St Bartholomew's Church, Furtho

St Bartholomew’s Church stands in the quiet fields of Northamptonshire, a single medieval building left after the village of Furtho vanished. The church is built of limestone with a slate roof on the nave and tiled roofs on the chancel and tower. Its plan includes a three-bay nave, a two-bay chancel and a west tower partly inside the nave. The tower has diagonal buttresses, a pyramidal roof and battlemented parapets. Tall three-light windows light the nave, while Tudor arched doorways open in the north and south walls. The church dates from the 12th century with later 14th-century changes and a 17th-century rebuild. In 1920 it stopped serving as a parish church and in 1989 it became redundant. During the Second World War the building stored archives and lost all its windows to a bomb. The Churches Conservation Trust now cares for the church and its historic fittings. Inside, the chancel holds a piscina, a tomb recess and two brackets for statues beside the east window. Visitors find a small octagonal font from the 17th century and two marble memorials. One commemorates Anthony Furtho, who died in 1558 with his two wives, and the other honours Edmund Arnold from 1676. The round-arched priest’s door and the pair of two-light windows with Decorated tracery add to the restrained detail. A single farm and a dovecote remain near the church, marking the spot of the lost village.