The Snarford tombs

This is the church of St Lawrence at Snarford in Lincolnshire. Pretty unimposing from the outside.

It’s one of the Churches Conservation Trust churches I am visiting as part of my Fifty before Fifty challenge.

One of the things I like about this little journey I am on is that there is a surprise behind every door, you really never know what you are going to find inside these redundant buildings and this one really is special.

Snarford (once spelled Snertesford) means Snortr’s ford, so home of a Viking called Snortr at a ford across the Barlings Eau then.

The village is listed in the Doomsday Book, where it is documented that there were 16 families living in the village. This church is later than the 1086 Doomsday survey though, probably built in the 12th century, it had extensive refurbishment in the 14th century.

The village is long since disappeared. Another lost medieval village. Reaching its height in the early Middle Ages, Charles Knightly, in his booklet for the Churches Conservation Trust, says the village seems to have gone into decline in Tudor times and may have been almost deserted when Snarford Hall was built. The Hall has now also vanished but a lovely informative tourism board has been placed by the church by Lincolnshire County Council. Now only the church and Hall Farm remain of the old village.

As I’ve said, the outside is pretty unassuming, I found an interesting bricked up door though. I like doors, even bricked up ones.

But this church is actually spectacular … and the reasons are inside.

This incredible six-poster monument is the tomb of Sir Thomas St Paul (also spelled St Poll and Smapoll) and his wife. Owner of Snarford Hall, Sir Thomas was knighted by Queen Elizabeth I, he was MP for Grimsby and a Sheriff of Lincolnshire. His wife was Faith Grantham who was descended from a fine Lincolnshire lineage herself.

The tomb is covered in heraldry, it is brash and colourful and the effigies are life sized.

 

The detail is amazing. One the top of the monument are the couple’s children and around it an inscription reads “Here lies Thomas St Poll, knight, who died on the 29th August AD 1582, in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and rests in Christ. Reader, you see what I am, you know what I have been. Consider what you yourself must be.” Apparently he was quite pious.

His son and heir was Sir George who died in 1613. Not to be outdone, Sir George has his own tomb in the church.

Here he is, with his wife Frances Wray. He looks a bit rakish to me but apparently he was also a religious man.

This slightly ridiculous pose has been dubbed ‘the toothache pose’. I like that. The tomb is an absolute work of art but their pose is a bit ridiculous. I wonder if they planned it before their deaths and thought this a cool and more modern arrangement than mum and dad lying flat on their backs with their hands clasped in prayer.

Or maybe they had no say and a descendant thought this an appropriate memorial to the couple.

 

Beneath the couple is an effigy of their only child Mattathia (unusual name) who died before her second birthday. Frances never really got over the grief.

The monuments are impressive, certainly, and really unexpected in this small parish and unimposing parish church. The original village is now lost, the stately home lost, but the St Paul (St Poll, Sampoll) family will not ever be forgotten thanks to these amazing monuments.

After a couple of years of widowhood, Frances Wray remarried. Her spouse was Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick and this monument celebrates the two. The marriage wasn’t exactly a match made in heaven. Warwick died in 1619 and is buried with his family in Essex. Frances lived on at Snarford until her death in 1634.

These monuments really do take your breath away. They are huge, colourful and imposing. But they aren’t the only things of interest in this little church.

It has one of the finest 15th century octagonal fonts in the county, with beautiful carvings, some of which depict objects connected with the crucifixion.

I find it amazing that children have been baptized in this font for more than 600 years.

I have found a book I think will be interesting that I am going to order from Amazon. It explains the architecture and the imagery of the English church. The more I see and the more I discover about the people who lived in these little off the beaten track places, the more I want to learn.

I have more Lincolnshire churches still to come … and plenty more around the country still to see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My perfect storm of a week

This is the light shining through at the end of the storm.

It’s been one of those weeks.

I still have some churches to blog about but I’m going to do those is a separate post. First I’m going to rant about my week, less because I think it’s interesting and more because I find it cathartic (sorry).

We had an upgrade of our editorial systems this week. It did not go well.

Because of a change in the operations a lot more traffic was being put through the six servers we use for our operations and they crashed, all of them, several times. Without going into too much detail, that meant reporters could not write stories, photographers could not upload pictures, my production team could not produce pages and adverts could not be placed in publications.

This does not make the production of newspapers easy.

And the system went down across the country.

At the peak of the problem on Wednesday afternoon, I was trying to keep up with three group chats on my computer with techies from Glasgow to Moscow explaining in non-layman’s terms that I struggled to understand what was going on. It was at this point Gorgeous Daughter No 1 rang.

She has recently quit her job to follow her dream of becoming a nurse. She is enrolled on an access to nursing course from September and plans to finance herself by working as a care assistant in sheltered accommodation for the elderly. She has done a couple of training sessions and was starting on some shadow shifts.

She called, in floods of tears, worried she may have done the wrong thing. Her shift had been chaotic, half the 24 residents had had the sickness and diarrhea bug currently going around and, on top of that, despite the fact she hadn’t finished her training, she had been coerced into working nightshift Friday night.

Daughters always take priority over work, whatever the crisis is, so we talked for a while until she was happier and then I got back to work.

The huge problems at work meant we nearly lost some publications this week but we got there by the skin of our teeth and the superhuman efforts of the people I work with who really pulled out all the stops.

But it did mean two 16 hour days and they take their toll these days – I was definitely feeling old!

Back to GD1 and she was absolutely terrified about working the nightshift on Friday. I’m not sure I have seen her so upset. She had completed two of the four shadow shifts she was meant to do as part of her training and none of the night shadow shifts; and three of her class-based training sessions had also not been completed because when she got to them, they had been cancelled without anyone telling her.

But she did not want to let down the one other person working that night or the elderly residents who all suffer from dementia. So she went, and I was extremely proud of her.

The shift actually went ok and the woman she was working with was extremely nice, she said.

But – and this is a big but – the only other member of staff had never worked a nightshift before either! This unit, housing 24 vulnerable people with dementia, left two inexperienced staff, one of whom was only half trained, in control for 10 hours on Friday night.

I am outraged.

And this isn’t a dodgy, flea-bitten care home. This is an enormously expensive care home where relatives pay an absolute fortune to ensure their loved ones get the best care possible.

I am disgusted with them.

They put their clients and my daughter and the other young woman working Friday night at huge risk. Thankfully nothing untoward happened, but it could have done.

I think my daughter has now decided this is not the type of organisation she wants to work for, and I wholeheartedly agree.

Now they say things come in threes and the third thing was my camera. Repair quote = £360!!! I nearly fell off my chair. So I think I have decided that rather than pay it, I shall replace it with something reconditioned that will have a full guarantee.

So that was my week. Tiredness and stress kicked in towards the end of the week but, after GD 1 returned unscathed from nightshift yesterday morning, a Saturday evening filled with the Eurovision Song Contest (which I love for its general awfulness) and a decent night’s sleep, the sun is shining through again.

Rant over :) I feel better now.

 

 

The other two West Sussex churches

So having got to West Sussex with a camera that didn’t work, I decided I might as well continue on my planned route and visit the other two Churches Conservation Trust churches that I had set out to see for the Fifty Before Fifty challenge: St Mary Magdalene at Tortington and the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Warminghurst.

Like the church with no name at North Stoke, a church at Warminghurst is in the Doomsday Book but the church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt totally in about 1220.

Here it is, iPhone photos I’m afraid owing to broken camera.

Now this church featured one of my favourite churchy things …

… a three deck pulpit. I love these. You get a real feeling of the power of the clergy when you are standing in one of these looking down on where your congregation would be sitting (yes I did try it out for size). It also had box pews which, as I’ve said before, I just don’t get. But the pulpit was lovely.

Now in this church the box pews were rented out to the congregation according to their social status. The pews without the doors towards the back of the church were the free seats for the poor members of the community.

The Butler family owned the Warminghurst estate throughout the 1700s. In 1707 James Butler had the church remodeled. One of the additions was this painting on plaster..

It is the Royal Coat of Arms of Queen Anne and, repainted in 1845, it is still in remarkable condition.

There are other famous people connected with the church too. William Penn, Quaker after whom Pennsylvania takes its name, lived at Warminghurst and worshipped here and Henry Shelley, ancestor of Percy Bysshe Shelley, built the burial chapel now used as a vestry.

And there is a memorial to George Freeman, founder of the Times Educational Supplement.

You can also still see the base of a 13th century double piscina. There are memorials on the wall above it and the piscina was probably filled in when those were erected.

But the most interesting feature (at least as far as I was concerned) was the brass dedicated to Edward Shelley (another Percy relative?)

Here he is alongside his seven sons. On the other side of the brass is his wife with their three daughters. You can see that son number seven has lost his head. This is deliberate and it is because in reality son number seven really did lose his head. Edward Shelley junior brought disgrace on the family when in 1588 he was executed for harboring a Catholic priest and so his head was removed from the brass memorial as well. Now I think that’s a little harsh (but a nice quirky little story).

Now this pretty little place is the Church of St Mary Magdelene at Tortington. Not in the Doomsday Book, it is thought to have been built about 1140 and this is another church faced in the local flint.

But just look at that archway. It’s glorious.

It’s Norman, estimated at 11th or 12th century and, according to experts on this church, because of the changes over the years this archway must have been taken apart and rebuilt three times in its history. It’s in beautiful condition though, and I love the door.

Inside the church is another great archway carved in Caen stone. It’s got those funny beaked creatures on it like the church we found in Tutbury in Staffordshire. I love these things but now I really need to buy a book on church architecture so I can find out what they mean.

This church is also famous for its stained glass. This is a depiction of St Richard, Bishop of Chichester and it is late 19th century and created by Charles Kempe, famed in stained glass circles. The bottom left had corner of the window features his trademark wheatsheaf.

One of the other things I really liked about this church was this.

A list of the Vicars of Tortington. Now, quite apart from the names, which I love (Wylli, Ballinghall Beath, Duncomb et al)  dear old Robert Bartlett appears to have lived for a very long time :)

A camera disaster and another church

I’ve been a bit lax with my blogging recently, there has been a lot going on … busy, busy, busy at work and we are being evicted again! (nice landlord got made redundant and had to sell our house, which I was hoping would take him a long time but sadly didn’t).

However nice letting agent appears to have found us something even better in the same village and at the same price – we are going to meet the landlord and landlady this morning so keep your fingers crossed.

But there is another reason too … I have been sulking, my camera is sick and I’m hoping it’s not terminal.

One weekend a little while ago, on a weekend I wasn’t seeing Man, I decided to trundle out and tick off some more churches for my Fifty Before Fifty challenge.

I thought I’d head south and east a bit to West Sussex. I planned out my route, it wasn’t a particularly nice day weather wise but what does that matter? And I was even organised enough to pack my tripod.

I drove for about an hour and a half, arrived at the lovely hamlet of North Stoke (flint cottage, farmhouse, church) and grabbed the camera. No click, the battery was dead.

I swapped the battery for the spare. No click, that battery was dead too. I was very cross with myself.

But I was in West Sussex, it had taken me a while to get there and I didn’t want to waste the day, so I resorted to taking photos with my iPhone. Not ideal, but not completely disastrous.

Later, when I got home, I tried to charge the  batteries. Both were fully charged. I replaced the back up battery, still nothing. Then I remembered the last time I had used the camera it had been in persistent drizzle and, while my old Nikon was completely robust about a bit of damp, the Canon clearly is not.

I researched on the internet, took out both batteries, removed the lens and the sd card, covered it in a cloth and left it by a radiator … for weeks it sat by the radiator with me testing it occasionally. We have now got to the stage where I can fire it up, reset the date and take one or two pictures before it dies on me again. And that’s after about six weeks of drying out.

So last week I finally conceded and took it to hospital. It’s been sent off for repairs and I am still waiting for the quote (which indicates to me that it could be quite pricey :( ). But I need my camera back. I am not complete without it.

So, back to the church, sadly with photos that aren’t going to do it justice.

The dedication for the North Stoke Church have been lost in the mists of time, so it’s just known as North Stoke Church. Both it, and the village, are mentioned in the Doomsday Book and it is one of a few churches in very close proximity to each other on the curve of the river Arun.

The name Stoke (Stoch in the Doomsday Book) comes from the word stoc, which just means place, or sometimes a religious place.

This cruciform church is looks pretty much the same as it did in the 14th century and there is a lesson in the development of 13th century stained glass windows inside its walls.

The walls are covered in flints and stones from the surrounding land. There is a blocked priests’ doorway in the chancel wall that dates from around 1240. People were short in those days.

The inside is bright and clean, walls covered in a cream limewash. But there are traces of wall paintings still be be seen. I would have loved to have seen these churches in all their original glory.

There is a piscina and also a set of three graduated sedilia, going down the steps. Apparently these were used for the Celebrant, Deacon and Sub Deacon to sit in during medieval High Mass. Again I make the point, these were very small people. Why have humans got taller over the years, I really must find out.

There is another recess in the south transept. It sits underneath arches and has a carved sheep’s head above it, this was – and is – farming country after all. Experts believe this could have been where the Lord of the Manor sat, who knows.

The glass in this window has been dated at between 1290 and 1310, although not all of it is believed to be in its original position. It is thought to depict part of a scene of Our Lady’s Coronation and some think the guy on the right is King David from another scene. Whatever it depicts its and 800 year old work of stained glass art in situ in a tiny parish church.

This font has been used to baptise the children of North Stoke for more than 750 years. I wonder what the community was like 750 years ago. I wonder who the villagers this church was built to serve were and what their community was like.

According to the Churches Conservation Trust information booklet about North Stoke Church there were just 51 people living in the village in 1961 and there are fewer now. The church was declared redundant in 1992. Not a big enough population to warrant a church.

Now, the population has grown by an enormous percentage and yet these little places are now deserted. I suppose its a combination of more people moving from the countryside to the town, less people going to church and people being able to travel more quickly and easily from place to place.

But I really would love to know more about what these little communities were like.

 

In search of heroes

Man was down at my place this weekend (he calls it his country retreat) and I had promised him a weekend of places that he was interested in for once, rather than coercing him into accompanying my to churches and ruined castles.

And we did do that, no, honestly we did, but I still managed to persuade him to take a little detour to Aldershot Military Cemetery.

I was looking for the grave of aviation pioneer Samuel Cody, having seen photographs of the memorial procession through the streets of Aldershot and Farnborough 100 years ago.

I found the memorial quite quickly (it’s the big one with the statue).

But then I was struck by the beautiful setting of this military cemetery.

Set on a hill and tucked away in the Military Town, many fallen servicemen rest here. Soldiers, airmen, early aviation pioneers are buried in the peace and tranquility of a beautifully tended garden.

Some of their relatives’s graves are also here, military wives and children.

Many of the soldiers’ headstones bore their regimental badges, and there was a whole swathe of white headstones with  maple leaves engraved on them, soldiers buried on a foreign shore.

I always find cemeteries and graveyards interesting and poignant but military ones especially so.

Here lie heroes.

 

 

A little update on some fundraising

In August last year I wrote a post called In Memory of Adam about the fundraising efforts of the daughter of a friend of mine in memory of her childhood sweetheart and husband of just nine months who was killed serving in Afghanistan.

Amy was, and still is, raising money for her charity Adam’s Hoofing Hut. The money raised through a wide variety of fundraising activities is to finance a beach hut in Mudeford, Dorset, for soldiers and their families to use. It was a place very special to Adam’s family and to Amy; Adam proposed to her in one of these beach huts.

Well last week, she picked up the keys to Adam’s Hut. In a very short space of time she and her friends and family have raised the money needed to buy the hut. An incredible achievement.

But the fundraising doesn’t stop here.

They plan to build a purpose-built hut on the site they have bought and so the work continues.

Last night a local pub staged Party in the Car Park and hundreds of people turned out to enjoy some live music and raise more cash.

The event was held last year too. The musicians play on a truck loaned by a local haulage firm. The pub closes off its car park so the event can take over and they have a great line-up of musicians.

This is Dani B on stage, a local up and coming artist.

John James Newman is another local guy. He featured on the tv series The Voice last year but got knocked out in the knock out rounds. The guy on the right is David Julien. He made it on to the live finals of The Voice 2012. Both are great singers and they supported Party in the Car Park last year as well.

John James had a special guest on stage last night … his dad.

What was lovely about last night is the way people have come together to support Amy and her and Adam’s families in their bid to provide a lasting memorial to Marine Adam Brown. It is a cause very dear to their hearts and has been adopted by our little community in a way I haven’t seen for years.

Amy is an amazing young woman and I believe that Adam would be as proud of her and the work she has done as she so obviously is of him.

 

 

 

 

A church that’s not on the list

This is the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Tutbury, Staffordshire. It claims to be the oldest usable building in the county.

It isn’t on the Churches Conservation Trust list that I am tracking down but, hey, I can’t be too restrictive :)

We visited Tutbury on Sunday to visit the castle. This church was attached to the Priory founded by the owner of the castle Henry de Ferrers. There is believed to be an Anglo Saxon church pre-dating this one underneath but work began on this one in 1086 and it was consecrated on the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in 1089.

The Benedictine Priory was built about 60 years later and inhabited by brothers from Normandy and dedicated to St Peter.

 

It suffered the same fate as most monasteries in the dissolution but the church remains in a pretty churchyard covered in primroses.

Unfortunately we couldn’t get in (I think it sad that a lot of churches are locked now) but the real interest in this church are the door carvings.

Look at those, they are amazing and in such good condition.

This is the west door of the church and is said to be one of the richest Norman church fronts in the country.

There are birds, beasts and imps in these carvings and most of them are still in incredible conditions.

 

This arch is alabaster. It is the earliest example of alabaster carving in the country and the only example of it being used in an exterior arch.

 

This is the south door. The panel above depicts a boar hunt and is thought to be Saxon, the arches are believed to be Norman.

Both doors are very ornate.

There is evidence of canon damage on the west wall, from one of the instances of the castle being under attack. Now that’s not very civilised it is?