By the 1860s, St Andrews, South Huish was showing its age.

During a service, high winds blew in a pane of glass. Shards narrowly missed Fr Hole, the officiant.

It was the death knell for the church...

But not before it gave up one final secret hidden in its walls...

#thread
Fr Hole stopped all services. To repair the church they were quoted £300. (About £37,000 today)

That sort of money simply wasn’t available. It would be cheaper to build a new church.

Fr Hole set about dismantling St Andrew’s bit-by-bit…

2/
The 14th-century font and marble tablets were relocated to the new church at Galmpton. The ancient stoup found its way to Salcombe church. The 16th-century painted screen was sold to Mr Ilbert of Bowringsleigh for 20 guineas. The Earl of Devon bought the pews.

3/
The roof timbers were sold for a lump sum of £5. The lead went for £10 and four shillings. The six bells were removed but all trace of them is lost. In 1884, the south arcade collapsed. The parishioners gathered the masonry and used it in rebuilding Kingsbridge church.

4/
Fr Hole was nothing if not thorough. While clearing out a niche, he discovered fragments of a 15th-century alabaster reredos buried behind the plaster in the east wall!

What a thrill!

5/
The fragments depict scenes from the life of Christ. They are so well-preserved and even retain traces of original paint! You will be glad to know Fr Hole didn't flog these sculptures... and they are now displayed at Galmpton church.

6/
When we adopted St Andrews in 1976, it was a sorry state. Work has been gradual and continuous.

Nature is constantly trying to reclaim this church. We continue to mend it a little each year.

This is a place where prayer has been valid.

7/

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More from @friendschurches

26 Feb
When we took St Denis’s, East Hatley into our care in 2017. It had been empty since 1961. The windows were left to rot till they fell out, the openings boarded up. We thought all glazing had was long lost until, a man called us to say he had some fragments in his shed...

#thread
I went to meet him. He carefully pulled out some fragile fragments from a shelf. It was an angel’s face, one wing, and some brightly-coloured arcs. He had found them in the churchyard in 1985 and kept them safe for 33 years. 

2/
We’ve been restoring St Denis’s in stages, as funds permit. In 2018, we put in new floors and plain glazing to the nave windows. Right now, we’re conserving the much-damaged Butterfield scheme on the chancel walls, and restoring glazing to the chancel windows.

3/
Read 7 tweets
25 Feb
Long Crichel is a small and rather sleepy village in the Cranborne Chase.
So shockwaves must have rippled through the lanes in 1945 when a group of artists, critics, authors and gay rights activists moved in to the Long Crichel House… right next to the church.
#thread #LGBTHM21
Long Crichel House had been the church rectory until 1945 when it was sold to music critic and novelist, Eddy Sackville-West; his partner, music critic, Desmond Shawe-Taylor and Edward Eardley Knollys of the Bloomsbury Set. Soon, literary critic, Raymond Mortimer joined them.

2/
The new owners of Long Crichel House had a wide circle of creative and influential friends who would meet here. The house – and village - became a retreat for like-minded people, including writers, composers, poets, artists and actors.

3/
Read 8 tweets
24 Feb
St Philip's, Caerdeon, Gwynedd: the first church of 2021 to be saved.

Since closing in 2014, we've been working to take this church into our care. In 2019, we appealed to our supporters to help us fund the most urgent works.

You did it. St St Philip's is protected.

#thread
Tucked between Barmouth and Bontddu, St Philip’s is a church of extraordinary individuality and importance. It has been described as rustic Mediterranean, Alpine, of French Basque influence. Curiously, it’s just a stone’s throw from St Mark’s, Brithdir – another exotic church.
2/
St Philip's rubble-slate construction dates to 1861. It includes a loggia with stone benches and pairs of round-headed, Romanesque windows, and a bellcote-cum-chimney, which shelters four bells that are rung by large wheel found in a shelter to the north of the church.

3/
Read 10 tweets
22 Feb
The artist John Piper was enchanted by the Welsh landscape - the coast, the craggy hills, ruined castles, ancient churches.

Piper was a founding member of the Friends. And whilst he travelled and painted throughout the UK, he had a very special love for Pembrokeshire.

#thread
John and his wife, Myfanwy, first discovered Pembrokeshire in the 1930s. In 1962, they bought a ruined cottage at Garn Fawr. The following year, John contributed photographs to the South-West Wales Shell Guide.

2/
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, he found great inspiration in Pembrokeshire's churches.

In 1985, he made this gouache and ink sketch of the interior of our church, St David's, Manordeifi.

3/
Read 5 tweets
20 Feb
We’re busy repairing the windows at St Mary’s, Long Crichel, Dorset.

In the plain-glazed leaded lights, the lead cames, which hold the glass in place had perished and distorted, meaning that, in some places the glass was loose and in others, it was under great stress.

#thread
Our glazier has removed the entire windows to his workshop, and is carefully renewing all the leadwork in this beautiful rippling lead pattern. He is also replacing broken quarries (sections of glass) – some are plain, others are painted with a simple trefoil motif.

2/
The stained-glass windows at the church are all in good condition, but one panel featuring a heraldic lion needs some repair. Out of the window and up close, it’s astonishing to see the detail on the lion up close – usually it’s tucked up high in the transept tracery.

3/
Read 4 tweets
19 Feb
Yesterday we shared the story of how we came to care for the solitary tower of Old St Matthew's in Lightcliffe, West Yorkshire.

Although the rest of the church has gone forever, stories of the people who gathered there remain. And one of those is a love story ...

#thread Image
St Matthew's church and tower was still new when the Walker family of Lightcliffe baptised Ann Walker there in 1803. 25 yrs later, after her brother's sudden death on his honeymoon, Ann and her sister inherited the family's estate, Crow Nest (less than a mile from St Matthew's). Image
At around the same time, in nearby Halifax, another heiress, Anne Lister, known locally as 'Captain Tom Lister' (and later 'Gentleman Jack'), took charge of her family home, Shibden Hall.

Ann and Anne had known each other as neighbours for some time ...
Read 7 tweets

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