29. A NEW RECTOR WITH A ZEAL FOR RESTORATION

Willingham had waited over 200 years for a Rector who was to live in the village working as an Anglican parish priest, rather than as an absentee academic in Cambridge. The arrival of John Watkins as Rector in 1890 was not a moment too soon. Although the parish had been served by curates during this period, the building itself was now suffering from the absence of a residential Rector and serious structural problems had developed. By 1890 the building was over 650 years old. The high walls of the nave were leaning outwards from the enormous weight of the second-hand oak roof brought from Cambridge in 1613, buttresses were beginning to collapse, the east wall and window behind the altar had developed structural cracks, external stonework was crumbling throughout, and the roof leaked extensively. Even more serious was the gradual erosion of the congregation to the benefit of the Baptists and Methodists. The Bishop of Ely described Willingham at the time as ‘the black spot in the diocese’.
Watkins had a good track record of experience as a parish priest elsewhere, having already been Rector of Thriplow and Gamlingay. He was now in his 50’s and must have still had unlimited enthusiasm and faith to even consider taking on the challenge at Willingham. He also had a deep interest in church buildings and their history. He was single, and perhaps of even more significance, he had considerable private means, even after subsidising restoration work in his previous parishes. John Watkins threw himself, and a great deal of money, into restoring Willingham Church to its former glory. He carried out a great deal of research first with the Librarian of Ely Cathedral, and, engaged an architect experienced in church restoration work, Herbert Carpenter.

Work commenced on the exterior in 1891 under the works foreman, George Horsley. Watkins had become aware of the possibility of hidden medieval wall paintings when he had noticed traces of colour ‘bleeding’ through the yellowing plaster of the nave walls. He would have been aware of the Puritan edict 300 years earlier to limewash over ‘popish images’ but he could have had little idea that he was to find layers of paintings, each preserved by a separating layer of limewash. to reflect the tastes and fashions of successive Rectors back to 1244. He and George Horsley spent six long and uncomfortable months on ladders in 1893, delicately removing layers of limewash to reveal a total of 34 large medieval paintings from five layers, painted over 300 years.

The Watkins restoration programme covered every inch of the building. The nave floor was lowered, the gallery at the west end was removed (rather ironic as both the two new Baptist Chapels had each just installed one), buttresses and the whole east wall and window were rebuilt and the entire roof re-covered. Saxon and Norman fragments were incorporated into the rebuilt south porch, The building reopened for worship in 1895. Watkins recorded the work in detail in papers presented to the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, and on plate photographs (now with the Cambridge Collection).  He then went about building an enormous new Rectory on the opposite side of Church Street, together with a new Church Hall, before his death in 1906. Estimates vary, but in all John Watkins must have spent around £5,000 of his own money on Church property. The whole of the John Watkins restoration programme was marked by the installation of four carved stone corbels along the top of the south chancel wall. They successively show the heads carved in stone of the Archbishop of Canterbury of the time, the Bishop of Ely, King Edward Vll, and Rev. John Watkins.

The new Rector also seems to have made his mark elsewhere in the \village. On 17 April 1891 there was  a serious fire of multiple thatched cottages at the Over cross roads. The Rev. John Watkins is recorded as having ‘led workmen with marvellous tact through burning thatch to successfully prevent the fire spreading to further properties, while also trying to rescue trapped horses and pigs’. At the other end of the fire the new Minister at the Tabernacle, Rev. Mr. Carvath is given full credit for helping inhabitants of the blazing cottages to remove their furniture through the flames.

Next time: A Vibrant Willingham Ready for The 20^th Century