CHURCH.
The surviving fabric shows the church
to have been built in the early 12th century, (fn. 17) and
Roger Little's gift of the church to Hereford
cathedral was in the period 1148-54. (fn. 18) As a result
of the gift the rectory formed part of the endowment of the prebend of Moreton and Whaddon, (fn. 19)
and Whaddon church, which may not originally
have been in any way dependent on Moreton, came
to be regarded as a chapel of Moreton. (fn. 20) That link
was broken in 1840 when Whaddon was united with
Brookthorpe. (fn. 21) Epney was transferred from Moreton to the new ecclesiastical parish of Framilode in
in 1855. (fn. 22)
No vicarage was established for Moreton, and in
the Middle Ages the parish was served by stipendiary chaplains. (fn. 23) In 1535 the Vicar of Standish, not
the Prebendary of Moreton and Whaddon, was said
to find a chaplain for Moreton; (fn. 24) if it was not a
mistake the statement represented a temporary
arrangement. By 1735 there was thought to be a
perpetual curacy; (fn. 25) it may in fact have been stipendiary, but because the obligation of paying the curate
had for long been imposed on the lessees of the
prebendal estate (fn. 26) the curacy had at least the superficial characteristics of a perpetual curacy, a status
which it anyway acquired in 1770 on being endowed
out of Queen Anne's Bounty. (fn. 27) Though called a
vicarage in the later 19th century (fn. 28) the living retained
the title of a perpetual curacy. (fn. 29) The right to
nominate curates was exercised by the lessees of the
prebendal estate until 1830 (fn. 30) and afterwards by the
Bishop of Gloucester. (fn. 31) In 1961 Moreton Valence
was united with Whitminster, with which it had
been held since 1953; the bishop had the right of
alternate presentation. (fn. 32)
In 1603 the curate's stipend was £10. (fn. 33) By 1705
it had risen to £25, (fn. 34) but was soon after reduced to
£12. (fn. 35) Between 1770 and 1814 the curacy was
augmented with £1,000 from Queen Anne's Bounty
and £400 from two private benefactors. (fn. 36) It was
further augmented in 1843 and 1877, (fn. 37) and in 1889
was worth £161 a year net. (fn. 38) In 1877 the curacy also
received a grant of £1,500 for building a parsonage
house ; (fn. 39) previously there had been no house for the
curate in the parish, (fn. 40) and most curates seem to have
lived in other parishes. John Day, curate in 1570 (fn. 41)
and 1576, (fn. 42) was an exception, being the lessee of
the prebendal estate, (fn. 43) but was on bad terms with
some parishioners: in 1574 he was concerned in a
lawsuit about the parishioners' use of the butts, (fn. 44)
and in 1576 was said to be 'no peacemaker, of late a
weaver, ... a drunkard and an unruly man', who
put his pigs into the churchyard. (fn. 45) Feeling against
him (fn. 46) may have been behind the refusal of two
parishioners to go to church except when there was
a sermon. (fn. 47) Anthony Collier, ejected in 1662 from
Moreton Valence and Whitminster, was said to have
preached at both every Sunday. (fn. 48) John Jones,
curate 1764-82, was buried at Moreton, which he
was said to have served with the greatest assiduity. (fn. 49)
Benjamin Jones, curate 1784-1830, lived at first at
Moreton, later in neighbouring parishes and finally
in Guernsey, (fn. 50) the parish being served from 1815 by.
a succession of stipendiary curates, one of whom,
John Fowell Jones, became perpetual curate in
1830 and lived at Frampton on Severn. (fn. 51) His
successor, appointed in 1877, (fn. 52) lived at Whitminster,
but the new parsonage house had been built by 1889
and remained the glebe house for Moreton and
Whitminster in 1967. (fn. 53)
The church of ST. STEPHEN
(fn. 54) is built of ashlar
with a Cotswold stone roof and comprises chancel,
nave, north porch, west tower, and south aisle
running the full length of chancel and nave. The
nave and chancel were built in the early 12th
century, and on the capital on the south side of
the chancel arch is a defaced and incomplete
inscription apparently of the early 12th century, in
mixed Roman and Lombardic letters, of which
some have a Saxon character. It reads:
[ISTA BA] SILICA FVIT DEDICA
[TA IN NOMINE D]NI NRI JHU XPI ET IN HONORE[M]
[BEATE MARIE VIR]GINIS ET SCI STEPHANI PROTHO
[MARTYRIS ...] QUAM NOVA[M] FECIT DEDICARE
[...]DIC PAVVS
The last line appears to suggest what is indicated by
other evidence, that the patron was a member of the
Little family. (fn. 55)
The chancel arch has rectangular capitals with
chamfered and moulded lower edges. On the nave
side the arch has an outer order of a bold rollmoulding, supported on attached angle-shafts with
cushion capitals and bases carved with zigzags. The
chancel retains a small 12th-century light in the
north wall, with deep splays. Across the inside of
the east wall, c. 5 ft. above the floor, is a projecting
course of stones carved with diaper ornament. The
east walls of both the chancel and the nave have
external string-courses at eaves level, with large
animal corbel-heads at the angles. (fn. 56) The north
doorway has an early-12th-century arch similar to
the chancel arch in having a bold roll on the outer
order, with attached shafts, cushion capitals, and
chamfered abacus. It contains a well preserved
tympanum carved with a representation thought to
be of St. Michael fighting Satan. (fn. 57) The porch was
apparently built afterwards, though in the 12th
century or early 13th; it has stone benching and a
deeply splayed small rectangular light on each side,
and a defaced corbel-head at the north-west angle;
the timber-framed gable-end, with an arch-braced
collar, is of the 15th or 16th century and has a
bracket perhaps for an image.
In the 14th century the chancel was given a new
east window, of which the external hoodmould has
carved but decayed shields in the stops; the tracery
has been renewed. There is a small, plain piscina
with a segmental-headed, chamfered arch. The
trussed rafter roof of the nave, which has a coved
plater ceiling, may also have been built in the 14th
century. The embattled west tower of three stages,
stepped back at each stage and supported on the
east by buttresses built out from the nave wall and on
the west by diagonal buttresses, was added in the
15th century. It has a two-light west window above
a doorway, small rectangular openings to the second
stage, two-light louvred belfry windows, an internal
stair-vice, and four large gargoyles. Possibly at the
same time as the tower a rood-loft was built, the
upper doorway to which survives. A rectangular
window of four lights with cinquefoil heads high in
the north wall of the nave may have been to light the
rood-loft.
In the 15th or 16th century, after the tower had
been built, a long south aisle was added, its ends
flush with the east wall of the chancel and the west
wall of the nave. The tracery of the three-light east
window is largely filled with 15th-century coloured
glass. The three south windows and the west
window are alike, having three lights with cinquefoil
heads and tracery. Although the south aisle is a
continuous structure, its increased width where it
adjoins the chancel, making up the difference in
width between the chancel and nave and giving the
aisle an asymmetrical east gable, lends the east end
the appearance of a chapel, which is the more
marked partly because the east end is separated by a
late-19th-century wooden screen and partly because
it has a plinth for an altar; the plinth was formerly
railed, and the south wall has indications of a
piscina. The arcade of two wide bays from the nave
and the opening from the chancel are alike, having
semi-octagonal pilasters with hollowed sides, boldly
projecting capitals, and arches of two hollowed
orders. The south doorway has a four-centred arch
with carved spandrels.
The roof was reslated in 1723. (fn. 58) The church was
comprehensively restored in 1880-4; (fn. 59) the work
included panelling the ceilings of the chancel and
the east end of the aisle, and raising the floor to the
level of the churchyard. (fn. 60) Land for the maintenance
of the church, known as the Jernegan (i.e. Jerningham) trust, was apparently given in the 16th
century; (fn. 61) it produced £2 a year in the early 18th
century, £6 c. 1775, £13 in 1870, and £20 in 1967.
E. H. Daniels (d. 1952) by will gave to the church
£500 which was invested in stock. (fn. 62)
The 19th-century font bowl stands on a pedestal
of c. 1700. (fn. 63) There is also a 12th-century tubshaped piscina or stoup, designed to stand against a
wall. (fn. 64) Two chests with the initials or names of the
churchwardens bear the dates 1682 and 1716. The
monuments include some unsophisticated floorslabs of the 17th century and mural tablets to
members of the Willey family. There were four
bells c. 1703, (fn. 65) presumably the four surviving bells of
1696 by Abraham Rudhall, and another Abraham
Rudhall cast a further bell in 1739. The bells were
increased to six in 1840; (fn. 66) one was recast in 1899. (fn. 67)
The organ is dated 1849. The plate includes a
chalice of 1569 with a paten-cover. (fn. 68) The registers
begin in 1681, but are defective. (fn. 69)