130–136 Piccott's End

Piccott's End
Piccott's End
	Location of Piccott's End in Hertfordshire
General information
Type	Hall house converted to cottages
Architectural style	Tudor
Location	Piccotts End, near Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
Address	130–136 Piccotts End, Hemel Hempstead, HP1 3AU
Country	United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°46′15″N0°28′41″W / 51.770871°N 0.4779387°W Coordinates: 51°46′15″N0°28′41″W / 51.770871°N 0.4779387°W
Technical details
Structural system	Timber frame
Material	Oak, red brick and whitewashed plaster
Floor count	2
Designations	listed Grade I
Known for	15th-century religious wall paintings
Website
	piccottsendpaintings.uk

Last updated March 01, 2019

130–136 Piccott's End is a medieval timber framed building in Piccotts End in Hertfordshire, England. Originally a hall house,^[1] the structure has been divided into a row of cottages. Two of the cottages are of interest for the art work they contain.^[2]

Piccotts End is a village in Hertfordshire, England situated on the upper River Gade. While often mistaken for a hamlet, it became a village when its church - All Saints - was dedicated in 1907 and remained a place of worship until the 1970s. It is in the Dacorum Ward of Gadebridge.

Hertfordshire is one of the home counties in England. It is bordered by Bedfordshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Buckinghamshire to the west and Greater London to the south. For government statistical purposes, it is placed in the East of England region.

The hall house is a type of vernacular house traditional in many parts of England, Wales, Ireland and lowland Scotland, as well as northern Europe, during the Middle Ages, centring on a hall. Usually timber-framed, some high status examples were built in stone.

Location

Piccotts End is a village near Hemel Hempstead. The original function of the building is not known. It has been suggested that the building was connected with Ashridge Priory, which was in existence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century.

Hemel Hempstead is a historic town, later developed as a new town, in Hertfordshire, England. Located 24 miles (39 km) northwest of London, it is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population according to the 2001 Census was 81,143, and at the 2011 census was 94,932. Developed after the Second World War as a new town, it has existed as a settlement since the 8th century and was granted its town charter by King Henry VIII in 1539. It is part of the district of Dacorum and the Hemel Hempstead constituency.

Ashridge Priory was a medieval abbey of the Brothers of Penitence. It was founded by Edmund in 1283 who donated, among other things, a phial of Christ's blood to the abbey. It was granted to Mary Tudor, Queen of France and later became the private residence of the future queen Elizabeth I. It was acquired by Sir Thomas Egerton in 1604 and then passed down to the Duke of Bridgewater before being demolished.

Murals

Inside the house at number 132 are a number of fifteenth-century religious wall paintings, which are of particular interest to historians as a rare example of pre-Reformation English Catholic art. The paintings are thought to originate from around 1470-1500. Following the English Reformation, religious art came to be regarded as a form of idolatry and many works were obliterated or destroyed; for this reason, some of the faces in the Piccott's End murals were mutilated and the paintings subsequently covered over by whitewash. They remained hidden for over 400 years until they were uncovered in 1953 by a resident.^[1]

A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other permanent surface. A distinguishing characteristic of mural painting is that the architectural elements of the given space are harmoniously incorporated into the picture.

The English Reformation was a series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. These events were, in part, associated with the wider process of the European Protestant Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity across western and central Europe during this period. Many factors contributed to the process: the decline of feudalism and the rise of nationalism, the rise of the common law, the invention of the printing press and increased circulation of the Bible, and the transmission of new knowledge and ideas among scholars, the upper and middle classes and readers in general. However, the various phases of the English Reformation, which also covered Wales and Ireland, were largely driven by changes in government policy, to which public opinion gradually accommodated itself.

Idolatry literally means the worship of an "idol", also known as a worship cult image, in the form of a physical image, such as a statue. In Abrahamic religions, namely Christianity, Islam and Judaism, idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than God as if it were God. In these and several other monotheistic religions, idolatry has been considered as the "worship of false gods" and is forbidden. In many Indian religions, such as theistic and non-theistic forms of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, idols (murti) are considered as symbolism for the absolute but not the absolute, or icons of spiritual ideas, or the embodiment of the divine. It is a means to focus one's religious pursuits and worship (bhakti). In the traditional religions of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa, Asia, the Americas and elsewhere, the reverence of an image or statue has been a common practice, and cult images have carried different meanings and significance.

The origins of the paintings is unknown. Historians surmise that the Piccott's End house may have served as a hospice for pilgrims, as it was located close to a pilgrim trail which went via the nearby Monastery of the Bonhommes at Ashridge. At Ashridge, pilgrims could venerate a phial of the Blood of Christ before proceeding to St Albans Abbey to venerate the holy relics of Saint Alban. The art historian E. Clive Rouse has noted that the murals exhibit a technique of woodcut illustration dating from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, suggesting the influence of the artistic style of the Low Countries.^[1]^[3]

Hospice care is a type of care and philosophy of care that focuses on the palliation of a chronically ill, terminally ill or seriously ill patient's pain and symptoms, and attending to their emotional and spiritual needs. In Western society, the concept of hospice has been evolving in Europe since the 11th century. Then, and for centuries thereafter in Roman Catholic tradition, hospices were places of hospitality for the sick, wounded, or dying, as well as those for travelers and pilgrims. The modern concept of hospice includes palliative care for the incurably ill given in such institutions as hospitals or nursing homes, but also care provided to those who would rather spend their last months and days of life in their own homes. The first modern hospice care was created by Cicely Saunders in 1967.

Christianity has a strong tradition of pilgrimages, both to sites relevant to the New Testament narrative and to sites associated with later saints or miracles.

Blood of Christ in Christian theology refers to (a) the word (blood) actually shed by Jesus Christ primarily on the Cross, and the salvation which Christianity teaches was accomplished thereby; and (b) the sacramental blood present in the Eucharist or Lord's Supper, which is considered by Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran Christians to be the same blood of Christ shed on the Cross.

The wall paintings consist of five panels, arranged in a type of iconostasis, resembling a large screen covered with icons, set in tiers. In the centre panel is Christ in Majesty, with the "IHS" Sacred Monogram in the halo. In the right panel is depicted the Baptism of Jesus by Saint John the Baptist; in the background an archangel holds Christ’s robes. On the extreme right is a badly damaged image of Saint Clement, the third Pope with a symbolic anchor on each shoulder and the Papal cross. The left panel contains a Pietà (the Virgin Mary holding the dead Christ), and on the far left is a representation of Saint Peter wearing the Papal Tiara, with a Papal cross and the Keys of Heaven. In the two lower panels are paintings of figures of St Catherine of Alexandria (with her Catherine wheel) and Saint Margaret of Antioch emerging from the belly of a dragon. Many figures are depicted wearing typical Tudor dress. They are decorated with orange-red, grey and blue and white foliation with yellow fruit and flowers. A blank space in the lower wall suggests the former presence of an altar.^[1]

In Eastern Christianity an iconostasis is a wall of icons and religious paintings, separating the nave from the sanctuary in a church. Iconostasis also refers to a portable icon stand that can be placed anywhere within a church. The iconostasis evolved from the Byzantine templon, a process complete by the fifteenth century.

Christ in Majesty or Christ in Glory is the Western Christian image of Christ seated on a throne as ruler of the world, always seen frontally in the centre of the composition, and often flanked by other sacred figures, whose membership changes over time and according to the context. The image develops from Early Christian art, which directly borrowed the formulae of depictions of the enthroned Roman Emperor. In the Byzantine world, the image developed slightly differently into the half-length Christ Pantocrator, "Christ, Ruler of All", a usually unaccompanied figure, and the Deesis, where a full-length enthroned Christ is entreated by Mary and St. John the Baptist, and often other figures. In the West, the evolving composition remains very consistent within each period until the Renaissance, and then remains important until the end of the Baroque, in which the image is ordinarily transported to the sky.

A halo is a crown of light rays, circle or disk of light that surrounds a person in art. It has been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and has at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes. In the sacred art of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, among other religions, sacred persons may be depicted with a halo in the form of a circular glow, or flames in Asian art, around the head or around the whole body—this last one is often called a mandorla. Halos may be shown as almost any color or combination of colors, but are most often depicted as golden, yellow or white when representing light or red when representing flames.

It has been suggested that some of the symbolism contained in the wall paintings indicate connections with the doctrines of Catharism, a sect considered heretical by the Catholic Church.^[1]

Hospital

In the 1820s the building was converted for use as a cottage hospital by the anatomist and surgeon Sir Astley Cooper.^[4] In the 1830s the number of patients increased because of injuries to workers constructing the London to Birmingham railway. The hospital moved to larger premises in Hemel Hempstead,

Access

In recent years there has been limited opening of No. 132, which is privately owned. The public has been able to visit under the Heritage Open Days scheme.^[5]^[6] In 2014 a local conservation charity, the Dacorum Heritage Trust, launched an appeal to raise funds to buy the property.^[7]

Related Research Articles

Berkhamsted is a historic market town close to the western boundary of Hertfordshire, England. It is situated in the small Bulbourne valley in the Chiltern Hills, 26 miles (42 km) northwest of London. The town is a civil parish with a town council within the borough of Dacorum, based at the much larger town of Hemel Hempstead. Berkhamsted and the adjoining village of Northchurch are surrounded by countryside, much of it classified as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of the Counter-Reformation.

Hemel Hempstead (UK Parliament constituency) Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1997 onwards

Hemel Hempstead is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.

South West Hertfordshire (UK Parliament constituency) Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom

South West Hertfordshire is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by David Gauke, a Conservative.

Westwick Row is a place in Hertfordshire, in England. It is situated on the edge of Hemel Hempstead.

Boxmoor is part of Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire. It is within the district of Dacorum comprising mainly 19th century housing and meadowland with transport links from London to the Midlands. At the 2011 Census the population of Boxmoor was included in the Dacorum ward of Bovingdon, Flaunden and Chipperfield.

West Hertfordshire was a parliamentary constituency in Hertfordshire. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom by the first past the post system.

Little Gaddesden is a village and civil parish in the borough of Dacorum, Hertfordshire 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Berkhamsted. As well as Little Gaddesden village, the parish contains the settlements of Ashridge, Hudnall, and part of Ringshall. The total population at the 2011 Census was 1,125. Little Gaddesden is an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) and a conservation area protected by the National Trust.

The Brothers of Penitence or Friars of the Sack were an Augustinian order also known as Boni Homines, Bonshommes or Bones-homes, with houses in Spain, France and England. They were also known as the "Bluefriars" on account of the colour of their robes.

Bennetts End is a neighbourhood within Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, England. It is located in the southeast of the town and consists almost entirely of public housing built as part of the new town in the 1950s. It was the second neighbourhood to have construction commenced by the New Town corporation, after the nearby Adeyfield.

The Hemel Hempstead School is a secondary school and sixth form located in the town of Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom.

Potten End is a village in west Hertfordshire, England. It is located in the Chiltern Hills, two miles east-north-east of Berkhamsted, three miles north west of Hemel Hempstead and two miles south east of the National Trust estate of Ashridge. Nearby villages include Nettleden, Great Gaddesden and the hamlet of Frithsden. The joint Parish Council for Nettleden with Potten End CP administers under Dacorum Borough Council.

Lefevre James Cranstone was an English artist known for his watercolor genre-style landscapes and oil paintings. He visited the United States, where many of his works are displayed, and later moved to Australia.

Llangar Church, or All Saints Old Parish Church, Llangar, was formerly the parish church of Llangar with Cynwyd, in the Dee Valley, Denbighshire, North Wales. It is now under the guardianship of Cadw, is a Scheduled Monument, and a grade I Listed Building. It is conserved and open to the public as an example of a rural church with medieval wall paintings and largely intact 18th century interior fittings.

The Bury is a building of historical significance in Hemel Hempstead in the County of Hertfordshire, England. It was erected in about 1790 by an attorney who worked in the town. It was the residence for the next two centuries of many notable people. It is now owned by the Dacorum Borough Council and is Grade II* listed.

Dacorum Heritage Trust (DHT) is a local history advocacy group in the United Kingdom. It collects and records the history of the Borough of Dacorum, Hertfordshire, in the south of England, and aims to encourage the appreciation of the heritage of Dacorum.

Hemel Hempstead Hospital is an acute District General Hospital in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire operated by the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

Boxmoor Roman Villa is a ruined Roman Villa at Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. The remains have been excavated, but they are now buried. The Roman villa was occupied from the first century AD up to the Fourth century.

References

1 2 3 4 5 "About 132 Piccotts End". Piccotts End Paintings. Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
↑ Historic England. "130–136 Piccott's End (1342208)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 5 March 2017.
↑ "The secret religious code of mystery medieval murals". Dacorum Heritage Trust. Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
↑ "Inside story". 2000.
↑ Heritage Open Day at Piccotts End. The Dacorum Heritage Trust.
↑ Book Now as Hemel Hempstead's the Bury Is Open for Heritage Tours. Berkhamsted & Tring Gazette . Johnston Publishing Ltd. March 2014. Retrieved 18 Feb. 2017.
↑ "Trust in bid to save historic panel". BBC News. 13 March 2014. Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.

External links

The Piccott's End paintings

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[pep-1] 1 2 3 4 5 "About 132 Piccotts End". Piccotts End Paintings. Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.

[NHLE-2] Historic England. "130–136 Piccott's End (1342208)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 5 March 2017.

[DHT-3] "The secret religious code of mystery medieval murals". Dacorum Heritage Trust. Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.

[Telegr-4] "Inside story". 2000.

[5] Heritage Open Day at Piccotts End. The Dacorum Heritage Trust.

[6] Book Now as Hemel Hempstead's the Bury Is Open for Heritage Tours. Berkhamsted & Tring Gazette . Johnston Publishing Ltd. March 2014. Retrieved 18 Feb. 2017.

[bbc-news2017-7] "Trust in bid to save historic panel". BBC News. 13 March 2014. Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.