St Mary, Pembridge

    We were planning on stopping in Weobley, but a diversion pushed us north into unknown territory.  All, however, was not lost for we ended up on the road to Pembridge, and Pembridge was one of those places on a mental list of places to visit as we journey between the Infernal City and my family in Worcestershire.  For not only has the large parish church have a highly original detached bell-tower/bell-house but the village is filled to the brim with half-timbered buildings.

     The detached bell-house stands just north of the church, and it's quite the sight.  A low octagonal ground floor from which arises a massive spire constructed of timber looking like an upturned funnel.  Visitors have likened it to the timber spires you find in Essex and, further a field, the Scandinavian stave churches and the wooden churches of Eastern Europe.

    The church is built of the local sandstone.  Apart from some fragments of earlier work, and the vaulted north porch (which is later) it is wholly Decorated in style - lengthy nave with aisles and diminutive clearstory, transepts and long(ish) chancel.  Pevsner dates it all to c1320-60.  All the windows, I think, have Reticulated Tracery.  It's the sort of church that would have pleased the Cambridge Camden Society with their desire for correct Middle Pointed.  The exterior of the nave looks indeed like the work of one of their approved architects (like R C Carpenter).  The doors are original; the west door has bullet holes from the English civil war.

     Sadly the two restorations in the 19th century have left the interior bald, dark and dull. The best 19th century feature is the barrel vaulted chancel ceiling which has a nice cellure over the High Altar.  It should be painted. Some good monuments though, particularly in the chancel, and Medieval & Early Modern wall paintings around the s transept. Jacobean looking pulpit.  Sadly the church is crowded with clutter.

 

St James, Kinnersley

     Back to Worcestershire at the weekend for a family birthday with three stops en route. The first was the church of St James at Kinnersley in the far west of Herefordshire. Ever since we've been making this particular journey I've been intrigued by this church - it looks so beautiful from the road. A visit was a must particularly on learning that the church contained work by that great Late Victorian architect G F Bodley, and that the graveyard contained his mortal remains. Thankfully our visit did not end in disappointment. The church is a delight. Small, aisled, nestling under a vast roof of riven Herefordshire Tilestones of local sandstone. The square headed aisle windows are a delight - very elegant. Medieval or Bodley? There is a timbered porch and there's that wonderful, masculine tower. Architecture that seems in harmony with the landscape it inhabits.

     Inside there are two arcades, one sturdy, the other one light and lithe Perp Gothic. It has those small inconsequential capitals we saw in the choir of Malvern Priory.  There are a number of monuments too, the most spectacular being the Smalman monument in the chancel. Carolean and in need of much help. And then there is the work by Bodley. Most conspicuous and beautiful are the large areas of diaper pattern above the aisle arcades. They are fading a bit. The church is currently undergoing a restoration/repurposing; I just hope they do as little as possible to the wall paintings here.  They are in just the right state of 'pleasing decay'. However I think that Bodley's work in the chancel would probably benefit from a more proactive approach. I should add here that the work is not by the usual suspects but the then incumbent the Rev Frederick Andrews under Bodley's supervision. Andrews incumbency started in 1873 and ended in 1920. In addition to all the painted work there are Bodley tiles in the chancel (made by Godwin of Lugwardine, also in Herefordshire), organ case and beautiful wrought iron chandeliers like those at St Helen's Brant Broughton in Lincolnshire (Bodley restored the church in the early 1870s) and were made by Coldron's in the village. I suspect they supplied the chandeliers here too. I suspect too that the roofs were replaced by Bodley or in an earlier restoration by Thomas Nicholson in 1867-9. I would suggest also that the chancel was decorated first, the nave second.

     As I said the parish are currently busy at work on the church - there is much do. I only hope the work will not rob the church of its special atmosphere. As it is there is too much clutter.

Own work: West Door, Leominster Priory

     Two new artworks in a week, what's going on? Here's The West Door of Leominster Priory - the usual mixed media 26 x 27.5 cms on 300gsm watercolour paper. Enjoy.

Grange Court, Leominster

     It really was a flying visit. We didn't pay enough attention to the town in our determination to get to the Priory.  But we did see we really liked and we will return.

     One building, however, really did attract our gaze: the rather jaunty Grange Court standing neat and trim behind an equally neat and trim garden near the church. This was originally the Butter Cross and stood in the town centre at the junction of High St and Broad St until sometime in the 19th century when it was dismantled and moved to its current, somewhat genteel location becoming a private residence. Originally the ground floor was open to the elements. It is the work of John Abel of Hereford, the King's Carpenter, and dates from 1633.  We've come across his work before in my post about Dore Abbey.

Leominster Priory

     Without a doubt this is a monster of a church.  Perhaps not that big in the scheme of things - it is roughly 100 x125 ft - but there is something sublime about what is in fact merely the fragment of a larger medieval priory. It has to be said that is quite the experience to step into this building with all its complexity and seeming vastness. The scale is big, and very often powerful, almost primitive. At times verging on the sublime. At first it is difficult to comprehend, this is not a building that is at all lucid or coherent, and it is only as you walk around and it continues to open up to you is understanding achieved. A building to be apprehended first emotionally rather than intellectually, I think. Well, I suppose that could be applied to all buildings and in particular medieval churches where there is an attempt to embody mystery in the material. Only more so at Leominster where one is unprepared for the unexpectedness of it all, for what one encounters is really two interconnecting churches: a massive, and austere, early Norman priory nave and N Aisle, and in startling contrast to the S a vast parochial space divided into nave and s aisle (or is it two aisles?) by an elegant and daring arcade which is the work of George Gilbert Scott Sn in the 1870s. It replaces an arcade of Tuscan columns (the stoutest of the Classical orders) that in turn replaced the arcade destroyed in a fire in 1699. I would think Scott based his design on some surviving evidence, but even if he didn't it's a coup de theatre that easily justifies its presence. Bar the spectacular and vast Perp w window all the rest in this part of the church is early Decorated, in the style we have met before in the N transept of Ledbury church. There is plenty of ballflower here too both inside and out.
     The best sculpture is, however outside, where the late Norman w door survives in all its massive and barbaric splendour. The six capitals are fine examples of the Herefordshire school of Romanesque sculptors, blending late Antique and 'Barbarian' northern European elements. The two outer capitals are the most classical: on the right hand-side there is a form of 'running palmette', and the left 'Inhabited Vinescroll'. This latter is a symbol both of paradise and the church (which in worship is a foretaste of heaven, or should be). The other four capitals are definitely more northern in inspiration and the symbolism a little obscure in places. The easiest to understand is the centre left which two husbandmen pruning vines. The vine is both a symbol of Christ and the church (which is both his body and his bride) see John 14: 1-15. As Christians we are all grafted into the vine, i.e. the Body of Christ, and sometimes pruned away - this is what the capital depicts. Both this capital and the one to its left, the 'Inhabited Vinescroll' are Eucharistic symbols. It is also possible to see both column shafts as Christ himself. I think, while I'm about it, I'll also suggest that the two inner columns represent the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (left) and the Tree of Life (right). The left inner column may also represent the Brazen Serpent erected by Moses see Numbers 21: 4-9, a type of the Crucifixion of Christ see John 3: 14-16.
     In all great architecture, but there are no fittings of note, sadly. And those present are lost in the vastness. A lot of money would need to be spent in creating something that could hold its own here with any confidence. The only thing to stay in my mind is the picture hanging above the south porch - one part of a reredos perhaps? Alas there is far too much clutter, and I hate the re-ordering. Not a church I think I would happily worship in.