St Denis, Aswarby

     A brief trip out on the Friday back in November while the the bf was staying, a cold blustery day of intermittent showers.  We had intended to drive up to Lincoln for the day but all sorts of stuff was going viz the sale of the house. How deeply stressful these things really are....

     Anyway we headed a little way north up the A15 to Aswarby in the heart of Lincolnshire and a sort of deflated landscape that is neither fen nor hill-country and empty in feeling. I've been past the place for decades intrigued by the park, which is bounded on its western side by the great curve of the A15, the enigmatic two columns (that actually mark the site of original house, home of the Whichcotes, demolished in the 1950s) standing among the lank grass and the trees, and the church situated picturesquely on the lane into the village.  It was here in his youth that M R James came to stay with a school friend; a long laborious journey one would have thought from Eton. Eventually Aswarby was used, in a vague sort of way, as a location for one of James's more famous ghost stories - 'Lost hearts'. One of those ghost stories that were so evocatively adapted by the BBC in the early 70s and broadcast at Christmas. You can view it here. It was filmed in the county but Aswarby was not used, all the locations being in the north-east of the county eg South Ormsby and Brocklesby. And I suppose Aswarby is a lost sort of place itself, even with the noise of traffic on the main road from the across the wide and level parkland.  The village, which really is small, and quite dispersed, consists of Picturesque Tudor style estate cottages built of the local limestone.

     Architecturally the church is rather good - sophisticated stuff in such a rural location; mainly a mixture of flowing Dec and rectilinear Perp, of good ashlar and a noble tower and spire. There is a splendid Transitional south door - not so sure about the colour of the door though!

      The interior is atmospheric - a fine north arcade - and could be more so, being largely untouched since its nineteenth century restoration by Blore.  There is a large family pew and vault and a full compliment of box pews with unusual undulating ends - think of a child's drawing of a roller coaster.  A good example of what things could look like before the Oxford movement took hold, with everything neat and orderly.  It would be nice to see all that restored and enhanced.  I really didn't like to see the family vault used as a informal prayer space, but lovely to see the clipped yews in the churchyard.