for the building of Berden Hall, and there are more impressive memorials to the Alderseys at Bunbury in Cheshire. Simon Knott, January 2022 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.

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