St Giles’, Tadlow is a “well-lit by jewelled blue-grey windows; a characteristic floor, delicate strips of pink and yellow on the sanctuary walls, and a delicious font of pinkish grey on a white base”.
The quotation above is from Paul Thompson, William Butterfield’s biographer. You see, this is a medieval church “pleasantly placed, in a leafy position” that had a Butterfield restoration in the late 1800s.
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If, like us, you keep an eye on the Church Commissioners’ consultation page on closed churches, you will see that there is a live consultation which seeks to put this Grade II* Cambridgeshire church into our care.
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St Giles’ has its origins in the 13th century with walls and windows built from fieldstones and dressed but irregular blocks of Clunch.
The chalky tower was added in 1472.
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It appears that the chancel was reduced in length some time before 1748 and appears to retain that footprint. Inside, the much-decayed floor slab with the ghost of an effigy just inside the south door is to Margaret Brogriffe of 1493.
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But really, the inside is all about Butterfield. He spent the best part of 20 years (1855-1874) restoring this church. We are yet to learn what condition it was in when he began this restoration campaign.
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As well as improving the internal environment of old churches, the aim of the Victorian High Movement was to reclaim the architectural nirvana of the 14th century – to return to this high point of religious expression in architecture. Colour was a hugely important part of this.
In most of Butterfield’s churches colour is confined to the sanctuary, floor, and font, and often only the east window has stained glass. The east window is by Butterfield’s favourite stained-glass artist, Alexander Gibbs.
Medieval fragments survive in some nave lights.
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The church comes with a mega list of repairs. It’s suffering severe structural movement, needs new roofs, drains, stone stitches, glazing repairs…
All going well, this church will be in our care next month. We can’t wait to start mending it, and welcoming people back.
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Huge thanks to @badger_beard for all of these great photos, and for being a friend to St Giles' over the past few years.
Red and yellow and pink and green ... most children can tell you that rainbows contain seven colours, and many of us use 'ROYGBIV' to remember them. But people haven't always seen rainbows this way.
Rubens' 'The Rainbow Landscape' of 1636 was painted just three decades before major new scientific theories about colour and light emerged. The rainbow lights up surrounding clouds with highlights of lemony yellow and blue.
In 1664, Robert Boyle conducted experiments with prisms, and in the 'artificial rain-bow' he produced, he observed five colours: Red, Yellow, Green, Blew and Purple. ...
The church at Skeffling was built from glacial clutter and recycled masonry in the 1400s. It sits in Holderness. A landscape of mudflats and salt-marshes washed into existence by the North Sea.
Here ‘leaves unnoticed thicken, hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken’.
Those are the words of poet, Philip Larkin. Larkin explored this area after he moved to Hull in 1955 to take up the position of librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull. He lived there and held that job for thirty years, until his death in 1985.
Of Hull, he wrote "I never thought about Hull until I was here. Having got here, it suits me in many ways. It is a little on the edge of things, I think even its natives would say that. I rather like being on the edge of things.”
If there were more than 20 sheep in the flock, he could note the first 20 when he reached Figgit by putting a pebble in his pocket, and then starting the sequence from Yan again.
(info from 'Alex's Adventures in Numberland' by Alex Bellos)
In about 1300, five massive oak legs were pushed into the soil at Boveney to raise a belltower out of the clay tile roof of the 12th-century church. Inside, in the 1800s fielded panelling was installed, hiding those hardworking legs.
Perfect as that panelling looked, it obscured the most important timbers. Noticing that the bellcote was somewhat slumped, our architect removed some panels, and we found the legs were rotten. Boveney church was *almost* without a leg to stand on.
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Many things contributed to the decay-the high water-table of the river-bank church, deathwatch beetle, fruiting bodies… The panelling concealed this until it was almost too late. The words, ‘catastrophic collapse’, were used. Panic set in. The £60,000 repair bill quadrupled.
Between 1666 and 1680, the English parliament sought to protect the wool trade, by requiring the dead to be buried in nothing but a shroud of English sheep's wool. Plague victims and the destitute were the only exceptions.
The 'Burying in Woollen Acts' required an Affidavit within 8 days of burial, proving before a JP that the law had been complied with. Those who didn't comply were fined £5, half of which went to the poor. This blog has some terrific examples of affidavits:buff.ly/3YkB33B
Many wealthy families preferred to simply pay the fine and bury their loved ones in clothing or shrouds of finer materials, such as linen.
St Patrick was ripped from his home as a teenager. After six years as a slave in the west of Ireland, he trekked the breadth of the island to get home to Britain. He would become the patron saint of Ireland, yet at the end of his life, he felt he had failed.
Patrick lived in the 5th century. Upon leaving Ireland in his early 20s, he devoted his life to Christ. He returned to Ireland after hearing Vox Hiberionacum – the voice of the Irish – in a dream.
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He became the patron saint of Ireland in the 7th century when the embellishment of St Patrick’s story began. Some of the biographers got quite creative, attributing all manner of miracles to the man – from snakes to sprouting staffs.