St Michael's Church at Chenies, Buckinghamshire, is a Grade I listed Anglican parish church in the Diocese of Oxford in England. It is not of great architectural interest but stands in an attractive position in the Chess Valley near the Chenies Manor House. The church is famous for its Bedford Chapel (photo), the mausoleum of the Russell family (Dukes of Bedford of Woburn Abbey) which is private and not open to the public. [1]
The present parish church mainly dates from the late 15th and early 16th centuries, replacing an earlier, mainly wooden church dating from the 12th century. [2] The first church on this site and dedicated to St. Michael is believed to have been built in the latter part of the 12th century by Alexander de Isenhampstead. "Isenhampstead" was the original name of the village that later came to be known as "Isenhampstead Chenies" and by the 19th century simply as "Chenies". [3]
In 1556 the Russell family (later Dukes of Bedford) added the Bedford Chapel, which was subsequently rebuilt and enlarged. [4] After the church had fallen into disrepair during the 18th century, a major period of repairs and amendments was begun in 1829 by Lord Wriothesley Russell, Rector of Chenies for 57 years. This involved the closure of the church for part of the 1830s, during which time his father, the 6th Duke of Bedford, allowed the Long Room in the Chenies Manor House to be used for services. [2] After St Michael's had been restored and repaired, it was reopened for public worship on 23 June 1836. [3]
Another great renovation was carried out on St. Michael's in the period 1861–1887, during which the church was substantially rebuilt. [4] In 1885 the Bedford Chapel was extended westwards towards the tower, in 1886-1887 the roof was raised and the present day hammer beam roof installed. [3] In 1906 the Bedford Chapel was further extended. The belfry chamber was installed in 1933. Prior to that date the ringers were to be seen at the base of the tower on the same level as the nave. Electric light was installed for the first time in 1936. In 1959-1960 the organ was destroyed by storm damage and was replaced in 1960 by the present organ. The new organ console was placed at the south east corner of the nave where it still stands. [3]
The chancel, nave, south aisle and west tower date from the 15th century, while the north chapel (Bedford Chapel) was added in 1556. Most of the masonry is of flint rubble with stone dressings. The west tower features a stair turret in the south-east. [4] The exterior walls had their flint facing reworked in the 1860s. [2] Inside the church, there are many items of interest. [2] At the north side of the church, an arch leads from the nave into the Bedford Chapel. [4] There is a 12th-century 'Aylesbury' style font from the Norman period, [2] [4] [5] also medieval brasses, and Victorian windows. [2]
The Bedford Chapel (see photo and floor plan) is the private mausoleum of the Russell family, Dukes of Bedford. Although it is within the curtilage of St. Michael's Church, it is administrated from Woburn Abbey. It is not open to the public, [1] though visible through the glazed screen in the church. The chapel contains what Nikolaus Pevsner described as "as rich a store of funeral monuments as any parish church of England". [2] [6]
The Bedford Chapel is attached to the north side of St Michael's Church and was commissioned in 1556 by Anne Sapcote († 1559), widow of John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford, in accordance with her husband's will. [7] An inscribed stone tablet is built into the outer face of the east wall of the chapel, below the window, and records: "Anno Dni 1556 / Thys Chappel ys, built by Anne / Countysse of Bedforde wyfe to / John Erle of Bedford accordyg to / ye last wyll of the sayd erle." [7] Monuments in the Bedford Chapel range from one from the 15th century through elaborate 17th-century sculpture to one to the 9th Duke of Bedford († 1891). The Russell standard and banners hang from the walls and ten funeral hatchments are fixed to the roof. Throughout the chapel, all recumbent figures have their feet turned away from the East. Several coronets are fixed at cornice level on the South wall. [7]
The floor of the Bedford Chapel is of black and white marble. There is an open wood roof with hammer beams, the ends of the corbels decorated with half figures of angels bearing coloured shields of the Russell and associated families. The series of six stained-glass windows on the north side is by C.E. Kempe, circa 1897. On the floor of the chancel is the helm and sword which hung over the stall of 7th Duke of Bedford in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle as a Knight of the Garter. The large East window is dedicated to the 9th Duke of Bedford and his wife Elizabeth, as is a carved stone achievement on the outer face of the West gable wall. [7] The 9th Duke and his wife were early supporters of cremation and paid for the construction of Woking Crematorium. Their ashes are buried in the Bedford Chapel, as are those of Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford, who served as president of the Cremation Society of Great Britain from 1921 to his death in 1940.
In 1868, a new parish church was completed near Woburn Abbey in Woburn, Bedfordshire, under the 8th Duke of Bedford. It was equipped with a crypt beneath, which was originally intended as the burial place of the Dukes of Bedford and their family. In the end the Russell family continued to use the ancient mausoleum at Chenies, and the crypt of St. Mary's parish church in Woburn is now used for events and meetings. The hatch through which coffins would have been lowered into the crypt is still visible. [8]
Lady Amberley, the wife of Viscount Amberley, eldest son of the 1st Earl Russell, died in 1874 of diphtheria caught from her daughter Rachel, who died five days later. Their deaths greatly affected Viscount Amberley, whose decision to have their bodies cremated without religious ceremony shocked English society. [9] [10] Lady Amberley's ashes were originally deposited in the grounds of their Wye Valley home along with those of her daughter. All three sets of remains were eventually moved to the Bedford Chapel shortly after Lord Amberley's own death in 1876.
The Bedford Chapel is famous for its collection of monuments to the Earls and Dukes of Bedford from the Russell family, most of whom are buried in the vault beneath the chapel. The monuments of the highest quality and importance are: [4]
St.Michael's Church is surrounded by the parish cemetery. The Churchyard Extension contains the war grave of an airman of World War II, [13] Aircraftsman 2nd Class John Lionel Crook, who died on 12 December 1944.
John Russell, 1st Earl of Bedford was an English royal minister in the Tudor era. He served variously as Lord High Admiral and Lord Privy Seal. Among the lands and property he was given by Henry VIII after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, were the Abbey and town of Tavistock, and the area that is now Covent Garden. Russell is the ancestor of all subsequent Earls and Dukes of Bedford and Earls Russell, including John Russell, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Duke of Bedford is a title that has been created six times in the Peerage of England. The first and second creations came in 1414 and 1433 respectively, in favour of Henry IV's third son, John, who later served as regent of France. He was made Earl of Kendal at the same time and was made Earl of Richmond later the same year. The titles became extinct on his death in 1435. The third creation came in 1470 in favour of George Neville, nephew of Warwick the Kingmaker. He was deprived of the title by Act of Parliament in 1478. The fourth creation came in 1478 in favour of George, the third son of Edward IV. He died the following year at the age of two. The fifth creation came in 1485 in favour of Jasper Tudor, half-brother of Henry VI and uncle of Henry VII. He had already been created Earl of Pembroke in 1452. However, as he was a Lancastrian, his title was forfeited between 1461 and 1485 during the predominance of the House of York. He regained the earldom in 1485 when his nephew Henry VII came to the throne and was elevated to the dukedom the same year. He had no legitimate children and the titles became extinct on his death in 1495.
Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, KG of Chenies in Buckinghamshire and of Bedford House in Exeter, Devon, was an English nobleman, soldier, and politician. He was a godfather to the Devon-born sailor Sir Francis Drake. He served as Lord Lieutenant of Devon (1584-5).
John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, was an 18th-century British statesman. Bedford was a leading Whig political figure around the time of the Seven Years' War, and negotiated the Treaty of Paris which ended the conflict in 1763. He was also an early promoter of cricket and a patron of the arts who commissioned many works from artists, most notably Canaletto.
Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford was an English aristocrat and Whig politician, responsible for much of the development of central Bloomsbury.
Chenies is a village and civil parish in south-east Buckinghamshire, England. It is on the border with Hertfordshire, east of Amersham and north of Chorleywood.
Elizabeth Russell, Duchess of Bedford VA was born the daughter of the 5th Earl De La Warr and his wife Lady Elizabeth Sackville.
Anna Maria Russell, Duchess of Bedford was a lifelong friend of Queen Victoria, whom she served as a Lady of the Bedchamber between 1837 and 1841.
Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford KG was an English nobleman and politician. He was the son of William Russell, Lord Russell, and his wife Lady Rachel Wriothesley. From 1683 until 1694, he was styled Lord Russell, and from 1695 until his accession in 1700, Marquess of Tavistock.
Wriothesley Russell, 3rd Duke of Bedford was an English nobleman and peer. He was the son of Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford.
Francis Russell, 7th Duke of Bedford,, styled Marquess of Tavistock from 1802 to 1839, was a British peer and Whig politician.
Francis Charles Hastings Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford KG was an English politician and agriculturalist.
George William Francis Sackville Russell, 10th Duke of Bedford DL was a British peer and politician. He was the son of Francis Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford and Lady Elizabeth Sackville-West.
Chenies Manor House in the parish of Chenies in Buckinghamshire, England, is a Tudor Grade I listed building once known as Chenies Palace, although it was never a royal seat nor the seat of a bishop. It was held by the Cheney family since 1180 and passed by marriage successively to the Semark and Sapcote families and thence in 1526 to the Russell family, Earls of Bedford, later Dukes of Bedford, by whom it was held for several centuries. Although the Russells soon abandoned Chenies as its main seat in favour of Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, Chenies parish church remains the site of the private "Bedford Chapel", the mausoleum still in use by that family.
William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath was Lord Lieutenant of Devon. His seat was at Tawstock Court, three miles south of Barnstaple in North Devon, which he rebuilt in the Elizabethan style in 1574, the date being sculpted on the surviving gatehouse.
Anne Russell, Countess of Bedford, formerly Lady Anne Carr, was a wealthy English noblewoman, and the wife of William Russell, 5th Earl of Bedford, a peer and soldier during the English Civil War, who after her death was created Duke of Bedford. Her mother was Frances Howard. In about 1638, Anne was the subject of at least two portraits by Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck.
St Mary's Watford is a Church of England church in Watford, Hertfordshire, in England. It is an active church situated in the town centre on Watford High Street, approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) outside London. St Mary's is the parish church of Watford and is part of the Anglican Diocese of St Albans. Thought to be at least 800 years old, the church contains burials of a number of local nobility and some noteworthy monumental sculpture of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras.
This is a list of the etymology of street names in the London district of Bloomsbury. The following utilises the generally accepted boundaries of Bloomsbury viz. Euston Road to the north, Gray's Inn Road to the east, New Oxford Street, High Holborn, Southampton Row and Theobald's Road to the south and Tottenham Court Road to the west.
Gertrude Russell, Duchess of Bedford, formerly the Hon. Gertrude Leveson-Gower, was the second wife of John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford. She was the eldest daughter of John Leveson-Gower, 1st Earl Gower, and his wife, the former Lady Evelyn Pierrepont. She married the Duke of Bedford on 2 April 1737.
Anne Russell, Duchess of Bedford, formerly Lady Anne Egerton, was the wife of Wriothesley Russell, 3rd Duke of Bedford, and, following his death, of William Villiers, 3rd Earl of Jersey. She was the mother of the 4th Earl of Jersey.
