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St James
II Parish church of 1839-42. Architect unknown.
MATERIALS: Roughcast walls with smooth-rendered architraves, hammer-dressed quoins and buttresses, coursed masonry to upper stage of tower, slate roof.
PLAN: Nave with west tower flanked by porches (originally with gallery stairs), short chancel with north and south vestries; parish centre extension on the south-west side.
EXTERIOR: Neo-Norman style church with a broad and tall nave designed to accommodate a gallery. The main front is the west, which closes the vista down St James' Street, and is painted cream. The three-stage tower has angle-buttresses in the lower two stages, and a cornice on head corbels to an arcaded parapet and large square corner pinnacles. The tall round-headed west doorway has continuous moulding and replacement doors. In the second stage is a two-light window, incorporating shafts with scalloped capitals, below bullseye windows in lozenge frames, except for the west face where a clock was inserted in 1925. The upper stage openings are in recessed panels below Lombard friezes, and have shafts with scalloped capitals and chevrons in the arches. Tall porches are built as lean-tos against the tower. Former doorways, which have simple continuous chevrons, have been converted to windows, above which are windows to the former stairs. The nave is six narrow buttressed bays with round-headed windows. On the south side the first two bays are obscured by the parish centre. On the north side is a doorway in the fifth bay. The chancel has triple stepped east windows. On the south side the low vestry projects beyond the east end of the chancel, and has two round-headed windows in the east gable end, and a studded south door. The north lean-to vestry has a round-headed east window.
INTERIOR: The nave, a cavernous space now that galleries have been removed, has a queen-post roof on corbelled brackets with arcading above the tie-beams, and a plastered ceiling behind which is divided into large panels. The chancel arch has semi-circular responds with waterleaf capitals, and chevron in the stepped arch. The chancel has a plaster barrel ceiling, and a tile floor. Walls are exposed rubble stone with freestone dressings, and in the west wall is a blind arch in the second stage of the tower that might originally have opened to the gallery. The west part of the nave has been separated from the main body of the church by a partition, integral with the parish centre extension. Original stairs have been removed from the west porches.
PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: Many original fixtures have been removed. Benches from the original gallery have been set up in a new west gallery, and have shaped ends. The Perpendicular font, probably of 1839, has Passion and other symbols around the bowl, on an arcaded stem. The nave retains a dado, in which the upper tier of panelling is arcaded, but original seating has been removed. The chancel also has a dado, the upper tier of which is arcaded. In the east wall the panels have painted metal boards with texts of Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments, Apostle's Creed, and four of the 39 Articles. The east window show the Ascension and saints and two brightly coloured nave windows from the 1860s show New Testament scenes.
HISTORY: The architect of this church is not known. It had a conventional late-Georgian layout: nave with gallery, short chancel, and porches with gallery stairs separate from the entrance to the main body of the church. It was substantially altered c2000 when an extension was built on the south-west side of the church, and the porches and west end of the nave were separated from the main body of the church.
SOURCES: Hartwell, C. and Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England, Lancashire North (2009), 241.
historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/107235...
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Its been a busy week, went to Paris last week and been a full on week of work so I havent been able to post or edit many photos.. So this week is going to be Paris Week, its a bit odd that im starting in London St Pancras, but this is where it all began so this is where im starting...
Isn't it Ironic the Olympic rings are hanging proud, talk about rubbing it in to our friends across the channel who we just edged to hosting the 2012 Olympics!
West window depicting the story of St Bertha by Florence Camm, 1928.
St Mary's at Donnington sits in a tranquil rural setting alongside a farm and not much in the way of a village to see. It is a humble building crowned by a small wooden spire at the west end, and originally this c1300 structure simply consisted of nave and chancel until a north aisle was added in 1862.
Inside this rustic building has a simple charm and serenity, the nave somewhat dark and shadowy, but the chancel beyond full of light. The main features of interest here or the stained glass windows, with a fairly modern piece in the north aisle but the outstanding piece being the lovely Arts & Crafts west window by Florence Camm illustrating the story of St Bertha.
Donnington church is normally kept locked but a key is available from the neighbouring farmhouse (no one answered when I called but I was lucky enough to encounter the farmer as I'd given up and was leaving, so he kindly fetched me the key).
They say a camera never lies, I think thats wrong. I have just spent a week in London and as alot of commuters will tell you is, this is the view outside Kings Cross.
st. john's wort has been a great flower for our garden. likes the partial shade and has naturalized without any effort on my part
Villa st. marie....one of the urbex beauties.
The story about the woman who lived there was that after the death of her husband she had a relationship with a local pastor. She became pregnant and when the child was born she drowned the child in a pit.
The house was unchanged after her arrest, it was back in time in the house.
The woman would have died in prison.
Whether these stories are true, nobody knows. The walls of the house are not talking.
The villa is demolished recently!
Keystone 60 Second Everflash
ID-UV Film (expired in 2006)
Sometimes, you get caught up in life or trying to live life and you suddenly realize that you've forgotten the things in life that truly bring you joy and make you happy - like holding a camera in your hands and I haven't held one in my hands in longer than I care to actually try and remember. Today is a day for change and I will pick up a camera today and take at least one picture, I owe that much to myself and the one thing that I love doing so much.
Recent sculpture of St Andrew by Peter Eugene Ball standing in a medieval niche in the nave at Wissett church.
On arriving at the pleasant village of Wissett I sought out St Andrew's church, sitting unencumbered by foliage (in stark contrast to the churches I'd just visited) in the well maintained open space of its churchyard, set back behind the houses on the main road. Just as I was going through the gate a call came through to my mobile to tell me my new bike was ready for collection (it would have to wait a few more days!) and then it started spitting with light rain, so I didn't loiter long outside, just a few shots and into the porch!
The church consists of an aisless nave and chancel and has an early round tower at the west end and is still largely a 12th century building, though thanks to the medieval and later modification of the windows this isn't apparent until one notices the fine Norman doorway on the north side, This is balanced by another carved Romanesque doorway to the south adorned with amusing bestial-heads, now the main entrance sheltered by a 15th century porch.
Inside one is met by a sense of light, only a few fragments remain from the medieval glass (including some fine angels and canopies containing hawks) but otherwise the windows are mostly clear-glazed. At the west end is a good example of those typically East Anglian fonts from the 15th century, angels and evangelist symbols on the bowl and the stem guarded by lions and wildmen. It has been knocked about a bit but still retains a few traces of its original colouring. The nave pews are fairly modern but incorporate re-used medieval poppyhead carvings.
Wissett church was open and welcoming when I called and is well worth a look. For more see its entry on the Suffolk Churches site below:-
www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/wissett.htm
Uploaded originally for the 'Guess Where UK?' Group.
Interior of St Giles Cathedral in the Old Town area of Edinburgh.
St Giles Cathedral has been one of Edinburgh's religious focal points for approximately 900 years. The present church dates from the late 14th century, though it was extensively restored in the 19th century, and is protected as a category A listed building.
The State Hermitage Museum.
From the 1760s onwards the Winter Palace was the main residence of the Russian Tsars. Magnificently located on the bank of the Neva River, this Baroque-style palace is
perhaps St. Petersburg’s most impressive attraction. Many visitors also know it as the main building of the Hermitage Museum. The green-and-white three-storey palace is a marvel of Baroque architecture and boasts 1,786 doors, 1,945 windows and 1,057 elegantly and lavishly decorated halls and rooms, many of which are open to the public. The Winter Palace was built between 1754 and 1762 for Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great. Unfortunately, Elizabeth died before the palace’s completion and only Catherine the Great and her successors were able to enjoy the sumptuous interiors of Elizabeth’s home. Many of the palace’s impressive interiors have been remodeled since then, particularly after 1837, when a huge fire destroyed most of the building. Today the Winter Palace, together with four more buildings arranged side by side along the river embankment, houses the extensive collections of the Hermitage. The Hermitage Museum is the largest art gallery in Russia and is among the largest and most respected art museums in the world. The museum was founded in 1764 when Catherine the Great purchased a collection of 255 paintings from the German city of Berlin. Today, the Hermitage boasts over 2.7 million exhibits and displays a diverse range of art and artifacts from all over the world and from throughout history (from Ancient Egypt to the early 20th century Europe). The Hermitage’s collections include works by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, a unique collection of Rembrandts and Rubens, many French Impressionist works by Renoir, Cezanne, Manet, Monet and Pissarro, numerous canvasses by Van Gogh, Matisse, Gauguin and several sculptures by Rodin. The collection is both enormous and diverse and is an essential stop for all those interested in art and history. The experts say that if you were to spend a minute looking at each exhibit on display in the Hermitage, you would need 11 years before you’d seen them all.
St Barnabas, Cardigan Street, Jericho
On Monday afternoon Allan Barton and I were kindly allowed to photograph inside this fine Victorian church. Many thanks to Ted for opening up for us, we were well rewarded. Thomas Hardy describes this particular church in "Jude The Obscure" under the guide of St Silas as a "Church of ceremonies." Hardy had been a pupil in the office of its architect Arthur Blomfield during the 1860's. "High overhead above the chancel steps, Jude could discern a huge, solidly constructed Latin cross - as large, probably, as the original it was designed to commemorate. It seemed to be suspended in the air by invisible wires; it was set with large jewels, which faintly glimmered in some weak ray caught from outside as the cross swayed to and fro in silent and scarcely perceptible motion. Underneath, upon the floor, lay what appeared to be a heap of black clothes, and from this was repeated the sobbing that he had heard before. It was his Sue's form, prostrate on the paving. "Sue" he whispered. Something white disclosed itself, she had turned up her face. "What - do you want with me here, Jude" she said almost sharply. "You shouldn't come! I wanted to be alone! Why do you intrude here?" (Jude The Obscure) Further work with a Hardy connection can be found at Radcliffe Infirmary chapel of a similar date. St Barnabas' spectacular interior so well described in this passage from "Jude the Obscure", is one of the most rewarding of this period, and is quite unlike any other church in Oxford, with the possible exception of Keble College Chapel. Its external appearance is characterised by a tall campinileand its massive scale dominating the streets of Jericho where it stands close to the canal. The 132 foot Campanile was erected in 1872 at a cost of 1872 at a cost of £800. Blomfield designed the church in the style of a Romanesque basilica with campanile, like the cathedral on the Venetian island of Torcello. The builder was Joseph Castle of Oxford on a the site donated by a leading high churchman William Ward. Built in, the then poor area of, Jericho in 1868-9 by this well known superintendent of the Clarendon press Thomas Combe, it was intended to serve the community there. It was Thomas Combe who had been an early patron of the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood and a devoted high churchman, this church is a landmark both a physical and spiritual of the ideals of the Oxford movement's principals. The architect was Sir Arthur Blomfield, who himself was the son of the Bishop of London. Combe commissioned him to build a church that was both well built and "cheap" £6,500 , but to hold one thousand persons..." in total disregard of all conventional notions as to fitness and external appearance." One can view this project as a complete success. It was modelled on an early Roman Christian Basilica and originally had a plain rectangular apse at each end, the western being a baptistery. The church's interior is partially decorated, but where it is, there is some of the most exuberant work of its type to be found anywhere in the country. Magnificent sections of gold leaf and its Byzantine Christ in the apse make this a memorable place. The small Blessed Sacrament chapel at the west end is by Paul Waterhouse. The church remains a lively centre for Anglo-Catholic worship and also a spectacular backdrop for many concerts in the city. St Barnabas Church History The exterior has not weathered well, and Combe had stressed that not a penny is to be "thrown away" on external decoration; sadly his instructions were largely carried out to the letter, and its external appearance is drab and has not the pleasingly weathered charm of other much older Oxford churches. Sadly the church is not regularly open. My illustration of the church was done from the old boatyard at the west end of the church, this has now closed and has been the subject of a lot of local dispute and unhappiness. A portrait of Combe by Millais can be seen at The Ashmolean Museum, where two other Pre Raphaelite masterpieces can be seen Millais' Return of The Dove to The Ark and Collins' "Convent Thoughts' both paintings were seen at the time as an expression of Tractarianism and were severely criticised, however John Ruskin came to the artist's defence and he like Combe became a champion of Pre Raphaelite work. Combe is buried at St Sepulchre Jericho, he lived to see the church's completion.
Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, Suffolk
My favourite church in England.
Ten years earlier, I had written:
Perhaps some counties have a church which sums them up. If there has to be one for Suffolk, it must be the church of the Most Holy Trinity, Blythburgh. Here is the Suffolk imagination writ large, as large as it gets, and not overwritten by the Anglican triumphalism of the 19th century. Blythburgh church is often compared with its near neighbour, St Edmund at Southwold, but this isn't a fair comparison - Southwold church is much grander, and full of urban confidence. Probably a better comparison is with St Margaret, Lowestoft, for there, too, the Reformation intervened before the tower could be rebuilt. The two churches have a lot in common, but Blythburgh has the saving grace. It is so fascinating, so stunningly beautiful, by virtue of a factor that is rare in Anglican parish churches: sheer neglect.
Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, is the church that Suffolk people know and love best, and because of this it has generated some wonderful legends. The first is that Blythburgh, now a tiny village bisected by the fearsome A12 between London and the east coast ports, was once a thriving medieval town. This idea is used to explain the size of the church; in reality, it is almost certainly not the case. Blythburgh has always been small. But it did have an important medieval priory, and thus its church attracted enough wealthy piety on the eve of the Reformation to bankroll a spectacular rebuilding.
It is to Lavenham, Long Melford, Mildenhall, Southwold and here that we come to see the late 15th century Suffolk aesthetic in perfection. But for my money, Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, is the most significant medieval art object in the county, ranking alongside Salle in Norfolk. Look up at the clerestory; it seems impossible, there is so much glass, so little stone; and yet it rides the building with an air of permanence. Beneath, there is a coyness about the aisles that I prefer to the mathematics of Lavenham. Here, it could not have been done otherwise; it distils human architectural experience. If St Peter and St Paul at Lavenham is man talking to God, Holy Trinity at Blythburgh is God talking to man.
At the east end, a curious series of initials in Lombardic script stretch across the outer chancel wall. You can see an image of this in the left hand column. It reads A-N-JS-B-S-T-M-S-A-H-K-R. This probably stands for Ad Nomina JesuS, Beati Sanctae Trinitas, Maria Sanctorem Anne Honorem Katherine Reconstructus ('In the name of the blessed Jesus, the Holy Trinity, and in honour of holy Mary, Anne and Katherine, this was rebuilt'). A fanciful theory is that they are the initials of the wives of the donors. However, note the symbol of the Trinity in the T stone, and I think this is a clue to the whole piece.
High above, an old man sits on the gable end. Incredibly, this is a medieval image of God the Father, and extraordinary survival; we'll come back to this in a moment.
The porch is part of the late 15th century rebuilding, but it was considerably restored in the early 20th century. Interestingly, the angels crowning the battlements look medieval - but they weren't there in 1900, so must have come from somewhere else. Pretty much all the porch's features of interest date from this time. These include the small medieval font pressed into service as a holy water stoup, and image niche above the doors. This has been filled in more recent years by an image if the Holy Trinity; God the Father holds the Son suspended while a dove representing the Holy Spirit alights; you can see medieval versions of this at Framlingham and Little Glemham.
Of all medieval imagery, this was the most frowned upon by puritans. An image of God the Father was thought the most suspicious of all idolatry. As late as the 1870s, when the Reverend White edited the first popular edition of the Diary of William Dowsing, he actually congratulated Dowsing on destroying images of the Holy Trinity in the course of his 1644 progress through the counties of Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.
William Dowsing visited on the morning on April 9th, 1644. It was a Tuesday, and he had spent most of the week in the area. The previous day he'd been at Southwold and Walberswick to the east, but preceded his visit here with one to Blyford, which lies to the west, so he was probably staying overnight at the family home in Laxfield. He found twenty images in stained glass to take to task (a surprisingly small number, given the size of the place) and two hundred more that were inaccessible that morning (probably in the great east window). Three brass inscriptions incurred his wrath (but again, this is curious; there were many more) and he also ordered down the cross on the porch and the cross on the tower. Most significantly of all, he decided the angels in the roof should go.
Lots of Suffolk churches have angels in their roofs. None are like Blythburgh's. You step inside, and there they are, exactly as you've seen them in books and in photographs. They are awesome, breathtaking. There are twelve of them. Perhaps there were once twenty. How would you get them down if ordered to do so? The roof is so high, and the stencilling of IHS symbols would also have to go.
Perhaps this was already indistinct by the time Dowsing visited. Perhaps Tuesday, 9th of April 1644 was a dull day.
Several of the angels are peppered with lead shot. Here is another of those Suffolk legends; that Dowsing and the churchwardens fired muskets at the angels to try and bring them down. But when the angels were restored in the 1970s, the lead shot removed was found to be 18th century; contemporary with them there is a note in the churchwardens accounts that men were paid for shooting jackdaws living inside the building, so that is probably where the shot arises from.
Similarly, the splendid church guide repeats the error that the Holy Trinity symbol in the porch filled a gap that had been 'empty since 1644'. But there was certainly no image in it when Dowsing arrived here, or anywhere else in Suffolk; statues were completely outlawed by injunctions in the early years of the reign of Edward VI, almost a hundred years before the morning of Dowsing's visit.
Another feature used as evidence of puritan destruction is the ring fixed into the most westerly pillar of the north arcade. Cromwell's men stabled their horses here, apparently. Well, it almost certainly is a ring for tying horses to, and the broken bricks at the cleared west end also suggest this; but there is no reason to think that Cromwell and the puritans were responsible. For a full century before Cromwell, and for nearly two hundred years afterwards, a church as big as this would have had a multitude of uses.
Holy Trinity was built for the rituals of the Catholic church; once these were no longer allowed, a village like Blythburgh, which can never have had more than 500 people, would have seen it as an asset in other ways. It was only with the 19th century sacramental revival brought about by the Oxford Movement that we started getting all holy again about our parish churches. Perhaps it was used as an overnight stables for passing travellers on the main road; not an un-Christian use for it to be put to, I think.
In August 1577, a great storm brought down the steeple, which fell into the church and damaged the font. This was at the height of Elizabethan superstition, and the devil was blamed; his hoof marks can still be seen on the church door. Supposedly, a black dog ran through the church, killing two parishioners; he was seen the same day at St Mary, Bungay. Black Shuck is the East Anglian devil dog, the feared hound of the marshes; and Holy Trinity is the self-styled Cathedral of the Marshes, so it is appropriate that he appeared here.
You can see where the font has been broken. You can also see that this was one of the rare, beautiful seven sacrament fonts, similar in style to the one at Westhall; but, like those at neighbouring Wenhaston and Southwold, it has been completely stripped of imagery. Almost certainly, this was in the 1540s, but there is a story that the font at Wenhaston was chiselled clean as part of the 19th century restoration.
More importantly in any case, the storm, or the dog, or the devil, damaged the roof; it would not be properly repaired for more than 400 years. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, accounts note that Holy Trinity is not impregnable to the weather. By the 19th century, parishioners attended divine service with umbrellas. By the 1880s, it was a positively dangerous building to be in, and the Bishop of Norwich ordered it closed.
Why had Holy Trinity not been restored? Simply, this is a big church, with a tiny village. There was no rich patron, and in any case the parishioners had a passion for Methodism. Probably, repairs had been mooted, but not a wholesale restoration as we have seen at Lavenham, Long Melford and Southwold. By the 1880s, attention in England had turned to the preservation of medieval detail; in short, restorations were not as ignorant as they had been a quarter of a century earlier. Suggestions that Holy Trinity should be restored in the manner of the other three were blocked by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, and this owed a lot to the energy of William Morris, the Society's secretary.
The slow, patient restoration of this building took the best part of a century; indeed, when I first visited in the 1980s I was still aware of a sense of decay.
Nothing could be further from the truth today. You step into a wide, white, open space, one of England's great church interiors. There, high above you, is the glorious roof and the angels of God. The brick floors spread around the scraped font, which still bears its dedicatory inscription and standing places for participants. You turn into the central gangway, and more than twenty empty indents for brasses stretch before you. Dowsing can be blamed for the destruction of hardly any of them. In reality, you see the work of 18th and 19th century thieves and collectors.
The bench-ends are superb. The benches themselves were reconstructed in the late 19th century, supposedly from the main post of Westleton windmill, but the ends are some of the county's finest medieval images. There are basically three series: the seven deadly sins, the seven works of mercy, and the four seasons. There are also angels bearing symbols of the Holy Trinity and the crown. Examples of all of these can be seen below; hover on them to read a description, click on them to see them enlarged.
The rood screen is a disappointment; most of it is modern, and the medieval bits perfunctory and scoured. Having said this, note how tiny the exit from the north aisle rood loft stair is. Also at this end of the church, notice a bare scattering of medieval glass, including some Saints.
But step through the central aisle to see something remarkable. The choir stalls are fronted by exquisite carvings of the 12 apostles, evangelists, and even figures who may be King Anna and his daughter St Etheldreda. She founded the priory that became Ely Cathedral, and there is a local connection because her father was killed at the Battle of Blythburgh. It seems likely that there was a shrine to them here.
Seeing these sixteen carvings is a bit like gobbling up a very large box of chocolates, but it is worth stopping to consider quite how genuine they all are. For a start, there could not have been choir stalls here in medieval times, and in any case we know that these desks and their frontages were in the north aisle chapel until the 19th century. They were used as school benches in the 17th century; they still bear holes for inkpots, and the graffiti of a bored Dutch child (his father was probably working on draining the marshes) is dated 1665 - you can see it in the left-hand column. There is nothing at all like them anywhere else in Suffolk, and although we know that they predate the restoration of Holy Trinity (and therefore almost certainly come from here originally) they seem of too high a quality to come from such a rural outback. In short, they are not medieval, whatever the guidebooks say.
Whatever, the east end of the chancel and aisles are thrillingly modern, wholly devotional. In the north aisle, traditionally the Hopton chantry, extraordinary friezes of skeletons become symbols of the four evangelists behind the altar. Beside them, with a view into the sanctuary, is one of Suffolk's biggest Easter sepulchres, tomb of the Hoptons. In the surviving sedilia of the high altar, we find Peter Ball's beautiful Madonna and Child and a fine Holy Trinity plate, which distract perhaps only slightly from the Jewish imagery above the reredos. It is all just about perfect.
Tucked to one side of the organ is a clockjack; Suffolk has two, and the other is down-river at Southwold. They date from the late 17th century, and presumably once struck the hours; at high church Blythburgh and Southwold today, they are used to announce the entry of the ministers.
You may be reading this entry in a far-off land; or perhaps you are here at home. Whatever, if you have not visited this church, then I urge you to do so. It is the most beautiful church in Suffolk, a wonderful art object, and it is always open in daylight. It remains one of the most significant medieval buildings in England. If you only visit one of Suffolk's churches, then make it this one.