Issue 42 summer 24 web - Flipbook - Page 48
John Garrard
Monument, St Helen’s
Church, Wheathampstead
Here at the beautiful Grade 1 listed Anglo Saxon church of St. Helen’s in the village of Weathampstead,
Hertfordshire, Chroma Conservation Ltd. had the privilege of conserving the unique hand carved
and polychrome painted alabaster Garrard Monument. It is of high craftsmanship and dates from
1630 to commemorate the Garrard family who were substantial landowners in and around
Wheathampstead.
The seventeenth century Garrard Memorial in the north
transept is one of the most important Monuments of its
type in Hertfordshire. The life size effigies of John Garrard
and his wife, Elizabeth, lie on a tomb of marble and
alabaster. Below them are statues of their fourteen children, those who died young are holding skulls. John, his
father, and his son Samuel were all Lord Mayors of London and the Antarctic explorer, Apsley Cherry-Garrard,
took part in Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated attempt to
reach the South Pole in 1911 and later recounted the
journey in his memoirs, entitled 'The Worst Journey in
the World'.
St. Helen's is built of flint rubble, or Totternhoe clunch,
with flint facings and limestone dressings. There being no
stone of this type in the area, it is thought that the medieval builders used stone from the Midland quarries
shipped down the Great Ouse to Bedford and from there
conveyed by horse and cart along the Roman roads to
Wheathampstead.
It is thought that a large diagonal crack, leading from top
left to bottom right, which appeared in recent years in the
transept wall and has subsequently treated, was due to dry
weather which may have caused subsidence. The movement created a 1 cm fracture in the pediment, soffit and
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Conservation & Heritage Journal
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