Sir Stephen Glynne - a pioneer church recorder

Sir Stephen Glynne (1807–74) was a respected Victorian antiquary whose reputation rests upon his preparation of over a hundred volumes of Church Notes, based upon fifty years of assiduous visiting and note-taking. He visited some 5,500 structures in every part of England and Wales between 1824 and 1874, and noted every size and period of medieval church, providing for each church a dispassionate description, which was sometimes accompanied by thumb- nail sketches of distinctive or unusual details. This article offers a critical overview of Glynne’s research and notes, and argues for the value of their publication and the potential of the records to aid church archaeology. The value of his notes is that they give a concise description of each church he visited, and unparalleled insight for archaeologists into many now-lost structures. Where churches have been heavily restored or even destroyed, they can be envisaged as they were at the actual date when Glynne inspected them.