St Teilo, Llandeilo Fawr

      Tuesday we visited Moelfryn, a garden high on a Carmarthenshire hill side, open to the public as part of the wonderful National Gardens Scheme, and it was an absolute treat.  Eccentric and delightful. 

     From there we headed into Landeilo for lunch - least said about that the better.  The parish church being open I took the opportunity to take some photos for the blog.  Apart from the austere, Late Medieval w tower the body of the church is wholly 19th century, the work of the ubiquitous Sir George Gilbert Scott.  In a story that one feels could rival Gabriel Chevalier's 'Clochemerle', Scott was called into design the church after a competition to design a church for under £3,000 fell apart.  In the end the church cost nearly double Scott's original estimate of £2,500.

     The site however, as I have written elsewhere on this blog, is much, much older.  The site dates back to the 'Dark Ages' and St Teilo.  I'd like to think that the large churchyard (sliced in two since the early 19th century (?)) replicates the shape of St Teilo's original monastic foundation.  Wishful thinking on my part.  In the huge retaining wall along n side of Church St is what is known as St Teilo's Baptistery; a cave like space - probably not that old in the scheme of things - where water gushes out of a pipe and a gated passage leads mysteriously deep into the hill.  It was looking all spick and span on Tuesday, when on previous visits there were vases of flowers etc.

     The style of Scott's church is Cambridge Camden Society approved Middle Pointed.  Dark, massive like a cast iron safe.  Formidable, even unfriendly in places.  The east end in particular has a metallic quality I think this down to the masonry.  The walls are of rubble masonry - to match the tower, no doubt.  'The Buildings of Wales' just says that the church is of 'hard grey limestone', but looking at the multiple buttress set-offs it's hard not think that these, at least, are of a different, lighter, close-grained stone, and have probably been cut by machine, as is the church's most extraordinary feature: a huge batter of perfectly cut blocks at the e end of the n aisle, that is half roof and half buttress.  Elemental, industrial-age Gothic. It could almost be the work of a 'Rogue Architect' such as Samuel Saunders Teulon.  You know, I'm not sure it will ever weather into mellowness.
     The interior - aisle-less chancel, nave with n aisle and s transept - is big and barn like.  No money for refinements.  In recent years the church has been subdivided.  It hasn't helped.  Some of the detailing is plain awful.  Not much in the way of furnishings except some memorials in the chancel.  The churchyard, being in Wales, has a range of forceful Victorian gravestones.  Obelisks, spires and the like.

Holy Cross, Burley-on-the-hill

When, thou shall visit, in the Moneth of May

A costly garden, in her best array;

And, view the well-grown trees, the wel-trimm'd Bowers,

The beds of Herbs, the knots of pleasant flowers,

With all fine deckings, and the fine devices,

Perteyning to those earlthy Paradises,

Thou canst not well suppose, one day, or two,

Did finish all, which had beene, there, to doe.

     One of the delights of the British Summer is visiting gardens, especially if it involves afternoon tea.  Last weekend A paid his monthly visit and we headed off into Rutland, to Burley-on-the-Hill and The Old Vicarage, open as part of the National Garden Scheme. The garden is most impressive - a series of garden rooms surround the house at all different levels.  The influence of Lutyens is evident in the formal structure of paths, walls, rills and hedges.  The use of colour was very interesting: blue and purple predominate, there is little white and next to nothing in the way of yellow and red. Interesting too the use of contrasting shapes and colour of foliage, eg very green lavender contrasting with silver blades of iris, and use of wisteria as standards as though they were roses. The cake was very good too.

     The Old Vicarage sits on the edge of the purlieus of Burley House built by 2nd earl of Nottingham in the late 1600s.  It is vast complex of buildings, now divided up into apartments; the cour d'honeur is 500 x 650 ft. and quite beyond my competence as a photographer using a smart phone.

     More within my technical capabilities was the small parish church of the Holy Cross, redundant now but under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.  It stands sequestered in one corner of the complex of house and service buildings.  The churchyard is enclosed with a high wall, and is overlooked by the house giving it an oddly urban feel.  House and church are connected with a Gothic Revival corridor - not a cloister as there are far too few windows for that.  I think it must date from J L Pearson's restoration in the mid nineteenth century.(1869-70, almost twenty years after his restoration of neighbouring Exton church) A pretty thorough job he did of it too; apart from the lean west tower the exterior is completely his. Not that bad of itself but somehow not quite right either. Perhaps it is too polished, too sophisticated work for a country church even one in so grand a setting. I'm tempted to say that even after 150 years after completion it may too soon to make a judgment as to its merit and only after another 150 years of wind, rain and frost can such a judgement be made. 

     Inside however it is more atmospheric.  The arcades are Medieval. The furnishings are by Pearson and rather subdued, except for the High Altar reredos and accompanying east window by Clayton and Bell. Oddly for an estate church there are few monuments of any standing.  There is however Sir Francis Chantrey's superb monument to Lady Charlotte Finch of 1820.  A kneeling figure of chaste white marble of great pathos and sensitivity. Chantrey has breathed life and warmth into Neo-classical froideur.

    Beautiful panoramic views of the Vale Of Catmose on the way to the church.