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The Chapel of St. Katherine in Hoddesdon
Created 21 June, 2008
Only one old illustration of the Chapel, issued late in the eighteenth century, gives us any idea of what it must have looked like in the sixteenth century. Oak timbered, with wattle and daub, this ancient house of worship is shown with its leaded windows, its tower with two bells, one of which was rung, by direction of the Vestry, at four o'clock in the morning, and again at eight o'clock at night. At a meeting of the Vestry in 1700 it was decided 'that ye Churchwardens do sell one of ye bells in Hoddesdon Chapel to buy a new clock in the said Chapel'.
This gave rise to a doggerel verse:
Parson Davis and Farmer Lock
Sold their bell to buy a clock.
Parson Davis was undoubtedly the Rev Hatton Davies, vicar of Great Amwell 1693-1713, Farmer Lock remains unidentified, but was presumably a Churchwarden.
By the beginning of the seventeenth century the Chapel had fallen into a very decayed state and in 1651, when Samuel Leventhorpe became vicar of Amwell, he refused to pay the customary fine on entrance, his reason being that the Chapel had been divested of its endowments, and also because of the Puritanical outlook of the Hoddesdon people the Chapel's receipts fell short of the cost of keeping it up. Only a few years after this, the site having become the property of the lord of the manor, the Chapel was closed and very quickly fell into a state so ruinous as to make it practically unusable. Prints made at the time show how it was periodically patched up, but in spite of all that could be done, with so little funds it became unfit for use of any kind. In a survey made in 1650 the Commissioners appointed by Parliament to inquire into the state of ecclesiastical Benefices, noted: 'the Chapell of Great Amwell (Hoddesdon Chapel) was without maintenance'. It probably had no brasses or monuments as no burials had ever taken place there.
In 1835 the old Chapel, its tower misshapened with age and unskilled renovations, but picturesque in its decay, was demolished and the present Clock Tower was built on its site. The first meeting of the Hoddesdon Vestry was held in the new building on 4 June 1837.