Artefacts
Stathern Parish Bier
St Guthlac’s Church is the custodian of Stathern's Victorian Parish Bier, which consists of a wooden frame with a flat top, some wrought iron fittings, and four large thin solid rubber-tyred and spoked wheels, and is designed to carry a coffin. It is moved by pulling by hand rather than attached to a horse. Originally it would have been used at funerals in the village but is now just an interesting heritage artefact.
We do not know when the bier was purchased by the parish but in Victorian times many churches owned one. It would be pulled by two persons and transported the coffin from the deceased person's house to the church for the funeral, with the mourners walking behind. Stathern's bier possibly dates from the 1860s or later, and has springs as part of the ironwork but no brakes. It must have carried hundreds of residents to the church over the years of its use.
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The bier was almost certainly kept in the church when not is use. Its use went out of favour when motorised hearses became common. Because of the need to create more space in the church In the 1980/90s it was moved to the north porch which at that time had a flat floor. It eventually ended up stored in a barn in the village and has remained there for many years. Whilst it has been protected from rain, dampness has caused the ironwork to rust and the timber frame has got very dirty.
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Recently the PCC has requested that the bier should be returned to the church because it is part of the heritage of the village. It will be displayed at the exhibition of artefacts in the church on 14 September 2024 and then retained in the church. Possibly it will replace the table in the Communications Corner but it will first need a good clean and perhaps some very minor repairs.
Church Bells
By about 1980 the timber bell frame was in a very poor and dangerous state, with Deathwatch beetle attack, and rot where it was attached to the tower walls. A major renovation project was launched and the timber frame removed. Due to its very poor condition it could not be preserved, so it was reassembled on the ground and photographed for documentary evidence and then destroyed. In 1990 a new galvanised steel frame was erected in its place for five bells. The poor Henry Noone bell was removed as salvage and two new trebles were cast by John Taylor Bellfounders Ltd of Loughborough, with the other three Oldfield bells being re-tuned and having new headstocks.
The bell details and inscriptions are as follows with the weights traditionally given in cwt, qrt, lbs.
Treble 4-2-14 1990 John Taylor
2 5-1-22 1990 John Taylor
3 5-1-26 1607 Henry II Oldfield “I swetely toling, men do call, To taste on meats
that feed the soole,”
4 7-1-18 1613 Henry II Oldfield “Glory be to God on high.”
Tenor 9-0-26 1607 Henry II Oldfield “My rooaring sounde doth warning give, That
men cannot heare always lyve.”
St Guthlac’s Church possesses a fine ring of five bells. The are rung from the ground floor of the west end tower. There is a small team of bell ringers who practice once a month and regularly ring for services.
Three bells are recorded as being in the tower (according to Peirson’s writings) in the early 1500s, which was probably when the tower was built. It seems that these bells were recast by a Nottingham bell-founder, Henry Oldfield in 1607, providing two bells, and a further bell added in 1613 A treble bell was added in 1713, cast by William Noone of Nottingham with the words “Thos Barnett warden God save his Church” but not only was it out of tune, it had a poor quality sound and there was also a bad mistake made in the in the casting with the word “God” being stamped upside down. By 1713, Noone was an oldman and he probably left it to his semi-literate foreman to make the casting.
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Church Clock
The tower of St Guthlac’s Church houses an interesting old square-framed turret clock of indeterminate age. There was certainly a clock in the church in 1630 because the Churchwarden’s Accounts state “payd for Oyle for the Cloke” and this statement appears in subsequent years, including “payed to wier for the clock” and “Payed to Caunt of Claxton for our clock wich his yearely rent after six pence a yeare” and many other clock entries. Perhaps some parts of the existing clock are from that era and other parts were made by the local blacksmith.
Little is known of the origins of the clock in St Guthlacs. It was originally housed on the ground floor at the tower arch (where the font now is placed) because there are grooves in the arch stonework where supports for the clock were fixed. Apparently the tower arch had been bricked up and the one face of the clock could be seen from the nave and also from the nave north porch door which had a small diagonal hole cut into it for people to look in and see the time. A small portion of this door with the diagonal hole still exists as a church artefact.
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The clock was moved up into the tower ‘clock room’ in probably late Victorian times and replaced by the font which was moved from the east end of the south aisle. The two clock weights had to be wound up daily and the clock oiled frequently. It got into a very bad state and at the end of the 1970s it was decided that it needed a complete overhaul. The bearings were very worn, the wrought iron frame was out of shape and the whole mechanism was covered in oil and grease.
The churchwarden Roger Hawkins had a contact at GEC Gas Turbines Ltd at Whetstone and arranged for the apprentices there to dismantle and clean the clock and design an automatic winding mechanism as a training exercise. It took 6 months for the clock to be rebuilt and longer for the design of the unique electrically operated winding mechanism which now sits under the old clock frame. There was a handover ceremony in 1981 but the installation and work on the winding mechanism took longer. The GEC carpenters, who usually made packing cases for equipment, made a fine cabinet in Columbian pine with glass windows to house the clock and to prevent stone dust from the tower walls from affecting the mechanism.
The clock has two cast iron faces, on the north and south sides of the tower, and whilst it has the facility to strike the hour, this was disconnected when the bells were restored in 1990 because synchronising the striking with the timing was difficult.
The church archives contain all the designs, drawings, and photographs for the complete overhaul and winding mechanism by GEC.
Church Organ
Stathern Church has a small organ situated in the north aisle of the chancel. It is currently only one of two organs in the county of Leicestershire awarded a Grade 1 Certificate on the National Pipe Organ Register. The award was made following an inspection in 2010 and it means that the clock is of exceptional interest and of high heritage value. The only other organ currently with a Grade 1 listing in Leicestershire is the huge organ at De Montfort Hall in Leicester.
Our organ was made by a London organ builder, Bates, in 1848 and installed at that time. Within a few years of purchase it had extra pipes and stops added but these did not prove to be successful so when the organ was restored in 1981 by Martin Renshaw the additions were removed and the organ restored to its original condition. There is only one short keyboard of 58 keys and the pedal board (played with the feet) is apparently an unusual length and shape containing 25 keys. The timber organ case is painted in a dark green known as Belvoir Green and has gilded pipes.
For many years the bellows had to be pumped by hand and the accounts of the Parochial Church Council often recorded small payments to the boy whose duty it was to pump the bellows during services
Originally the organ was housed in the chancel but was moved into the nave in the 1990s to be closer to the congregation. Although Stathern’s organ is a simple instrument compared to many, we can be proud that we possess a rare and historic instrument.