Last week we sealed the transfer on the first church of 2022 to come into our care.
It’s St Andrew’s, South Runcton, Norfolk: an excellent rebuilding of a ruined Norman church on the side of the Downham Market to Kings Lynn Road, and one of Norfolk’s first Victorian churches.
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By 1812, St Andrew’s was a crumbling, overgrown ruin of Romanesque arch and apse. Norwich artist, John Sell Cotman’s sketch of the church at that date shows what survived when Norwich architect, John Brown came on the scene in 1839.
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Brown rebuilt St Andrew’s in a Neo-Norman style, but the jury is out on how much Norman ruin he incorporated into his redesign. Some think he renewed the lot; others think he recut the chevron and billet decoration; some think he retained the bottom section of the arch.
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Arch and apse aside, the west front has giant corner pilasters, a bit of zig-zagging, a dog-tooth super-arch and some blind arcading. Textbook Norman.
The south elevation has more arcading, billet-moulding and a corbel table of grotesques.
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The northside is remarkable for its relative plainness. No arcading here. Just a stray grotesque or two. And an apsidal vestry with a conical roof that was tacked on in 1858. The vestry carries a date plaque with the cross of St Andrew and is riddled with asbestos.
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St Andrew’s is a church that rewards patient, careful looking. Look that the bell-cote crowning the gable: it’s a mini triple arch structure that replicates the triple arch detail found along the south elevation.
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Some people think the grotesques are reminiscent of Easter Island figures, others see Lego blocks but to me they are ultra-modern, stylised Norman beakheads. I love looking at them, and can’t wait to get up and learn if they were individually carved or mass-moulded.
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We have a LOT of repairs to do here. The church has been languishing on this busy roadside for over a decade. But we’re delighted that we could take it into our ownership, and will keep you updated on repairs and discoveries as we progress.
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As ever, no one pays us to take on these churches. We do it with membership subscriptions and donations. Our members and donors saved this church. So, thank you.
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.