A guide to St Augustine’s Churchyard

The parish church of St Augustine’s is located in the Broxbourne conservation area and lies by the New River just off Station Road, Broxbourne.

The church, completed around 1400, is a Grade I listed building of which there are only five in the borough. The southern chapel was erected in 1476 by Robert Stowell who later built St Margaret’s Church next to Westminster Abbey. Between the chancel and the south chapel lies the tomb of Sir John Say who paid for the church to be built. The vestry with its memorial inscription to Sir William Say was added in 1522.

In the church there is an interesting tomb with effigies of Sir Henry Cock and wife surrounded by their children kneeling at it’s base. A memorial to John McAdam, an improver of British roads, also lies in the church along with that of Edward Fletcher, the brother of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutiny on the Bounty. Also in the church are two 17th century memorials to the Baylie(ley) family. A family member, namely William Bayley, emigrated to America in 1726. His granddaughter Elizabeth Ann Bayley-Seton (1774-1821) was proclaimed a saint by the Pope in 1975. The ancestors of America’s first native born saint are buried in Broxbourne.

Within the churchyard itself there are 1500 known graves, five of which are listed; the 19th Century granite oblong sarcophagus with bronze corner columns, tomb to the Bosanquet family; an unusual wedge-shaped chest tomb; and three late 18th Century gadrooned sarcophagi. In one of these is buried Mrs. A Humston who died aged 100 years old – quite unusual for that time. Although closed, the churchyard still occasionally receives burials and cremated remains are also interred.

Click here to download the guide - St Augustine’s Church, Broxbourne