Daffodils and Dec: Benington church, Herts

Benington church, a few miles east of Stevenage, has some 15th century features in the ubiquitous Perpendicular style (notably the tower and clerestory windows), but what makes it stand out is that much of it, fairly unusually for Herts, is Decorated. That is, in the style dating from roughly the first half of the 14th century. It's such a pleasure to be able to relish the rich carvings of the period; much of the church is delectably, dazzlingly and divinely Dec. In the spring, the daffodils in the churchyard aren't bad either.

The church's story starts with the sedilia (the three stone seats for the clergy on the south wall of the chancel). They're late 13th century (though no doubt restored), in the Early English style; the plain round columns supporting capitals carved with slightly artificial-looking foliage known as stiff-leaf are typical of the period.

This hooded figure lurks among the more than usually stylised foliage.

The arches are cusped and quite elaborately carved; it's illuminating to compare the sedilia with that of Anstey, which are roughly contemporary but much plainer. Why the clergy in Benington thought they deserved such fine seats we shall never know.

Usually, the sedilia and piscina (a drain in the wall for washing the communion vessels) were made at the same time to a unified design. But Benington's piscina dates from a couple of decades or so after the sedilia. Was there originally no piscina, or was it thought that it needed updating? Again, we'll never know. The piscina we see now reveals its Dec credentials with its little upward flick at the head of the arch, creating two S-shaped curves, known as ogees. The two label stops look as if they could be portraits: a man on the left and a woman on the right, perhaps?

At about the same time (let's say c.1310) the lower part of the nave was constructed. The bottom tier of windows (the upper clerestory windows are a later, 15th century, addition), like the piscina, have the elegant Dec ogee S-curve in their tracery.

The highlight of the church (the thing that makes it worth bicycling twelve miles against the wind to see, to borrow John Betjeman's way of praising outstanding features) is the arcade between the chancel and north chapel, and all the associated carvings. The chapel dates from c.1330; the central and western arches have complex mouldings (but plain capitals). The central arch doubles as the canopy for a tomb. The arch has a little ogee swoosh at the top, like the sedilia, is crocketed and finialed, and has flanking pinnacles, as well as label stops. It's a grand piece.

(The following paragraph about the dating of the tomb and arch is even duller than the rest of this post, so feel free to skip it.) There's some mystery about the date of the tomb. Pevsner says: 'The style seems to exclude a date later than c.1330; yet the heraldry is supposed to point to 1358.' The church guide claims that the tomb is that of Sir John de Benstede (d.1359) and his wife Petronilla (nee Grapynell) (d.1378), and adds 'Notice how this arch has been embellished; it was originally like the western arch.' The Victoria County History reveals that there were two John de Benestedes, grandfather and grandson, both married to women called Parnel. The first John died in 1323, and his widow before April 1342. Their grandson died in 1359 and his widow in 1378, as the church guide says. The VCH, not normally slow to draw attention to heraldry, doesn't mention 1358; where Pevsner found that date I don't know. It seems likely that the church guide has confused the two Johns and Parnels (Petronilla is the Latinate form of the English name Parnel or Pernel), and that the tomb commemorates the first couple, and that therefore it was made, as Pevsner says, before 1330, during the lifetime of the first Parnel; if it displays heraldry of 1358, it must have been added by a later de Benestede. There's no reason to think that the arch under which the tomb shelters has been embellished; it was always intended to form an impressive canopy. (Okay, it's relatively safe to continue reading from here, though I think I can promise you that you're not in any danger of being over-stimulated.)

The altar tomb itself, and the effigies on it, are in a poor state of preservation. The base seems to have been cut in two and crudely put back together. The knight (the first John de Benestede) is shown in the act of pulling his sword from its scabbard; he has his head turned slightly to the right, and his legs crossed. (Even today you sometimes hear repeated the story that an effigy with crossed legs indicates that the man depicted was a Crusader. There's no truth at all in this. For one thing, the Crusades had petered out by 1272, at which time John was probably only a child, or perhaps hadn't been born at all. The crossed legs were simply an artistic fashion, designed to give animation to the figure.*) His wife is distressingly blank-faced; she has a long veil, and her hands, once praying, have been broken off. Her feet rest on a dog (symbol of fidelity, hence the traditional name for a dog, Fido), his on a lion (symbol of strength and courage).

Fortunately, the tomb's ancillary carvings are in very much better condition. This might be a portrait of John; it's highly accomplished, more naturalistic than most busts of the period, suggesting an aristocratic hauteur but also sensitivity. Maybe my local loyalty to Herts is making me go overboard here, but I doubt if there are many finer portraits of this period in the country.

On the other hand, the corresponding carvings on the other (eastern) side of the tomb bring us down to earth with a bump. Here we have a comical mouth-puller and a fiercely grimacing head. It seems strange to us that a dignified tomb should be decorated like this, but such juxtapositions are so common in medieval art that we must assume that no contradiction was seen between the sacred and the (apparently) profane.

The western end of the western arch terminates in another mouth-puller, even more vigorously carved than the first.

On the northern side of the tomb (facing into the chapel) are more little carvings. There's a head with a very fancy hairstyle, and a king whose body has been pierced by a sword. He is struggling to pull it out. In its way, this is just as odd an addition to a tomb as a mouth-puller; why adorn it with a representation of the brutal killing of God's representative on earth? The old sign which hangs from the figure suggests that the king may be Edward II, who was assassinated in 1327 (ie soon before the tomb was probably made), and who, the sign speculates, the de Benestedes presumably knew. Perhaps the people who saw this carving in the 14th century would have taken it to be a lamentation for an act of regicide. However, other interpretations are possible. There is a mural in Llancarfan church, Glamorgan, which shows a similar scene which is labelled 'Accidie' (listlessness or apathy, which could lead to self-harm or even suicide). There's another carving in Warmington, Northants, which shows a man (though not a king) stabbing himself right through his body with a sword; this is usually interpreted as signifying Wrath. And on the choir stalls of Lincoln cathedral there's another figure stabbing themselves, but it's not a man, it's - a frog.

This is probably a portrait of Parnel (or Petronilla) de Bernestede, but it's not nearly as fine as that of her husband, despite the fact that it was very likely carved while she was alive. In fact, she may well have paid for the tomb.

To the east of the tomb of John and Parnel de Benestede is that of Edward (d.1432) and Joan (or Joanna) de Benstede, which is more or less exactly a century newer than the former. Some Dec features have survived - the ogee heads to the niches on the side of the tomb chest, and some ogee curves in the panelling of the soffit (the underside of the arch canopy) - but otherwise the style is different. The 15th century Perpendicular masons were much more interested in surface decoration than their Dec counterparts, and made more use of straight lines.

The effigies of Edward and his wife are better preserved than those of John and Parnel. Eileen Roberts** suggests that Joan paid for the tomb after her husband's death, as her effigy is more elaborate than his. (However, visitors to the church will currently find this difficult to see for themselves as the far east ends of chancel are chapel are roped off and alarmed, making access to the tomb difficult.) Roberts is dismissive of his effigy, calling it 'provincial in execution'. She notes that 'the helmet is impossibly small, and the details of the armour construction in skirt and coutres misunderstood.' I can sense the poor mason, who no doubt followed Joan's instructions as well as he could, wincing across the centuries at this indictment. Can there be any greater shame than misunderstanding your skirt and coutres?

At the apex of the arch canopy has a sculpture of an angel holding the souls of Edward and Joan in a cloth, and presumably carrying them up to Heaven; all three figures have lost their heads. Again, this is hard to see properly at the moment; I took the picture above in the 90s.

Some tiny fragments of medieval glass survive; this one is in the south wall of the chancel, and lights the de Benstede tombs; appropriately, it depicts the family arms (described, in the seductive language of heraldry, as gules three bars gemelles or).

The arms of the Moyne family; the second Parnel (d.1378) was a Moyne. The language used to describe this one is even better: azure a fesse dancetty between six crosslets argent. Dancetty! I can't wait to work that into conversation somehow.

As well as the tomb carvings, there are numerous corbels, label stops and other little sculptures scattered around the inside of the church, many of them worth a look.

The chancel arch was widened in the 15th century, but it seems that the 14th century corbels were reused, including this Green Man, or foliate head as we should probably call them.

The 15th century nave corbels, all obviously by the same mason:

I think this is my favourite of the nave corbels: perhaps a wodwo (a wild man of the woods).

A bishop.

Another bishop.

He or she has a cross on their forehead.

Perhaps a woman with her hair tied in bunches.

A selection of other carvings from inside the church:

An extremely lively caricature-like figure by the pulpit and probably intended as the base for a statue of a saint, showing once again the unselfconscious juxtaposition of the secular and spiritual.

He seems to be dressed as Batman.

Yet another bishop.

There are also some good label stops on the exterior:

The ones on the tower were recut in 1907 by someone who knew what they were doing.

More carvings from the tower.

Again from the tower. The head on the right looks like Stalin (though not like Stalin in 1907), but depicts the then sexton.

From the tower again.

I began with the oldest object in the church, and I'll end with the newest, which is this window in the porch:

As you can see, it's a memorial to a husband, the rector for a quarter of a century, who was a keen apiarist and reader, and his wife, a painter, both of whom loved gardening. It was designed by Alfred Fisher (c.1934- ) and made in 1994 by Chapel Studios. It might not be a masterpiece, but surely only the grumpiest curmudgeon would fail to be charmed by it.

We began with daffodils, and we end with them too.

Benington church has always been open and welcoming whenever I've visited. The village is extremely pretty, and Benington Lordship, next to the church, opens its gardens (especially notable for their snowdrops in late winter/early spring) occasionally, where you'll also find the remains of a genuine Norman castle elaborated into an impressive 19th century folly. 

* This story, which I always assumed to have its origins in sentimental Victorian ecclesiology, or possibly to have been started by 18th century antiquaries, turns out to be older than that. It dates from as long ago as the late 16th century. See this blog.

** A School of Masons in 15th Century North Hertfordshire, Hertford, 1979.

Benington Lordship

Cecil Coles - Scottish composer, died on the Western Front one hundred years ago today

(Note: I posted this on the morning of 26 April. However, the date that appears at the top is the 25th, presumably because it was before midnight Pacific Daylight Time. Just to be clear, Coles died on the 26th, not the 25th (and not the 28th, as Holst mistakenly thought).)

A few days ago I was casually looking through a pile of CDs (I've not got around to shelving my collection yet), and, almost at random, chose Music from Behind the Lines by Cecil Coles. I've owned this for some years, but listened to it only two or maybe three times. 

Reading the extensive booklet (one of several reasons why I'll never entirely go over to downloads), I noticed, with a poignant shock, that he died on April 26 1918, that is, almost exactly a century before I'd chanced upon his music. This coincidence seems to me to be worth memorialising, though I don't claim any great significance for it.

It's quite likely that any readers this blog might have have never heard of Coles, as I hadn't until I bought the CD some years ago, as casually and near-accidentally as I picked it out of the pile recently. I'm always ready to give my time to obscure 20th century British composers, and, apart from those who've never been recorded at all, Coles counts as one of the most obscure. In 1995 a programme about him was broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland, the disc above was released in 2002 and his music featured in the Proms in 2003 and is very occasionally featured in concerts, but that's about it. BBC Radio 3 doesn't seem to have anything scheduled to commemorate the centenary of his death. There are some articles about him on the web (see here and here, for example), but they mostly derive (so far as I can tell) from the essay in the CD booklet (by John Purser). (Clearly, this post relies on the same source.) 

Cecil Frederick Gottlieb Coles was born in Kirkcudbright on 7 October 1888; he studied music at Edinburgh University, and won a scholarship to the London College of Music, and met the older Gustav Holst (b.1874), who was Director of Morley College from 1907. The two became great friends, holidaying in the Alps together. Holst later dedicated his 'Ode To Death' (1919) to Coles.

In 1908 he won another scholarship, this time to study in Stuttgart, where, in about 1911, he was appointed assistant conductor at the Stuttgart Royal Opera House. Some of his works were performed in the same city; a remarkable achievement for a composer in his early 20s, and a foreigner to boot. 

He married in London in 1912, and although they lived in Germany for a while they returned to England in 1913; he found work as chorus master with the Beecham Opera Company and as a teacher at Morley College. 

In 1915 he joined the army, and spent a considerable time on the Western Front, where he somehow managed to keep composing. On 26 April 1918 he was killed, aged 29. He had volunteered to rescue some injured men who were languishing in a wood; on the return journey two of the stretcher-bearers were killed outright, and Coles mortally wounded by a sniper. It's said that he hummed Beethoven as he awaited medical attention.

His wife, presumably finding it impossible to cope with her grief, never spoke about her husband to her children, not even to tell them that he'd been a composer, and isn't known to have made any effort to have his music performed. Consequently it was forgotten. His daughter Catherine (b.March 1917), who published children's books in the 60s and 70s, didn't learn about her father's talent until she was in her seventies. She'd been a pupil at St Paul's School for Girls in London, where, seemingly by a resounding coincidence, her music teacher was none other than Gustav Holst, her father's great friend who lived until 1934. Didn't he ever speak to her about Coles? Apparently not.

She began researching, and discovered that, remarkably, the scores for forty compositions were stored in a cardboard box in her father's old school in Edinburgh - schools are always in need of more space, and regularly throw out ream after ream of paper, most of it of no significance, so it's astonishing that the manuscripts, unlike her father, had survived. How exciting, and moving, it must have been for her as she first opened that unassuming box. This began Coles' mini-revival.

I can't say anything learned or profound about the music; I'll just remark on the bitter irony of Coles' numerous German connections - his third forename 'Gottlieb' (he had no German ancestry as far as I know), Holst's partly German ancestry, his productive and (I assume) happy time in Stuttgart - contrasted with his death in a war fighting that same country. What a stupid bloody waste.

There's very little music by him on Youtube. (But there are some short clips from his works on the BBC website.) In the Cathedral (from 1907, when he was only 19) is a rhapsodic short piece for string orchestra, sounding to my amateur ears as if it's influenced by English (and perhaps Scottish) folk songs, whereas much of his later music is  broadly in the German Late Romantic tradition. Cortege (from 1917, the last full year of his life), here arranged for a brass band (originally intended for a small orchestra), has a particularly poignant story behind it. He worked on the score of a four movement work called Behind the Lines in the trenches, and sent some of it to Holst at Christmas. It's reproduced at the head of this post, stained by muddy trench water and what must be a large splash of blood. Holst has written on it at the bottom, recording that only the first movement had reached him; a shell had destroyed a number of Coles' manuscripts. In fact, the third movement ('Cortege') had also survived, though the other two have been lost. Two out of four going missing in action is somehow symbolic of life on the Western Front, and in particular of Coles' own short life.

I'll leave the last words to Alexander Mackenzie (1847-1935), a Scottish composer of highly international outlook, who had written a Scottish Concerto, and which had been published in Leipzig. They're from a letter to the English pianist Frederick Dawson (1868-1940), written 12 October 1914 (that is, in the early stages of the war; things were going to get very much worse):

I see that the Germans are melting down all music plates [i.e. the metal plates on which the music was engraved and from which the published music was printed] for bullets . . . no doubt by this time the concerto has been re-cast in another form, less musical, but more effective perhaps. You see how this ghastly business touches us all in many queer forms.

Flemish stained glass amid the furniture in Hitchin, Herts

Some months ago I happened to go into a furniture shop in Hitchin, Herts. I was looking at tables and sofas and so on, probably without much enthusiasm, when suddenly my eye was caught by this window. It seemed from a distance to contain some late medieval stained glass, which hardly seemed possible in a run-of-the-mill shop probably built in the 1920s. However, a closer look showed that I was right. For a moment I was deluded and arrogant enough to think that I might have 'discovered' them (that is, that I was the first person who knew what they were to have noticed them). Back home it took about thirty seconds on the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aeva website to realise that far from being ahead of the field I was trailing a long way behind; the glass has indeed been noticed and documented before. Nevertheless, it feels like a discovery of sorts - I'd lived in Hitchin for twenty years without knowing of its existence, and how many inhabitants of Hitchin realise it's there? (and how many would care?) - and this afternoon, passing by with my camera in my pocket, I took the opportunity to photograph them.

Getting decent photos isn't at all easy, as the bottom two roundels have as their natural background an intrusive street scene clearly visible. You have to crouch down onto the floor, in a very restricted space, to find an angle that has the sky behind (which distorts the perspective). Also the shop lights create distracting reflections. All this while the shop workers plainly think you're bonkers. Nevertheless, I think my photos of the last two roundels are better than those obtained by the CVMA.

There are four roundels, a coat of arms and a crown. The roundels date from the 1520s, and are probably Flemish or Netherlandish. The heraldry and crown are probably of similar date. The roundels are quite elaborately painted in monochrome on a single piece of glass, and heightened here and there with yellow, made by applying silver nitrate (or another  silver compound) to the glass. (See here for examples of 13th and 14th century glass, very different in style and technique, and much more expensive.) 

Top left is a Resurrection. Two soldiers sleep on while Christ arises from the dead, witnessed by two other soldiers (the one on the left doesn't seem very impressed). The soldiers, with their swanky feathered helmets (the one on the top right has three feathers, including a yellow one, while all the others have to make do with just one relatively drab specimen), frame the composition. The left leg of the bottom left soldier is weirdly bent to fit. Christ is handsome and heroic, though the lid of the tomb was much too small to cover the aperture, so pushing it aside can't have been all that difficult.

Top right, the archangel Michael skewers Satan in the form of a dragon. It's been decapitated, and its claws are extended in its death agonies. Its whippet-like tail extends between the archangel's legs, and its testicles are clearly depicted. The background suggests a rocky landscape with three trees, and a cliff on the right. I'm not sure how the brown of the dragon was created; maybe an alteration to the recipe of iron or copper filings that were applied to the glass to create the monochrome lines and washes did the job. Similarly, the green of the trees was probably made by changing the silver compound that usually produced yellow (or orange).

On the left in the middle tier is a crown, on half of what I think is a rose. This may refer to the Virgin Mary as the Queen of Heaven, but without more context it's impossible to be sure.

On the right is a coat of arms, with a shield displaying three crossbows. There's a motto, but I can't read it. Very likely someone knows whose coat of arms this is (or was), but unfortunately I don't. The acanthus leaves are painted vigorously, and end, strangely, in tassels. The colours were made by applying enamels to the glass.

On the bottom left is a scene known as the Visitation. Mary, pregnant with Jesus, visits her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth puts her hand solicitously on Mary's swelling belly; the latter casts her eyes down modestly. The event takes place in a pleasantly wooded landscape.

The final roundel shows St Nicholas bringing three murdered boys back to life. The story goes that, during a famine, a villainous butcher lured three boys into his house, murdered them, and stored their bodies in a barrel to cure, intending, Sweeney Todd-like, to sell them as ham. Nicholas, whose face isn't well-preserved, resurrected them by his prayers; another symbol of the triumph of good over evil and life over death.

What are these stained glass scenes doing in a furniture shop in Hitchin? We can guess that  when it was built, c.1920, the proprietor wanted to add a bit of class to his premises and picked up the glass, probably for a song, and it's been there ever since, largely unnoticed and unremarked.

The image above is from the CVMA website. It seems to have been taken in 1987, and brings back nostalgic memories for me. I moved to Hitchin in 1985, and did most of my shopping, on my bike, in the Safeway supermarket visible through the window. I could have been in the shop or street when the photo was taken. Incidentally, the building (now a Wilkinson's) is a dismaying example of 1960s or 70s planning. It's in Bancroft, but forms the termination of the view down Hermitage Road, which has the greenery of Windmill Hill at the east end, and once had an unexceptional but dignified Georgian building at its west. (I can't find a photo on the web.) But somehow, despite its sensitive position, it was allowed to be demolished, and somehow, despite the aggressive, ill-proportioned brick facade of the new building, it was allowed to be replaced. Let's be thankful that at least these random bits of stained glass have remained untouched over the years.

Baskets from Bangladesh and more mermen: St Peter's church, Cambridge

 

Last week I was preparing a post about Anstey church, and decided it would be a good idea to pay a visit to St Peter's, Cambridge (where I'd often been before) to compare its mermen font to Anstey's example. The church is immediately next to Kettle's Yard gallery, which has recently reopened after a lengthy refit.

St Peter's is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, being surplus to the requirements of the Church of England. It's been disused since 1749, and was roofless and windowless by 1772. Apart from the 14th century tower and spire, it was mostly rebuilt in 1781. It's very small, essentially just one room (plus the tower), and mostly plain inside. Its outstanding feature is without doubt its mermen font (Pevsner, or his reviser, Simon Bradley, calls the figures 'fish-men'), which dates from the late 12th century. Anstey's font is of about the same date:

Anstey's font - all other photos are of St Peter's

The design of the two bowls is very similar (the pedestals are different, but both may be later additions*), and either one is a copy of the other, (or of other, now lost, mermen fonts), or, more likely, they were both carved by the same sculptor. Both feature mermen at the four corners who hold one strand of their twin tails in each hand. 

Anstey's font pays more attention to the hands, while St Peter's lavishes more care on the tails, which end in forks, or, on the east face, divide into five - you might call them finny finials. It also has cable moulding around the rim, while Anstey’s font has an unadorned top.

Both have been broken into several pieces and mended, most notably in St Peter’s on the south east corner: the repair and the different coloured stone are plainly visible. Damage to, or even destruction of, fonts is most often associated with the Civil War, and especially the Ordinance of 1645 which effectively banished fonts (basins were to be used instead). But we can't know if that was when St Peter's font was broken. It's hard to date the repair; none of the authorities I've consulted even try. Of course, the sculptor of the repairs was working not in his own style, but was trying to imitate the original style of the figures, which makes dating them more than usually difficult.

Neither of the two old images of the font that I've been able to find are of much help in deciding when the repair was made. (The other can be found by clicking a link in a footnote below.) The one above dates from 1812 and is an engraving from James Storer and John Grieg's Ancient Reliques. (Their books, including The Antiquarian Itinerary and The Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet, are almost like early 19th century Pevsners.) It shows the font standing, improbably, immediately inside the door, with a Regency buck leaning louchely on the jamb, looking as if he's eyeing up the mermen with lascivious intent. The engraving gives a good general impression of the font, but doesn't provide enough detail to see if the repairs were in place by 1812. 

The text accompanying the engraving says that 'At each corner of the Font are figures, in some respects representing mermen or mermaids, each having two tails; they are encircled round the loins, with an ornamental belt, and with hands, each embracing one of the tails.' It also claims that 'This very curious relic of antiquity had not, previously to the present annexed Plate, been introduced to the notice of the antiquarian world, neither has any attention been paid to it by historians of Cambridge, with whose writings the Editors and Proprietors of the Ancient Reliques are acquainted.' This is very likely true; two hundred years ago the systematic study of medieval art was still in its infancy.

In writing about Anstey, I mentioned a different interpretation of the figures; a century ago some took it to represent men grasping the prow of a boat, which perhaps is the ark, or a symbol of the Church. But I didn’t discuss why mermen (if that’s what they are**) should be found on a font. Mermaids, despite being pagan in origin, aren’t rare in churches. The usual explanation is that they represent the sin of lust; they’re often shown with a mirror, displaying vanity and dolling themselves up so they can all the more effectively tempt men down the primrose path to damnation.***

Mermen, however, aren’t so common. In European folklore they generally aren’t presented as being any more auspicious than their womenfolk, often getting the blame for storms, for example. And mermen on fonts are rarer still. Apart from St Peter’s and Anstey, the only other merperson on a font that I’m aware of is to be found in Braybrooke church, Northants. The figure here is sometimes interpreted as being a merman, but looks to me like a mermaid; it’s of about the same date as Anstey and St Peter’s, but otherwise has little in common with them. 

So why were the fonts decorated with mermen? Unfortunately, this is something we’ll never know. I can hazard two guesses: that the sculptor had taken a whimsical fancy to these figures from folklore as purely decorative devices. This seems unlikely, given the central importance of baptism;  would he have been given such licence in such a prominent place in the church? Or that the mermen represent the evils from which the child being baptised would be protected by becoming a member of the Church. This would be a more convincing explanation if there were more fonts bearing symbols of sin or evil. 

The opening exhibition in the newly refurbished Kettle’s Yard, called ‘Actions’, is inspired by a letter by Naum Gabo, and (according to the website) ‘seeks to reassert the potential of art as a poetic, social and political force in the world.’ St Peter’s, while not officially part of the gallery, has been used for a site-specific sculpture by the British-Bangladeshi artist Rana Begum. It’s called No. 764 Baskets, and comprises many (the catalogue says a thousand) bamboo baskets hand-woven in Bangladesh. They’re strung together in the church, forming a wave-like roof visitors can walk beneath. The catalogue says that ‘the work draws upon the artist’s childhood memories of basket weaving in her village in Bangladesh, as well as time spent reading the Qur’an at the local mosque, where the dappled morning light, sound of the water fountain and the mesmeric recitation created an atmosphere of peaceful concentration.’

At first when I entered the church I was focused entirely on the font, but I gradually allowed the baskets to impinge on my concentration, and the more I looked at them the more I was charmed and lulled. The effect is encradling, womb-like and comforting, making the small church even smaller, but also the baskets are star-like and reminiscent of the vast night sky, making it infinitely large. The baskets are soothingly repetitive, yet, being handmade, there must be tiny differences between them. I loved it, even though it gets in the way of the font a little.

It will remain in the church until April 29th. The font, fortunately, will stay there for as long as our civilisation lasts.

* See here for a drawing of St Peter's font dated 1858, showing a different pedestal.

** The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (1959) calls them 'tritons', which, given that the the makers and original users of the font probably knew very little about classical mythology, seems inappropriate.

*** But on the other hand, mermaids were in the later middle ages sometimes used as symbols of Christ, as their dual natures - part woman, part fish - was said to be like Christ - part man, part God.

Locked churches revisited (if only you could get into them)

There's an article by Simon Jenkins in yesterday's Guardian in which he calls for the nationalisation of England's parish churches as a solution to the problem of how to preserve them while congregations dwindle.

I'm going to use this as an excuse to revisit the subject of locked churches. One of my earliest posts, in 2015, attempted to tackle this subject (Getting into churches), (which has become one of my two or three most read, incidentally). I wrote then from a determinedly secularist standpoint; nowhere did I suggest, for example, that churches should be open because people might want to use them for private prayer. Perhaps my approach should have been more inclusive, but I was writing about myself and others like me, and felt that the religious were perfectly capable of speaking up for themselves. Neither did I make much effort to suggest what could be done to keep churches open; I was chiefly determined to have a good old cathartic rant, rather than offer any solutions. This time I'll try to correct those two faults (if  they are faults).

But first I must correct a factual error in Jenkins' article. He states that 'most [churches] are locked and inaccessible'. This isn't true. As a footnote to 'Getting into churches' I provided a link to the Digital Atlas of England Foundation, which has since become The Parish Church Photographic Survey. This constitutes an attempt to photograph every English parish church, which has obviously involved visiting them. (The photographer, C B Newham FSA, surely holds the record for visiting the most, beating Pevsner, who must have held the record previously.) I can no longer find the page which used to have statistics for the number of locked churches in each county, but I wrote down some of them. Countrywide, 58% of parish churches are generally open, with a further 12% advertising a keyholder. In Herts 66% are open, and 3% have a keyholder. So on average over two thirds of churches are accessible. (But note that these figures are specifically for Anglican churches and don't include other places of worship, such as non-conformist chapels, which are almost always locked, and Roman Catholic churches, which tend to be open in towns but not the country, in my limited experience.)

By claiming that most churches are inaccessible Jenkins paints an unnecessarily gloomy picture, and, more importantly, encourages the custodians of locked churches to keep them locked (because it's what everyone else is doing, apparently), and discourages people from trying to get into churches as they are lead to believe that their journey will be fruitless. However, it's undeniable that, while the situation isn't currently quite as dire as Jenkins suggests, if the number of people attending services doesn't increase - and there's absolutely no reason to think that it will - it's very hard to see how churches are going to be kept open and maintained. Neglected buildings decay and become dangerous, roofless ruins. If no solution is found, and a pretty radical solution at that, the situation will soon be very dire indeed.

The problem is compounded by the indifference, or even active hostility, towards church buildings from at least two directions. Firstly, from some secularists; no surprise there. Here, for example, is one of the comments under Jenkins' article:

My village/small town has a church which dates back a long time. It is still in use and my grandparents are buried in its yard. It is a a handsome building and I occasionally deign to enter it but only for funerals. I would be far happier if the church was just a hulk, a ruin the haunting presence of something that once was but is no more and which we no longer understood - a sort of local Stonhenge. At the funeral services I am always annoyed when the speaker in skirts suddenly switches from the Joe Bloggs in who's memory we are gathered to "in my father's house there are many mansions, if there were not I would have told you so", I came out of respect for the departed not for that trite myth.

While I like the idea of churches being taken from the C of E I would not for one moment agree to even a penny per lifetime for a church tax. Let them out for sufficient rent to pay for upkeep and administration or otherwise let them crumble. For too long these edifices of superstition have dominated every town and village in the land. With that in mind do not allow other superstitions to erect their form of domination in any area, let alone across the land.

And for goodness sake get the bishops out of the Lords today!

The author of this post, while admitting that the church is 'handsome', feels so little connection with the building that he or she 'would be far happier if the church was just a hulk, a ruin', 'a sort of local Stonehenge.' At least they're not calling for its wholesale demolition. But they allow their distaste for Christianity to blind them to the historical and cultural worth of church buildings, and undervalue their aesthetic contribution to the landscape.

Most secularists are probably indifferent rather than hostile; they just feel, as Jenkins says, that churches are of no interest to them. It doesn't occur to them to visit a church (except for the occasional wedding etc). Nor does it occur to them, apparently, how much they would lose if their local church were to disappear. They would (or at least I hope they would) be troubled if, say, the pictures in the National Gallery were flogged off to private owners and vanished from public view, but churches, which are far more integral to the life of the nation, are dismissed because belief in Christianity has become the preserve of a small minority. (Ironically, many of the paintings whose loss we'd (nearly) all mourn are also essentially religious tools.) Like the author of the post, they see churches only as the clubhouses of a few eccentrics, and are short-sighted enough to be unable to cherish the buildings for extra-religious reasons.

The second sort of person who, deliberately or otherwise, stands in the way of radical solutions is more surprising. Some Christians resent what they probably see as outside interference in their way of life. For example, a link to Jenkins' article was posted this morning on the Historic Churches of Norfolk Facebook page, and the first comment that appeared reads: 'What an idiot! Church buildings need their congregations. They aren't museums but places where the church recharges its batteries.' I've spoken to Christians who feel that the only important purpose of a church is worship, and that if the building is no longer used for this purpose it might as well be left to rot or demolished rather than be desecrated by being turned over for secular use. They're hostile to Jenkins, and presumably to me, because they perceive that we don't understand their beliefs or practices. They feel threatened by secularism, and put up the barricades. The comments under the article include many from Christians who are angry with Jenkins because he has helped, in their eyes, turn their sacred places into mere tourist attractions.

And Low Church Christians often deliberately discourage interest in their buildings, presumably because they feel that enjoying stone carving, stained glass and so on is tantamount to idolatry.* Most Christians of course take a pride in their church, but a significant minority are just as reluctant as secularists to make plans to rescue the buildings, if it means letting them fall into the hands of non-believers.

This is a disastrous situation. The two kinds of people who should be in agreement because we want the same thing - the preservation of our heritage of churches - are at odds. I don't know how to solve this; writing this post (if it has any effect at all, which I doubt) will probably only increase the resentment and anger because I'll be seen as encroaching on their territory and trying to claim part of it for myself. The first step towards solving the problem, however, has got to be to acknowledge that the problem exists.

The men and women who first built, and paid for and used, the churches were almost certainly believers, but that doesn't mean that churches haven't always had secular purposes. They were a focus of civic pride. They acted as art galleries and concert halls. They were community centres. They were places for quiet reflection. It's true that worship was the central and essential purpose of churches, but it's never been the only one. If the bulk of churches are going to survive, secularism and spirituality have got to work side by side, not against each other. 

Above are some of the problems facing churches, boiling down to indifference or even hostility towards them from a lot of people, which in turn means that not enough money is available. How to combat this? How to keep churches open for now and for future generations?

Of course, I can't magically provide dead cert solutions; I can only offer some thoughts. You might well think that they're feeble in the face of the immensity of the problem.

Education has to be the key. Children have to be encouraged to see their local church, and churches generally, as natural places for them to visit, without any proselytising. History teachers should use churches as part of the curriculum (I'm sure many do already). Church authorities, both local and national, should take the initiative and contact schools (specifically, history teachers) and invite them to visit.

Churches should be used for events that will attract a secular audience - flower festivals, concerts, lectures, etc - as much as possible, so people are encouraged to think of the buildings as central to their communities. They're far more likely to give money to restoration appeals and so on if they've been in; why would they give money to a place they've never visited? 

Churches should be, whenever possible, kept open, or at least advertise the whereabouts of a keyholder. Why would anyone take an interest in places they can't access and feel excluded from? As I said in my previous post, permanently locking churches is like putting razor wire around the village green.

I know it's easier to say than to accomplish, but why can't different denominations share the same buildings? In Herts (Much Hadham) there's the excellent example of the Catholics and Anglicans sharing the parish church. This would boost the numbers using the old buildings (though it would inevitably mean that the newer non-conformist chapels and RC churches would fall out of use, which would be sad, but they're often of less architectural merit and historical interest, so it would be a sacrifice worth making). If Christians can't collaborate with other Christians, what hope is there? After all, Baptists and Anglicans, for example, share far more beliefs than they have doctrinal disagreements. 

We can't save all churches, and we'll just have to accept that some will have to go, or, preferably, be turned over to other uses so at least the exterior remains intact. Selling them off makes money for the preservation of the survivors. 

All lovers of churches, the secular as much as the religious, should try to give what money they can. Put money in the wall safes (not forgetting to fill in a Gift Aid form). Join the National Churches Trust and the Churches Conservation Trust. Buy tickets for the events in the church.

Money will inevitably be a problem. I'm inclined to agree with Jenkins that some form of nationalisation, problematic though that would be, is the only solution radical enough. Anything else will doom a majority of churches. That can't be allowed to happen.

* This is why churches with Evangelical ministries are much more likely to be locked. In Stamford, Lincs, for example, all the medieval churches welcome visitors except the one in the hands of evangelicals. You'd think that evangelicals would want to evangelise, and that getting people through the door would be a good first step, but apparently not.