Patrick Comerford
The first of two funerals we attended last week was in Holy Trinity Church in Seer Green, a small village in the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, equal distance from both Beaconsfield and Chalfont St Giles. We had visited Seer Green late last summer, and we returned last week for the funeral of the family friend who had brought us to the church only a few months earlier.
Holy Trinity Church is the parish church of the neighbouring villages of Seer Green and Jordans. But until the mid-19th century, Seer Green had long been part of the Parish of Farnham Royal, within the Diocese of Lincoln. Until Holy Trinity Church was built on the village green in Seer Green, parishioners who wished to worship in their parish church on a Sunday had to travel to the church in Farnham Royal, a round trip of 15 miles on foot or by pony.
The church was built in 1846, probably as the response of the Church of England to the strong presence of nonconformists, notably Quakers in Jordans and Baptists and a small group of Primitive Methodists in Seer Green. A year earlier, all the parishes in Buckinghamshire in the Diocese of Lincoln were transferred to the Diocese of Oxford in 1845.
Seer Green was a detached part of Farnham Royal until 1847, when Seer Green became an ecclesiastical parish, and it became a civil parish in its own right in 1866.
Holy Trinity Church was built in the centre of Seer Green on land that had been allocated to John Septimus Grover, the Rector of Farnham Royal. The parish living was in the gift of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College who had the right to present to the Bishop of Oxford a nominee for appointment to the parish.
The building was designed by James Deason who also designed Eton cemetery chapel (1844-1846) and who restored the 15th century college chapel. It is often said that church cost £1,200 to build, although the architectural historian Sir Niklaus Pevsner puts the figures at £1,700. £1,000 of the building costs were given by the first vicar, the Revd John Henry Worsley.
Holy Trinity Church was built in the Early English Gothic style in 1846 and is of knapped flint with stone dressings, slated roofs, coped gables, cross finials and a bellcote on the west gable. It is a Grade II listed building with a seating capacity for 140.
The church has a four-bay nave with a south porch, a three-bay chancel, a stepped lancet east window and other lancet windows. There are some foliage stops and hoodmoulds, some moulded capitals and bases, and arch braced collar truss roofs on stone corbels.
Worsley stayed in Seer Green for little more than a year. His 18 successors, to 2021, have averaged nearly 10 years, and two have exceeded 30 years: the Revd John Marratt Taylor (1870-1900) and the Revd James McIvor Stephens (1904-1934) who died in office and is buried in the churchyard. The patronage of Seer Green was transferred from Eton College to the Bishop of Oxford in 1920.
The first significant major changes to Holy Trinity Church were made in the 1950s, when the Revd Tom Ludington was the vicar. The stained glass east window, a gift from Saint Nicholas Church, Rotherfield Grays, Oxfordshire, was installed in 1956. It shows Christ the King (above), and (below) Saint James Apostle and Bishop (centre) with Saint Stephen the First Martyr (left) and Saint John Apostle and Evangelist (right).
A new altar and reredos, carved by Alan Durst, and altar furnishings were donated that year by Arthur Giles in memory of his wife Amy. The reredos includes a representation of Saint Giles with his hart – a reference to Arthur Giles rather than the neighbouring village of Chalfont St Giles. An altar-frontal box was donated by their son, Arthur Haughton Giles.
A new vicar’s vestry and choir vestry were built in 1958-1960 as the gift of May Burness of Austens in Jordans, and her sister Maud of Beaconsfield in memory of their father.
The Revd Robert (‘Bob’) Crawley-Boevey, a naval man, was vicar of Holy Trinity for 19 years, from 1959 to 1978. He was followed by the Revd Malcolm Osborne who followed (1979-1984). When two trains crashed in deep snow outside Seer Green station on 11 December 1981, he arrived at the scene just in time to administer last rites to the dying driver.
The Revd Joanna Stoker (1992-1997) was the first woman to become Vicar of Seer Green and Jordans. Initially as a deacon she was the Minister in Charge, and she was legislation to enable women to be priests, she was ordained priest in 1994. Three of her five successors were women.
The church was rewired in 1986 and the roof and floor timbers were treated extensively. The pipe organ was also replaced by a Copeman Hart digital instrument in the 1990s.
The churchyard is in a central triangular location in the centre of Seer Green. It is maintained by volunteers and it has contributed to Seer Green winning a South Buckinghamshire’s ‘Best Kept Village’ award on several occasions.
• Seer Green is part of the Benefice of Chalfont Saint Giles, Seer Green and Jordans, and the Revd Jez Carr is the Vicar of Holy Trinity, Seer Green. Sunday services are at 8 am (BCP Holy Communion) and 10 am Holy Communion (first and third Sunday) or Morning Praise (second, fourth and fifth Sundays). Trinity Café is open on Thursday and Friday mornings and Saturday mornings and afternoons.
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