All Saints, Narborough
Open daily dawn to dusk.All Saints' Church is known for its fine monuments. On the north side of the chancel of All Saints’ Church there is a statue of Judge Clement Spelman in a magnificent wig and robes, the Recorder of Nottingham who died in 1670 aged 72. However, the pedestal on which the statue stands used to be much taller, 8ft tall in fact. It needed to be that size because it contained Clement’s upright corpse. Legend has it that he did not want anyone walking over his grave. He remained in this position for almost 200 years until the no nonsense Victorians came along and restored the church in 1865. Clement was removed and buried elsewhere, and his pedestal lowered to a more acceptable height. The statue looks across to the monument dedicated to his parents which also features a baby peering out from its cradle, himself. An earlier Spelman, Sir John, is commemorated by a brass on the sanctuary floor. He was a Justice of the King's Bench and played a part in the trial of St Thomas More, the Lord High Chancellor of England who was executed for treason in 1535. Sir John played a key role in a second execution, that of Anne Boleyn, preparing the indictment that sent her to the scaffold. In the sanctuary is buried the heart of Lady Alethea de Narborough who died in 1293. Her half-figure effigy clutches a heart. There are several graves in the churchyard of First World War pilots based at Narborough Aerodrome, the largest airfield at this time in the country.
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