Chancel, St Mary de Lode, Gloucester
The church of St Mary de Lode in Gloucester is situated close to the St Mary Gate of the Cathedral precinct and the Bishop Hooper Memorial. It remained something of an enigma to me on many visits as I'd previously never found it open until checking ahead and timing this visit more carefully.
The church is an ancient one, its central tower having a Norman base and the chancel beyond adapted to its present form in the 13th century with a vaulted ceiling inside. The entire nave however was rebuilt in 1826 in a pre-ecclesiological style with external rendering and thus at first glance from a more westerly direction at least the church doens't look terribly promising to lovers of antiquity.
Inside the newer nave is a great open space divided by a few slender cast-iron columns, all very plain and stark white in contrast to the gloomy but intriguingly mysterious space beyond the chancel arch and tower archways. This is the more ancient and interesting part of the building and the chancel with its vaulted ceiling is most attractive, if indeed it does feel rather remote from the nave (as if one has entered a separate building altogether). There is an ancient effigy of a priest on the north side lying in a recess.
When I last visited this church it was usually open for a few hours on saturdays, but otherwise normally kept locked (it took several visits to Gloucester before I finally timed it right and got inside).
For more about the church see below:-
Chancel, St Mary de Lode, Gloucester
The church of St Mary de Lode in Gloucester is situated close to the St Mary Gate of the Cathedral precinct and the Bishop Hooper Memorial. It remained something of an enigma to me on many visits as I'd previously never found it open until checking ahead and timing this visit more carefully.
The church is an ancient one, its central tower having a Norman base and the chancel beyond adapted to its present form in the 13th century with a vaulted ceiling inside. The entire nave however was rebuilt in 1826 in a pre-ecclesiological style with external rendering and thus at first glance from a more westerly direction at least the church doens't look terribly promising to lovers of antiquity.
Inside the newer nave is a great open space divided by a few slender cast-iron columns, all very plain and stark white in contrast to the gloomy but intriguingly mysterious space beyond the chancel arch and tower archways. This is the more ancient and interesting part of the building and the chancel with its vaulted ceiling is most attractive, if indeed it does feel rather remote from the nave (as if one has entered a separate building altogether). There is an ancient effigy of a priest on the north side lying in a recess.
When I last visited this church it was usually open for a few hours on saturdays, but otherwise normally kept locked (it took several visits to Gloucester before I finally timed it right and got inside).
For more about the church see below:-