The name Holdenby dates back to the time of Scandinavian settlements and derives from the personal name ‘Halfdan’ (or Haldane) and the word ‘by’ meaning farm. The place is mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086 and is first recorded as having a rector in 1222.
Today there is scarcely any sign of houses near the church, the village having been removed when Holdenby House Sir Christopher Hatton’s great mansion was completed in 1583; the church now lies remote and isolated beside fields and a pond, beyond the gardens of Holdenby House. After the Civil War, the mansion was largely demolished and the present house dates mostly from 1873 – 88.
The church is a fine building of local ironstone, it is largely fourteenth century but the chancel was rebuilt in 1845 and Sir George Gilbert Scott restored the church in 1867.
Inside, there is much of interest: an unusual series of seven painted texts, probably Elizabethan; memorials from the thirteenth century onwards, including an incised alabaster slab dedicated to William Holdenby (who died in 1490) and his wife; chancel stalls; an impressive sixteenth-century screen brought from Holdenby House around 1700.
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