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Church History

A brief history of Edwalton, and it's Church,
By Martin Stevenson

* Did Lady Godiva ever ride through Edwalton?
* Was Robert Fitz-Randulph, the founder of Edwalton Church, implicated in the murder of Thomas a Becket?

Probably the answer to these two questions will never be known. What is known is that Lady Godiva owned six bovates of land here - about six acres.

Edwalton itself was a Saxon settlement. The name means 'a farm of Edweald'. It was situated on rising ground on the edge of the marshes where the track climbed out of the Trent Valley towards the Roman road we still know as the Fosse Way. Edweald's tun was probably somewhere near the large old pear tree, the last remains of an orchard, which stands beside the seventh tee on Edwalton Golf Course.

Edwalton (it was written Edwoultun) appears in the Domesday Book in the Wapentake of Risecliffe (Rushcliffe). In the division of the spoils which followed the Norman Conquest, the land at Edwalton, was given to Hugo de Grantmesnil who passed it on to his son Ingleram - he, in turn, left it to his son, Ranulph who bequeathed it to his son, Robert Fitz Ranulph, Earl of Alfreton who founded Edwalton Church around 1166.
CHAPELERY

The first habitations at Edwalton were probably more or less to the south of the church, which was undoubtedly built as a chapelery to the mother church at Flaworth and was dedicated to St Lawrence and the Holy Rood. (A fragment of glass from the now demolished Flaworth Church can be seen preserved in the window over the Children's Altar).
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The 800th anniversary was celebrated in style in 1966. But this was an arbitrarily chosen date. There is no certainty about it; it would not have been built before 1166 because this was the year in which Fitz-Ranulph succeeded to his father's estates. What is known is that he built Beauchief Abbey, near Chesterfield, which was founded on the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle in 1173 and dedicated to St Thomas the Martyr.

Edwalton Church was included in the abbey's endowment; so somewhere between these two dates Edwalton church was built. Mid-way between these two dates, on December 29th, 1170, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in his cathedral.

It is the founding of Beauchief Abbey that links Fitz-Ranulph with the murder. For the altarpiece at the Abbey was a sculpture depicting the slaying of the archbishop, and Fitz-Ranulph himself gave up all public office and entered the abbey as a canon.

At the time there appears to have been a widespread belief that if he was not actually one of the four knights who killed Becket, he was at least deeply involved in the murder plot and that the abbey - some say both church and abbey - was built in atonement for the crime. It is more likely, though that the church had already been erected before the deed.
The "Annals of Nottinghamshire" by Thomas Bailey, published in 1853 records under the date 1166: -"Robert Fitz-Ranulph, who was High Sheriff of Nottingham and Derby, and as reported to be concerned in the assassination of Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury gave the Church in Edwalton, in this county together with Norton and Alfreton in Derbyshire, and Wymeswold in Leicestershire, to the abbey at Beauchief in Derbyshire, which he had founded to make his peace, as it would seem, with heaven, for his share in that daring transaction”

Chaworth family:

One factor has also remained constant throughout the years – the patronage and interest of the Chaworth family. Alicia, the great granddaughter of Robert Fitz-Ranulph married Sir William Caduris (a Latin form of Chaworth) and so forged a link, which remains to the present day. The Chaworth family still have the patronage of the living.
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The church itself is a patchwork of history. As you walk up the path, past the latest additions - which include a transept, vestries and Meeting Room - added in 1996-1997; you see the lighter stonework of the original chapel which measured only 18 feet by 30 feet, which now forms the lower portion of the north wall of today's structure. Above it is the yellower stone of the clerestory added at the end of the 14th century between 1377 and 1399.

Like the original, this heightened church had a thatched roof. About the same time the south aisle was added and the Devil's Door pierced through the north wall. This door was left open during baptisms, so that when a child was christened any evil spirits could fly out. The bricked-up outline of the door can be seen on the outside.

Around 1550 the present tower was added to replace an earlier one which had crumbled,
built of brick in English bond with diagonal buttresses it is a noteworthy feature and, in all probability,
one of the few church towers built in the reign of Mary 1.

By the year 1600 the original simple stone chancel had fallen into ruins and for over 200 years was bricked of with only the nave being used for worship.

In the late 19th century, as Nottingham prospered the railway came to Edwalton (goods in 1879 and passengers in 1880). Successful merchants and tradesmen built their big houses outside the city, and as the population grew our Victorian forebears rebuilt the chancel in its present form in 1894. The brick they used failed the test of time and began to crumble and in 1980 the whole of the outer brickwork was renewed and the size of the buttresses reduced

 

Still Growing:

After World War II, and again in the 1990’s, new housing developments increased the population in Edwalton and its environs and our little church had to grow once more to meet the needs of an expanding population.

1996 work began on an extension comprising a north transept, Vicar's and Choir Vestries, a parish office, a commodious Meeting Room, toilets, storeroom and kitchen. The work was completed in February 1997 and dedicated by the Bishop of Southwell on March 2nd 1997.

"To read another short version of the Church History
complete with a photograph of the Church from the 1900's
please click on this link."
..and yet even more Church History if click on this link