Tuesday 24 February 2015

An Old Church

Especially for John Ford, who loves history and beauty!

These are some recent photos I took of a particularly lovely old church in our town. It is dedicated to St John the Baptist and is definitely of 12th century Norman foundation, possibly earlier. The first priest of whom there are records was one Glou, acting as witness to a document in 1189.



The heavily battlemented tower was used as the base for a wooden platform
 which would have jutted out to act as a defensive
 and lookout post for invaders from the sea or from the nearby duneland.




The preaching cross base in the churchyard is ancient but the cross itself is more modern.




The South Porch, used as the normal entrance into the church.
This was used as the schoolroom of the parish. 
The large stone on the left is a memorial stone; 
on the right is the 14th century Holy Water stoup.




This is  the view from the altar, 
looking back to the tower and the West Door.





And this is the incredibly rare, original mediaeval solid stone altar slab. 
King Edward VI's henchmen were meticulous 
in following his orders to destroy every stone altar slab 
in  every church in England and Wales, but seem to have missed this one :-)





The East window above the altar, designed by Edward Burne-Jones, the Pre-Raphaelite artist.
 If you look closely, the central figure of Christ is beardless. 
The reason for this is.....




...as a tribute to the beardless figure of Christ on the unique
 15th century Grotesque school pulpit which depicts the Flagellation of Christ.
The stairs lead to the pulpit on the left and to the right they lead
 to the platform which would have enabled the choir to stand by the Rood Loft. 
The Loft  and platform are sadly long gone, thanks to the iconoclastic Reformation, 
but the two squints which would allow the choir to follow 
the progress of the Mass still remain. 




One of them is shown above.




Part of the mediaeval wall painting depicting
 the beheading of John the Baptist, 
and a very modern icon of the saint.





On the South wall is another painting, 
which is believed to be the Archangel Gabriel.



The sanctuary roof



The 1914-1918 Memorial window  is by Halliday, 
an 80 year old former pupil of Burne-Jones, 
who also chose to depict Christ as beardless.




A view of the south of the church and the churchyard.









2 comments:

Anonymous said...

These photographs are all amazing. I like the full shot of the church but the kirkyard is my favorite. Thank you again, Sian. Thank you for thinking of me.

John (Ford)

Elizabeth @ The Garden Window said...

You are very, very welcome, John!

I am always glad to have a good excuse to go out and take photographs :-)

If there is anything else you would like me to take photos of, just let me know.