This hamlet’s church may be small but dig a little deeper and you will find a wealth of historical interest.
The Church of St John the Baptist can be found in the tiny community of Cockayne Hatley. Cockayne Hatley, originally a busier settlement along the main road from Potton to Cambridge, was mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086. The church was first mentioned in written records in 1166, when it was recorded as one of the 14 churches that formed part of the endowment of Newnham Abbey in Bedford.
The Cockayne family took the cockerel as the family emblem and carvings and pictures of the bird can be found around the church.
The north aisle was added in the 13th Century and the south aisle was added shortly afterwards. The chancel was rebuilt by the turn of the century and during the 15th Century a tower was constructed.
Henry Cockayne Cust, who owned the estate at the beginning of the 19th Century, supervised major restoration work between 1808 and 1830. This included reducing the length of the chancel and rebuilding the south aisle.
Church treasurer Anthony Crossley said: “Henry Cockayne Cust was not only lord of the manor, he was also a reverend.
“The story is that when he was saying the Christmas service in 1808 the snow was falling through the roof and the church in general was in a poor state so he set out to simply renovate the church.”
He travelled to Flanders and bought the 17th Century wooden choir stalls and the busts of saints from the Abbey of Oignes, which had been ruined during Napoleon’s invasion. The shortened chancel is exactly the right size to fit the woodwork.
Sixteen saints and martyrs are carved into the woodwork including St Gilbert, who set up several religious houses including a Gilberteen abbey at Chicksands.
Churchwarden Gloria Crossley explained the symbolism behind the carvings. She said: “St Ivo is holding a quill pen, which shows he was a scholar and he is holding a book.
“On the book the capital letters are Roman numerals and they show the date the woodwork was put in the abbey in Flanders. It’s called a chronogram.
“St Bernard is a French saint who took over the Cistercian order when it was small and made it well known. We are not quite sure why the devil is there. There are two possible reasons. Sometimes they put a small figure of the devil in a church to remind people that he was always there but could be contained. Or he could have the devil on his arm to show he could resist anything that the devil could throw at him.
“Thomas à Beckett is holding a palm branch; a symbol of martydom and the cherub is holding the spear that pierced the side of Christ.
“St Dominic founded the Dominican order. He has a dog holding a burning torch in his mouth, which is the light of truth.
“Pope Gregory is most remembered for sending one of his monks to England to convert the heathens in the 8th Century. The monk became St Augustine of Canterbury.”
The saints are surrounded by fruit and flowers with a scallop shell canopy to symbolise the pilgrims.”
The church also has a stained glass window from the early 14th Century, which depicts four English saints; Edward the Confessor, Oswald, Sebald and Dustan.
There are gravestones, memorial stones and brass plaques marking the lives of various members of the Cockayne family. This include a monument put up by Elizabeth Cockayne in memory of her husband, Sir Patrick Hume. Before he died in 1621 he was master of the hounds for James I.
The graveyard contains a monument to the 19th Century poet, WE Henley and his five-year-old daughter, Margaret, who is said to have inspired the character of Wendy in Peter Pan. Henley was a friend of the author JM Barrie. Henley himself is claimed as the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Long John Silver in Treasure Island as he had only one leg.
The graveyard also has a Spitfire wing shaped memorial to the crew of the Lockheed Consolidated Liberator bomber that crashed into Potton Wood in 1946. It was erected by the family of the pilot in 1998.
The church will be open on the afternoon of Sunday, June 23 from 2.30pm to 5pm. Visitors will be able to look around the church and go up the tower.