England has many beauties, in her gentle
landscapes, her eccentric towns, her splendid stately homes, but perhaps most
of all she has unparalleled beauty in her parish churches. Those who know me
will be surprised that I, a lapsed Scottish presbyterian and a sometimes-militant
sceptic, harbour an enthusiasm for Anglican parish churches. However, inspired
first by John Betjeman in the City of London, and then by Alec Clifton-Taylor
further afield, using a guide-book gifted by my lovely wife, I visited many
places and I wish to share with you 10 wonderful churches, below cathedral rank
and outside London, which have warmed my heart with their charm and historic
resonance.
1. Selby Abbey
Selby Abbey in North Yorkshire, about 12 miles south
of the city of York, was one of the first churches I stepped into as a church
amateur. Selby itself is a handsome town, once a prosperous port connected by
canal to the sea. In the 1970’s the Selby coalfield was the great white hope of
the Coal Board, with huge investment in vast reserves. Alas, it all turned to
dust and ashes, when costs rocketed and prices nose-dived and the mine complex
closed in 2004. The Abbey founded in 1069, has survived many fires, military occupations
and drastic Gilbert Scott family restorations, making it an impressive sight
with her stately towers and fine ashlar stone.
Selby: A Yorkshire Glory
The Norman Nave
For our American cousins there is even a modest
George Washington family heraldic monument, as his ancestors came from
hereabouts. Now, what if, young George had been a good boy and stayed on
loyally serving King and Country?
2. Long Melford
Long Melford, a village in Suffolk, near the
Essex border, is called “Long” because its main street stretches 2 ½ miles,
said to be the longest in England. Its parish church, Holy Trinity, set on an
elevated site, dates from 1484 and was constructed using the unpromising local
flint stone. Yet it dazzles with flushwork walls (the decorative use of split
flint in conjunction with dressed stone), a Suffolk speciality. Although much
restored, the church sparkles with Tudor glass, memorials to benefactors and a
splendid coat of arms of George I from the early 1700s. The impressive church
tower was built in the 20th century and purists regret that its use
of alien stone ignores the genius loci of the county. The east end of
the church is unusually lengthened by a Lady Chapel, of quite distinctively
separate design. Made up of quite different elements, this archetypical “wool”
church is a tribute to Anglican tolerance and continuity, making a triumphant
whole.
Long Melford Church
Medieval Glass
3. St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol
Good Queen Bess declared that St Mary Redcliffe
was “fairest, goodliest and most famous parish church in England”. It is a huge
church, centrally situated quite near the main railway station, and over the
centuries has been the favourite of the mariners and merchants of Bristol whose
wealth has endowed and greatly beautified this lovely place.
St Mary Redcliffe
The North Porch
The stately exterior includes a tower and spire
eccentrically placed in its North-West corner rather than over the crossing.
The interior impresses by the lavish fact it is wholly vaulted, very unusual
for England, especially in the mid-15th century. Fine wrought-ironwork
abounds, as do monuments to eminent Bristolians. The astonishing North porch is
a riot of Decorated Gothic with ogee arches, statuary, lierne vault,
ball-flower decoration and overall extravaganza. This church is the pride of
the great city of Bristol.
4. Fairford
Fairford in Gloucestershire, about 6 miles from
Cirencester, is another “wool” Church, benefitting historically from the
booming prosperity of the wool trade in late medieval England. Prized English
wool was exported raw to skilled Flemish weavers in cities like Ghent, Bruges
and Ypres and the English merchants generously endowed their local parish
churches. The industrial revolution largely by-passed sheep-farming areas such
as the Cotswolds and East Anglia, home to some of our finest churches.
Fairford is a handsome church but its great
claim to fame lies in its stained glass. England has tragically lost almost all
her medieval glass to Puritan fanaticism, vandalism, neglect and carelessness
but at Fairford we see probably the most complete set of Pre-Reformation-stained
glass remaining in England, comprising 28 windows of biblical scenes and
related demonology. The glass was probably produced in Flanders and was booty
seized following the siege of Boulogne in 1492. The church was built specially
to receive the glass and was consecrated in 1498.
Fairford Church
The Last Judgment
Window
The colours, texture and impact are delightful.
If the windows rattle when huge US B52 bombers roar into take-off from the
nearby US air base, remember that these windows have survived much worse!
5. St Peter Mancroft, Norwich
Norwich is a city steeped in history with a
lovely Anglican cathedral but the church dominating its city centre is the
majestic St Peter Mancroft.
St Peter Manctroft
The hammer-beam
roof
There is no such saint as St Peter Mancroft,
nor a so-called locality, so the name is rather a mystery. The church we see was completed in 1455, at a
time of high Norwich prosperity, lavishly faced with imported limestone ashlar
together with knapped flintstone. The interior, in the Perpendicular mode, is
light and airy with some surviving medieval painted glass topped by a superb
hammer-beam roof. The tower, housing bells which are renown in bell-ringing
circles is crowned by a rather ungainly fleche designed by the Victorian
architect G E Street, of the Law Courts in the Strand fame. St Peter is
integrated with adjoining modern buildings and is the neighbour of the local
market, being a typical town centre church serving its citizens today and for
the last 560 years.
6. Hexham Abbey
This parish church, situated in the far North,
in Northumberland and near parts of Hadrian’s Wall, has been in its time, since
the 7th century, a cathedral, a monastery and a priory. It is in the
centre of the town of Hexham on the south bank of the Tyne, 21 miles from
Newcastle. The church was rebuilt in the 13th century and boasts a fine roof, nave,
triforium and about 70 medieval wall paintings. It is gradually recovering from
a punitive Victorian “restoration” of 1858 - long may it add lustre to the rather neglected
Border-lands of England!
Hexham Abbey
Hexham interior
7. Tewkesbury Abbey
Tewkesbury Abbey, by the Severn in
Gloucestershire is one of the finest Norman (Romanesque) buildings in England.
Durham Cathedral must take the palm as the finest, perhaps even in Europe,
but Tewkesbury runs it a close second. Started in 1102, on a site with a long
Saxon provenance, it was lavishly built by a henchman of William the Conqueror
in Normandy Caen stone which was floated up the Severn. The floor-plan is
typically French with a cluster of chevet chapels at the East end and
massive round columns in the nave. Somehow the main church survived the
Dissolution more or less intact, after the removal of the monastic additions,
as the locals bought it as their parish church from the Crown for the princely
sum of 453 pounds in 1540.
The church has some fine stained glass and many
tombs of its early benefactors, notably the Despencers and Clares. It even
survives with aplomb ever more frequent nearby river flooding.
Tewkesbury Abbey
surrounded by flood-water in 2007
Tewkesbury’s decorated
ceiling
8.
Burford
The bustling little Cotswold town of
Burford is in Oxfordshire very close to the border with Gloucestershire. I
lived nearby for 7 years and always admired the church, for its situation,
turbulent history and stunning monuments.
St John the Baptist,
Burford
The church is at the bottom of the long and
steepish high street and nestles cosily beside the River Windrush. Developed in
the 15th century, it now incorporates the guild chapel richly
decorated by the local burgesses. Important gentry have their tombs here,
notably the unpopular Tanfields, who erected their intrusive, but admired,
Italianate monument in the 1620s without the permission of clergy or
congregation. During the Civil War in 1649 a band of mutinous Levellers
occupied the church but forces loyal to Cromwell and Fairfax arrested them and
3 were executed on the spot. Neglected in the 18th century, the
church was “improved” by G E Street and his tiled floor so dismayed William
Morris, he forthwith set up the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings!
All is serenity now, and amid Georgian chest tombs and gracious swans, you can
happily wander around this lovely place.
9. Bath Abbey
Bath Abbey
Bath was originally the Roman town Aquae Sulis
and was renowned for its thermal springs and public baths. But the Romans left
Britain in 409 AD and Bath was not mentioned in official documents until 757.
It slowly re-emerged and in 973 it hosted the coronation of King Edgar and in
980 a Benedictine monastery was built. A new building replaced it in 1499 but
after the Dissolution it fell into ruin and was given to Bath city for a parish
church in 1560. The restoration was completed in 1620. As Bath became a resort
for the fashionable, it was remodelled by George Manners in 1833 and George
Gilbert Scott added the stone vault in 1863 with striking fan vaulting making
the Abbey extremely pretty and playful – somehow mirroring the carefree spirit
of the city.
The astonishing fan
vault at Bath Abbey
10 Beverley Minster
The East Riding of Yorkshire is not overtly
glamorous, even though the fine churches of Hedon and Patrington feature, but
turn South and you come to the town of Beverley. The first, unexpected view of
Beverley Minster hits you between the eyes, rather like the first view of
Lincoln Cathedral. The building we see was built in only a few decades and
completed in 1225. It replaced an earlier structure which housed the relics of
St John of Beverley, an 8th century bishop of York who had been
recently canonised. It contained a shrine and became a place of pilgrimage, a
nice little earner for the medieval Church, which partly explains why this huge
building was not elevated to cathedral status. Later it became a centre of the
chantry chapel racket, a medieval con involving rich donors leaving endowments
for clergy to pray for their living and dead souls. The Protestant reformers
found that Beverley had 77 such clergy and promptly reduced them to 4!
Beverley Minster
The
Gothic Percy tomb
The Minster was never a monastery but was run
as a collegiate church by a group of secular canons. Its building limestone
came from near Tadcaster and was floated up in barges from the Humber estuary.
Externally the two tall slender towers at the West end are Perpendicular
perfection, beautifully proportioned. Internally Beverley has everything you
might wish – stone vaulting, stiff-leaf carving, Purbeck marble columns, the
lovely canopied Gothic tomb of Lady Eleanor Percy, wood-carved stalls in the
chancel and 68 16th century misericords. The Minster is perfection with
an artistic integrity which you leave with sublime gratitude.
My selection has concentrated on large churches
most of which were originally built for greater things than to be a parish
church. I salute the Anglican Church for being their custodian and recommend
them all as bearers of the glory of civilisation.
SMD
1.07.22
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2022
