Church of St Andrew
North wall of the chancel
This is one of the four churches within STANTA - Stanford Training Area which is a British Army battle training area situated near Thetford and not usually open to the public.
Monument to Sir Nicholas †1727 3rd Baronet, Sir Jacob †1666 1st Baronet, and Sir Thomas † c.1690 Garrard. Marble with Alabaster figures and floral decoration. Chancel north wall. Commissioned by Sir Nicholas’s wife, Lady Cecilia. Sculptor: William Horsnaile.
Commissioned as a memorial to the end of the Garrard Baronetcy, awarded to Sir Jacob in 1662, on the death of his grandson, Sir Nicholas in 1727. The prominent tomb-chest dominates the chancel. Presumably the sculptor followed the patron’s instructions without having seen the setting. Sir Nicholas (died aged 73) reclines in Roman armour and cloak under a funerary urn on a plinth, his head resting on his right arm as he gazes at the altar. He is flanked by the standing figures of his grandfather, Sir Jacob (died age 80), looking to the altar, while his father, Sir Thomas (died aged 63), gazes towards the nave. All wear Roman armour, with cloaks, a fashion introduced by Grinling Gibbons. This one of few examples in Norfolk, together with the Monument to Sir Thomas Hare †1693 in Stow Bardolf, attributed to Grinling Gibbons. The figures, although bulky, were carved with careful detail in their cloaks, the decoration on Sir Nicholas’s boots and the fine floral decoration on the pale veined marble of the setting with flanking Doric columns and twin cartouches supporting the decorative display of the family coat of arms.
The monument has divided critical opinion. Blomefield, both an antiquary and rector of Fersfield, described it as: ‘a large heavy monument, and the statues ill performed, considering the cost, which is said to have been 400 guineas.’ His view, which must have been coloured by his experience as rector of Fersfield, was followed in the entry in the online Dictionary, differing from Gunnis who described it: ‘Horsnaile’s finest monument without the assistance of Stanton’ followed by Pevsner’s account of it as: ‘a fine piece.’
Horsnaile (fl.1700-1742) had collaborated with Edward Stanton (1681-1734) as successful London masons and together on church monuments (Horsnaile was always mentioned after Stanton). Although Stanton continued to produce church monuments this was Horsnaile’s major work. Its design, and much of the detailing of the ornament owed more to the example of Grinling Gibbons than to that of Stanton.
Francis Blomefield, 'Hundred of South Greenhoe: Langford', in An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 6 (London, 1807), pp. 20-26; Rupert Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors, 1660 -1851, (Revised edition), London, 1968; pp. 210-211; Geoffrey Beard, The Work of Grinling Gibbons, London, 1989; Nikolaus Pevsner and Bill Wilson, Buildings of England. Norfolk 2: North West and South, New Haven and London, 1997, p. 509; Ingrid Roscoe, Emma Hardy & MG. Sullivan, A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660-1851, online at the Henry Moore Foundation (published 2009)
detail of the head of Sir Nicholas Garrard
