In a paper on the north aisle of St James, Biddenham, Bedfordshire, published in The Antiquaries Journal in 2015, in a related paper on the west tower of Bolney, West Sussex, and in a recent book, Church Building and Society in the Later Middle Ages, Gabriel Byng has questioned the typicality of church-rebuilding single-handedly directed and financed by wealthy individuals such as the Sussex knight Sir William de Etchingham. In a close study of Bolney and Biddenham, Byng argues instead that church-rebuilding ‘was run and financed by comparatively wealthy groups of peasants or townsfolk’. The case rests on Byng’s assessment of unusual surviving sources, a series of informal accounts for Bolney and a draft contract for Biddenham. This paper offers a rather different reading, and questions Byng’s claim. The decisive role at both was played by the lords, John Bolney at Bolney, and Sir William Butler at Biddenham.

The defaced and probably unfinished Easter sepulchre at St Mary’s Church, Tarrant Hinton, in Dorset is exceptional in its scale and sophisticated renaissance decoration, in comparison to other sixteenth-century structures associated with contemporary Easter liturgy. Previous notice of it has been impeded by failure to assess properly the upper part of the monument, which new photography now renders accessible. This demonstrates a remarkable resemblance between its (defaced) angels and the bronze angels by Benedetto da Rovezzano being prepared at Westminster in the late 1520s for the tomb of Cardinal Wolsey; while the lower part of the structure displays influence from contemporary French decoration.

This structure is assessed in the contexts of other monuments of the early sixteenth century intended to support a temporary Easter sepulchre and of what can be reconstructed of the career of the minor but wealthy cleric who was responsible for its erection. Thomas Wever MA (d. 1536) made additions to two of his rectories besides building substantial extensions on the north side of Tarrant Hinton church. It is suggested that both his building there and the Easter sepulchre itself are unfinished and were abandoned at his death as a result of his continued indebtedness. The sepulchre itself suggests a direction that English church decoration never took.