The church of ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST has a chancel 13 ft. 6 in. wide by 27 ft. 3 in. long, with north chapel and vestry, nave of the same width 59 ft. long, with north and south aisles and south porch and west tower. Nothing older than thirteenth-century detail is now to be seen, a window at the north-east of the chancel dating from the first quarter of this century. The chancel arch and nave arcades (the two eastern bays of the north arcade are modern) are all of one pattern. The arches are pointed, of two hollow-chamfered orders, a detail of frequent local occurrence, but difficult to date within narrow limits, as it was used without essential difference from the thirteenth century (as at Flamstead) to the fifteenth. The mouldings of the capitals suggest a date early in the fourteenth century, and it is difficult to see any evidences of difference in date, as far as masonry details are concerned. The break in the south arcades of the nave between the second and third piers probably gives the position of the east wall of an earlier nave, whose width of about 13 ft. 6 in. is retained, its length having been about 38 ft.
The probable development of the plan was that the present chancel was added to the east and outside the lines of an earlier chancel about 1220, the area of the old chancel being thrown into the nave. Aisles to the nave were perhaps added at this time, or may have existed previously, and probably some transeptal arrangement flanked the new east end of the nave. About the end of the thirteenth century, or beginning of the fourteenth, the present chancel arch and nave arcades were set up, and the aisles were perhaps widened at the same time.
The tower seems to have been added later in the fourteenth century, and the widening of the east end of the north aisle may be connected with the foundation of a chantry by Sir P. Aylesbury in 1335. An opening from the east of the north aisle witnesses to the existence of a north chapel in the first half of the fourteenth century, but the existing chapel contains nothing older than a sedile of c. 1400. The church underwent much repair in 1867, and a great part of the window tracery is modern; the tower and south porch were repaired in 1905.
The chancel has a three-light window of geometrical style with modern tracery. In the north wall near the east angle is a thirteenth-century lancet window with an outer rebate, and below it a fourcentred recess, probably of the fifteenth century. The rest of the north side of the chancel is occupied by a modern arcade of two bays, opening to the north chapel. In the south wall is a two-light window of fourteenth-century style, and a plain doorway, the masonry being modern in both, and near the southwest angle a small lancet window, low in the wall, its external stonework being modern. In its west jamb is a squint from the east end of the south aisle.
The chancel arch is of two hollow-chamfered orders with half-octagonal moulded capitals, the upper member of which has been cut away. Above the arch the wall sets back on both faces.
The north chapel has a three-light east window, and a north window of two lights, the tracery being modern in both. At the south-east is a cinquefoiled piscina, and adjoining it on the west a single sedile with an ogee head cinquefoiled. The date of both is c. 1400, but half the head of the sedile is modern. In the north-east angle is a marble altar tomb of 'London' type in Purbeck marble, in the slab of which are inlaid brass figures of Sir Ralph Verney, 1546, and Elizabeth (Bray) his wife, with nine sons and three daughters. At the corners of the slab are four shields with heraldry, and there have been others on the sides of the tomb, but these, with the marginal inscription, are lost. Sir Ralph wears a tabard with his arms of Verney quartering an unknown coat and Whittingham. His wife bears on her mantle the same arms, together with the Bray quarterings; and of the four shields one bears Verney and another Bray, while the remaining two have the two coats impaled.
On the north wall is an alabaster and marble monument to Thomas Hyde, 1570, and George his son 1580. It has a cornice and broken pediment, carried by three Corinthian columns, the panels between which are carved with strap-work with a skull in the centre of each. Above the cornice are the arms of Hyde of Aldbury, while beneath the panels are lozenges with the Butler arms and the arms of Sedley. On the west wall is a black marble panel in a white marble frame, the monument of Thomas Hyde of Aldbury, 1665.
From: 'Parishes: Aldbury', A History of the County of Hertford: volume 2 (1908), pp. 143-148. URL: (
visit link) Date accessed: 24 August 2008.