A HISTORY OF HOLY TRINITY CHURCH, BOTTISHAM
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immediately dropped to pieces upon admission of air, and the salt or whatever
was used for embalming, lay in a considerable heap between where the ribs and
thighbone rested. On the right shoulder was placed a small chalice of pewter or
some other alloyed metal very brittle and broken. On the breast lay a piece of
wood 1 foot 6 inches long, pitched on the underside. There were also some large
nails in the coffin. A smaller coffin parallel to the above, nearer to the interior of
the church, was opened: the bones appeared in the same fresh and undisturbed
state. There were the remains of some covering to the head and bosom; and the
hair being much longer and curled, it was conjectured to have been the body of a
female. The remaining stone coffins were not examined.”
Hailstone reported that the chalice from the first coffin was placed in the
museum of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society: no trace can be found of the
chalice in that museum or in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Of
significance to our theory, within the era of these interments only a priest was
allowed to drink from a chalice - the communion cup came later.
Buttresses
In the classic account of Gothic architecture by John &
Raphael Brandon (1847), the unusual Bottisham buttresses are described and
illustrated. The nave walls are strengthened by buttresses which are gabled and
terminate in a trefoil ridge: beautifully moulded chamfers, at the angles, with
quoins of Barnack stone and a trefoil panel on the face, complete the structure of
these elegant features. The corner buttresses, set at right angles to each other, are
characteristic of the early medieval period. The chancel walls are supported by
Early English simple buttresses of three stages. Much of the exterior walls were
later covered with Roman cement: made by burning and grinding nodules of soft
brown material found in the London clay. It sets rapidly and is therefore useful
where water is encountered (M.B.C. 1945) but is inferior in strength to Portland
cement. Weir (1910) states that at the close of the eighteenth century there were
two Italians, of the name Bernasconi, working in the Cambridge area using Roman
cement: Weir says the misfortune spread to Bottisham! The Brandon brothers
(1848) were also impressed by the windows:-
“ A fine effect is produced by the
primary mullions and tracery-bars being richly moulded. At Bottisham church the
rich mouldings of the mullions are continued throughout the entire composition”.
The ‘lantern’ system of lighting was introduced into the rebuilt nave with the
incorporation of a row of windows (the clerestory) above the lateral roofs of the
north and south aisles. The clerestory windows are unusual in that they consist of
a single light, but contain intricate mouldings and plate tracery on the inside and
mouldings externally. There is no satisfactory explanation as to why the centres
of the nave windows do not coincide with the centres of the nave arches: neither
do the points of the clerestory windows coincide with the aisle windows. The
whole effect is enhanced by string courses which run beneath the windows and run
round the buttresses for the whole length of the church. The string courses form