Church Monuments Society

The vault at St Mary, Langley Marish, contains some fascinating monuments but is unfortunately not accessible to the public. We hope this description of one of them will satisfy your curiosity.

Although Sir John Kedermister (1576-1631) of Romsey House, Langley Marish, Buckinghamshire, obtained a grant from the Dean and Chapter of St George’s Chapel, Windsor to construct a south transept – “18 foot in bredth north & south & about 24 foot in length east and west” – to the parish church of St Mary’s, Langley Marish on 28 February 1613[1], it was not until 1621 that work begun. What prompted this was the death of his second daughter, Anne, in 1621. The construction of the transept was to provide a pew at the east end of the transept for the Kedermister family and a library with subterranean burial vault at its west end. All was complete by 1623, when Anne’s remains were transferred into the vault.

The vault itself measures 6ft north to south and 14ft 6in east to west. A series of three funerary monuments within the vault, all off the same chisel, appear to have been fixed up in 1623 when it was first put into use. The inscription on that to Anne Kedermister is complete, though those to her mother and her father lack details relating to their ages at death and, indeed, the dates of their deaths, which leads one to believe that these are contemporary to those of Anne Kedermister. Be that as it may, the memorial to Sir John Kedermister records that “hee builded Romsey house in this parish and also this vault and chapel over this ground. And he also made an gave unto this Towne for ever ye adioyning Library in Ao Dni 1623.”

Set into a marble niche in the west wall of the vault is a full-size marble portrait bust of Anne Kedermister, flanked on the north by a long poem extolling her virtues and, to the south, the main inscription panel:

MEMORIA SACRÆ
BEHIND THIS STONE LYETH YE BODY OF ANNE
KEDERMISTER SECOND DAVGHTER OF SIR
JOHN  KEDERMISTER, KT, BY DAME MARY HIS
WIFE, A MOST VIRTUOUS AND BEAUTIFUL
VIRGIN WHO DIED OF A BURNING FEAVER
THE 22d AUGUST A.o.Dni 1621 AETAT SVÆ
16 & AFTERWARDS THE 15 DAY OF
MARCH A.o.Dni 1623 WAS BY HER
SAID FATHER REMOVED TO THIS PLACE,
BEING OF STATURE 5 FOOTE & 8 INCHES HIGH
WHOSE VIRTUOUS LIFE AND DISPOSITION
HEE THVS RECORDETH TO POSTERITY.

Thus from Sir John’s plaque and that of his daughter Anne, we learn that he financed the construction of the vault and the library above it in 1623 and that Anne died on 22 August 1621 and was deposited in the vault on 15 March 1623. It is unusual to have such a complete record of a vault’s date of construction.

The stone portrait bust, which is covered with gesso, measures 15½in high. 14½in wide and 6in in depth, which would conform to that of a person whose height was 5ft 8in tall. The gesso is tinted to emulate marble and the facial features have been highlighted so that the eyes are blue and the lips, which betray a slight smile, a dull red. The hair is drawn back from the brow by means of a plaited hair-piece over a front hair line. She is wearing a shift, the neckline being accentuated by a black drawstring, knotted in a single bow at the neck.

In 1599 Sir John Kedermister had commissioned a funerary monument to the Kedermister family, depicting two pairs of kneeling figures facing one another and with their children below. Unfortunately this piece of London workmanship is unattributed. Whether or not the same sculptor was approached for the portrait bust of Anne Kedermister has yet to be confirmed.

Anne Kedermister’s portrait bust is on the wall directly opposite the vault’s ventilation grille. Thus, morning by morning, the sun’s first rays shine onto the features of Sir John’s ‘virtuous and beautiful’ daughter. A touching thought.

Julian Litten

[1]  IV.B.16, ff115-116 in the St George’s, Windsor archives.