John Berney

Date of Brass:

1536

Place:

Reedham

County:

Norfolk

Country:

III

Number:

Style:

Description

June 2021

A plate showing a helmet with a crest and mantling is all that remains of a brass in the church of St John the Baptist in Reedham, Norfolk. It has been illustrated on a couple of occasions, once by Suffling in his English Church Brasses of 1910, a book that covered the whole range of its subject barring late examples. It has a marked East Anglian slant in the examples it illustrated and dealt with the Reedham brass under a heading of heraldry. Suffling noted that it ‘may have belonged to the Berneys’ of which there is little doubt as the crest of the Sir Hanson Berney of Parkhall in Reedham was a plume of six ostrich feathers per pale azure and gules alternately and this crest can be seen on the stone monument of Henry Berney, died 1584, and the black marble ledgers in the commemorating Richard Berney, died 1679, and Richard Berney, died 1695, all in the Berney chapel of the church.

Blomefield, in his History of Norfolk, gives the following details:

In the chapel, on the south side of the chancel, is buried Henry Berney, Esq. and Alice his wife, as abovementioned.

Here also under a gravestone lies buried John Berney, Esq. with his 2 wives, Alice, daughter of Southwell, and Margaret, daughter of Wentworth, with their arms.

Southwell, argent, three cinquefoils, gules.-Wentworth, sable, a chevron, between three leopards faces, or.

Also John Berney, Esq. and his 2 wives, Read, and Sydnor of Blundeston in Suffolk.

Read bore azure, on a bend wavy, or, three heathcocks, sable, in a bordure of the same, bezanty, and Sydnor. - Azure, on a cross engrailed, five de-lis.

Under another gravestone lie John Berney, Esq. and Isabel, daughter of Heveningham, with their arms, also on a brass plate. Heveningham bore quarterly, or, and gules, in a border engrailed, sable, 8 escallops, argent.

Of the first of these Blomefield wrote:

Henry Berney, Esq. married Alice, daughter of Roger Appleton of Dartford in Kent, Esq. and Agnes his wife, daughter of Walter Clark of Hadley in Suffolk, Esq. and heir to her brother Edward; in the reign of Philip and Mary, he removed the old family seat near Redham church, into Redham park, where he built a magnificent seat, yet standing, called Park-hall, with large gardens, &c. in 1557, and died in 1584, leaving several sons and daughters; Thomas, his son and heir, Henry, John, Edward, and Richard.

Alice his wife survived him, and erected a handsome marble altar monument over him in the chapel, on the south side of the chancel of the church, with both their effigies thereon, their sons behind him, and daughters behind her, and this distich:

Hunc tumulum Conjux posuit dilecta Marito,
Quemq; Viro posuit, destinat ipsa Sibi.

On it are the arms of Berney, quartering Redham, gules, a chevron engrailed, between three reed sheafs, or, in the 2d quarter; in the 3d, Caston, gules, a chevron between three eagles displayed, argent, and Berney in the 4th quarter, impaling Appleton, argent, a fess engrailed, sable, between three apples, leaved proper, and - - - - quarterly.

Although he writes of John Berney, died 1475, and his wife Elizabeth Mundeford, he make no mention of their brass. The figures of Elizabeth survives in the church alongside John’s indent. John’s head is in the possession of the Norwich Museums Service. The John Berney who married Isabel Heveningham died in 1440, so the only brass that Blomefield specifically mentions does not survive but was present in the mid-eighteenth-century. His wording ‘also on a brass plate’ suggests that one of the other two John Berneys he wrote of had a brass, if not both. They are John Berney, died 27 October 1536, son of the John Berney who died in 1475 and the latter’s grandson, died 1558. Mill Stephenson opted for the one who died in 1536. Mill Stephenson’s choice was obviously based on what Edmund Farrer had found at Reedham when researching his book, Church Heraldry of Norfolk:

Brass in the South Chapel, with One Shield remaining.

III. (Much defaced.) Quarterly: — 1 and 4, Berney, with crescent for difference; 2 and 3, Reed-ham quartering Caston; impaling Three cinquefoils. {Southwell, Argent, three cinquefoils gules.) Crest: A plume of ostrich feathers {Berney, A plume of ostrich feathers per pale argent and gules.)

There is no inscription, but is probably in memory of "John Berney, who married 1st, Alice, daughter of Richard Southwell, Esq.; and 2nd, Margaret, daughter of Sir Roger Wentworth of Essex.

Copyright: Jon Bayliss (text and photo)