Anstey is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

East Hertfordshire East Hertfordshire is a local government district in Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Hertford, the county town of Hertfordshire. The largest town in the district is Bishop's Stortford, and the other main towns are Ware, Bunti ...

district of Hertfordshire, England, about northeast of Stevenage. According to the 2001 Census the population of the parish was 338, reducing to 299 at the 2011 Census. The name “Anstey” derives from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

''ān'' (narrow, or one-way) and ''stīg'' (footpath). There are at least two books on the history of this village. The first is ''Anstey, a Hertfordshire Parish'', written in 1929 by Rev Frank Ricardo Williams, MA, who was the rector from 1907 to 1928 (died 19 May 1937). The second is ''Anstey: Our True Surname Origin and Shared Medieval Ancestry'' by GM Anstey and TJ Anstey in which it is shown that all bearers of the surname 'Anstey' worldwide can trace their surname origin to Anstey in Hertfordshire. The Church of England parish church of

Saint George Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldie ...

is a

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly describe ...

building of flint with stone dressings. Its earliest parts are the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

transepts A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

and crossing tower, all of which were built in the 12th century. The church was altered in the 13th century and the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

was rebuilt in the 14th century. Th south porch and the top stage of the tower are 15th century. The church was restored in 1871–72 under the direction of the Gothic Revival architect

William Butterfield William Butterfield (7 September 1814 – 23 February 1900) was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian Movement). He is noted for his use of polychromy. Biography William Butterfield was born in Lon ...

. Repairs in 1907 were directed by the architect Arthur Blomfield. St George's is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. In his book 'England's Thousand best churches' (revised edition 2002), Simon Jenkins refers to a near-miss when a fully-loaded WW2 bomber nearly crashed into the church. This is reference to the crash of a Flying Fortress which crashed on take-off en-route to Cologne: all ten crew were killed. Jenkins refers to the church as 'full of Norman mystery'. He pays particular interest to the church font, in which (and very unusually) four mermen are carved into the stone. Jenkins refers to the carvings as '...the rarest of pagan emblems'. A folk tale tells of a fiddler from Anstey named Blind George, who disappeared while exploring an underground passage. He is said to have entered the tunnel playing his fiddle, which could be heard above ground. He stopped suddenly, and screams were heard, and he was not seen again. The village has a

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

, The Blind Fiddler, which used to be called The Chequers.

References

External links

*
Anstey (A Guide to Old Hertfordshire)
* Civil parishes in Hertfordshire East Hertfordshire District Hertfordshire articles needing maps Villages in Hertfordshire {{Hertfordshire-geo-stub

See also

References

External links