PCA Special Reports

St Bartholomew’s Church, Layston, Buntingford, Hertfordshire

St Bartholomew's Church, Layston is a deconsecrated medieval church. It is currently being converted into a private home and therefore there was a requirement for historic building recording and archaeological excavation on the site prior to construction and refurbishment.

The existing church building dates from the 13th century and foundations of an earlier church dating to the late 11th or 12th century, were uncovered within the nave.

A total of thirty-three articulated burials together with a quantity of disarticulated human bone were excavated. Twenty-one of the burials, which dated from the medieval to the late post-medieval period, were recorded within the nave. Twelve burials were excavated in the churchyard to the south of the church within areas for new services. Four lead coffins were also observed within a brick vault in the nave which were removed by specialist contractors and reburied in a specially built vault on site together with all other human remains.

A small assemblage of pottery suggests activity on the site from the 11th/12th century whilst the presence of a large quantity and wide variety of redeposited Roman ceramic building material and painted and moulded opus signinum within a layer and structure associated with the earlier church would suggest the presence of a substantial Roman building/settlement nearby.

Floor tiles recovered from deposits across the site indicate that the church was floored with high status Westminster-type tiles in the 13th century and later with glazed Flemish tiles in the Tudor period and later still with plain Flemish tiles.
The 13th century chancel is the oldest surviving part of the building. The nave and tower are Perpendicular in design. This style was prevalent from the late 14th century, continuing into the early 16th century.

An inserted window in the south wall of the chancel has a flatter arch than those in the nave and tower windows suggesting that it may have been installed slightly later. The cost of this window is likely to have been met by a bequest from a devout parishioner, and documentary evidence reveals a bequest of this nature left in a will of the 1490s. A further manifestation of the conspicuous piety of late medieval parishioners was the porch, which was almost certainly added in the early 16th century, shortly before the Reformation. Documentary evidence confirms that the early 16th century porch was rebuilt by the local builder Thomas Nevett in the first decade of the 20th century. Building recording confirmed that Arthur Conran Blomfield's restoration of the chancel in 1904 mainly involved the reconstruction of the roof.

In the early 1950s the architect David G. Martin was commissioned by the vicar of Layston and the diocese of St Albans to convert the chancel of the by then disused church into a cemetery chapel. The roof of the nave was removed and the interior was converted into a paved formal garden of Rest and Remembrance. The wall tops were capped with cement and slate to prevent water penetration or plant growth and large oak doors were fitted into the chancel arch to enclose the chancel. Despite this work the church had reverted to a state of partial dereliction by the end of the 20th century.