Church Monument of the Month - April 2025 - St. Kenelm's, Sapperton

Sapperton is a small, picturesque village in the Cotswolds. It has close historic ties to the Cotswolds Arts and Crafts Movement and is only a short drive away from William Morris’ family home of Kelmscott Manor. St. Kenelm’s is the local parish church. It is dedicated to an Anglo-Saxon Saint, King and Martyr. According to the legend, St. Kenelm succeeded his father as the King of Mercia (which would once have encompassed Gloucestershire), when he was only a boy and was subsequently killed by his jealous sister’s lover. Upon his death Kenelm’s soul took flight in the form of a white dove, which dropped a scroll at the feet of the Pope in Rome, with hints to the location of the body. The body was subsequently recovered by monks and brought to Winchcombe Abbey, and in the place where the body was found a stream sprung up that brought health to all who drank from it. 

Just like the village, which was mentioned in the Domesday book, St. Kenelm’s church has 12th Century origins, but the building we see today was largely rebuilt by the Atkyns family in the 18th Century. The Atkyns family owned Sapperton manor from the 1660s until 1730. The previous owners were the Poole family, who had incurred debts due to being fined for their Royalist sympathies and as a result needed to sell the manor. It was purchased by Sir Robert Atkyns, who rose to the position of Lord Baron of the Exchequer following his support for William of Orange in the 1688 revolution. Both the Poole and the Atkyns family are commemorated by some splendid monuments in St. Kenelm’s church, but one of the most striking examples is the monument to Baron Atkyns’ son and heir, also Sir Robert, topographer and author of the earliest printed history of Gloucestershire.

Sir Robert Atkyns had an illustrious career, among other roles he was elected MP for Gloucester from 1685 – 1689. 

His monument depicts Atkyns with a vividly flowing wig, reclining on one elbow, with his left arm placed on a closed book – most likely his life’s work “The Ancient and Present State of Gloster-shire”, which is also mentioned in the epitaph and was published the year after his death. His clothes are a great example of 18th Century gentlemen’s attire. Atkyns’ effigy is flanked by ionic columns, topped by a frieze decorated with anthemion and acanthus leaves and a pediment on which his coat of arms is displayed. The acanthus leaf has been used since antiquity to decorate friezes and columns and had symbolic links to immortality and rebirth in ancient Greek architecture but became more associated with death and suffering in Christian symbolism. It is also a motif often used by William Morris. To either side of the coat of arms, which is illuminated with vibrant red and thus lifted from the restrained white of the rest of the monument, we find allegories of Justice and Prudence, possibly as a hint to Atkyns’ legal qualifications – he passed the bar but never practiced. However, he served the crown in a variety of legal offices, for example as Comptroller from 1673 to 1679. The monument was commissioned from sculptor and stonemason Edward Stanton, who was also responsible for monuments in the CCT Churches at Warminghurst and Strensham, which he executed in a similarly animated style that is well worth seeing.