Going to the wall

Pews. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

But once, they weren’t there at all. They are, in fact, a reasonably modern invention … well 13th century onwards at least.

Old churches had nowhere for the congregation to sit, they just sort of, well, congregated in the middle of the room.

Now this wasn’t easy for the elderly or infirm and so sometimes a ledge was built into the fabric of the church for these people to lean against for support.

You know the expression ‘going to the wall’ if you are talking about a company or business being on it’s last legs?

Yep, you’ve guessed it, that’s where the expression comes from.

I’ve yet to find one of these ledges … but I’m looking 🙂

 

Nan Scott’s chamber

This is the lovely little country church of St Giles at Holme, near Newark in Nottinghamshire. It’s a lovely little place with an intriguing little legend.

You can see from the photo that the porch of the church is two storey, there is quite clearly a room with a window above the doorway.

This is known locally as Nan Scott’s chamber.

In 1666 the Great Plague was ravaging the country and Newark was not immune to the infection.

Legend has it that in a bid to escape infection, villager Nan Scott fled her home and took refuge in the Priest’s room above the porch of St Giles’ Church.

Over the next few weeks she stayed in the room, watching through the window as the fellow villagers who had succumbed to the plague were buried in the churchyard outside.

After several weeks Nan Scott decided it was safe to leave her sanctuary but, when she finally ventured outside, she discovered a deserted village bar one man. All her neighbours had died of the plague.

In horror, she fled back to the Priest’s room where, the legend says, she lived out the rest of her life.

Truth, or old wives’ tale? Who knows. But pieces of clothing are supposed to have been found in the room and, apparently, there was also evidence of a table that could only have been made in the room (the staircase is very small and not easily accessible).

Perhaps a recluse did live there, or perhaps it was Nan Scott successfully avoiding plague infection.

 

An artist in glass

This stained glass window can be found in St Mary Magdelene Church in Tortington in West Sussex.

The church is redundant and is now cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust.

The window depicts St Richard who was Bishop of Chichester  from 1244 until 1253. His appointment was highly controversial. The Canons of Chichester Cathedral had selected someone and Henry II had given his approval when The Archbishop of Canterbury (Richard’s former teacher) overruled their choice and appointed Richard instead.

The King was mad and both he and Richard appealed to the Pope. Richard, in fact, went to visit him and was consecrated as Bishop on the spot. Now the King was really mad, refused to recognise Richard and banned him from the bishopric. For two years Richard’s income was confiscated by the Crown and he had no access to his diocese or cathedral.

Henry II relented in the end.

But this stained glass window wasn’t created anywhere near St Richard’s time, it is 19th century and one of a pair in this church created by Charles Eamer Kempe, a Victorian master of stained glass.

The list of English cathedrals containing work by Kempe includes Chester, Gloucester, Hereford, Wells, Winchester and York.

He wanted to become a priest but had a severe stammer that he felt would hinder that career. Instead he set up a business making stained glass, vestments and furnishings for the church. By 1899 he had more than 50 employees.

He was born in Sussex and there are more than 100 churches containing examples of his work.

Do you know how you can tell if you’ve found one?

 

Look for the wheatsheaf. It was the trademark of the firm, taken from Kempe’s family coat of arms. After Kempe died, the company continued with a relative Walter Tower as chairman. In windows from this later period have a black tower – looking a bit like a castle from a chess board – on top of the wheatsheaf.

 

Of effigies and Templars

I love religious buildings. I like the architecture, the art, the icons, the symbolism and the monuments and gravestones.

I found this effigy at a church in Lincolnshire at the weekend. It’s a knight, a member of the Disney family and, it is believed, an ancestor of Walt Disney himself.

He is in full armour and his feet rest on a carved lion.

But why are his legs crossed?

Well one train of thought is that the crossing of his legs symbolise the fact that he was a Knight Templar and fought in the Crusades.

If the effigy has legs crossed at the ankles, he went on one Crusade, at the knees symbolises his participation in two and a third Crusade is depicted by legs crossed at the thigh.

I have to say, there are other schools of thought on this too but, personally, I like this one.

 

The story of the vicar who couldn’t leave his church

The Church of St Lawrence, Eyam, Derbyshire

Eyam, Derbyshire, UK

This is the church of St Lawrence in the village of Eyam in the Derbyshire Peak District. It was previously known as St Helen’s.

Eyam is famous for being the ‘plague village’, though that’s a story for another day.

This story begins a few years after the Great Plague decimated the town’s population.

In 1683 the Reverend Joseph Hunt became Vicar of Eyam. He was a young man and, judging by this story, a little naive and easily led when he first came to this village isolated in the Derbyshire peaks.

Shortly after he became vicar, he was asked to baptise a sick child. For some obscure reason not documented, the baptism took place not in the church but in a nearby pub.

After the service a little drinking appears to have ensued and in an act of tipsyness Rev Hunt joined hands with the landlord’s daughter and a member of the drunken congregation read the marriage service over them to much hilarity.

The Bishop of Lichfield, on hearing of this drunken prank, did not agree it was hilarious at all, in fact he was mightily put out. He insisted the couple got married for real and the marriage took place on September 4 1684.

And they lived happily ever after?

Well, sort of … but not quite.

Unfortunately the young Reverend Hunt had previously proposed marriage to a lady who lived in Derby whose family was pretty well off and who was not happy at all about this new state of affairs. She sued for breach of promise and the resulting legal battle cost young Rev Hunt and his new wife so much money that they fell into debt, which was a crime.

The bailiffs came after them to arrest them and sling them in debtors’ jail but, having been warned (or seeing them coming), Joseph and his wife Anne hotfooted it into the church and claimed sanctuary.

And there they stayed.

They couldn’t come out without being arrested and so they didn’t come out … at all, for 19 years apparently.

The couple is reported to have had nine children, all born inside the church. The fact that they had nine children is documented in the parish records.

At the time there was no vestry but the villagers seemed to like the pair and erected a sort of lean to thing on the side of the church for the couple and their family to use.

And, according to legend, there they stayed.

Anne died in 1703 and Joseph in 1709. They were buried in the same vault inside the church. During his time of self-imposed confinement the Reverend Hunt laboriously copied out the parish records in English apparently. And this is a reason why research into the births, deaths and marriages of the plague village of Eyam has been a relatively easy affair to conduct.

Truth? Embellishment? Complete fiction? I don’t know. But it’s a good story 🙂