Chantries, poor livings and the gift of a lectern

Late medieval gospel lecterns are wonderful things and I have blogged about them and their purpose before. There are quite a number of 15th-century latten lecterns in Norfolk and Suffolk, but the example from Oxborough in Norfolk, dating from the 1480s, is particularly impressive. Not only is it a delightful object visually, with its eagle... Continue Reading →

17th Oct 2018 0

Burial ground or rubbish dump?

Buckinghamshire is a wealthy and pleasant county in the south east of England, rather too pleasant for churches to be kept open. The day I visited Chearsley, only half of the churches I visited were open - which is not a very good record. Anyway it was a delight to get into this charming little... Continue Reading →

15th Oct 2018 0

Founders of this Chantry, the interaction of ritual and memorial.

I had a trip into Berkshire a few months ago and to Childrey, where the church is a complex building of extraordinary interest, with lots of medieval glass and numerous late medieval monumental brasses. In the south transept, there is a fine early sixteenth-century monument of Purbeck marble which is built up against the north... Continue Reading →

10th Oct 2018 7

‘callyd the bachellers lyte’

Goodness, what a building. The Church of Our Lady in Worstead in Norfolk is an enormous box of delights, built on the wealth of the cloth trade. Worstead was a major centre of yarn manufacture and weaving from the twelfth century to such an extent that the general term for high-quality woollen cloth took its... Continue Reading →

5th Oct 2018 0

The Stanton Harcourt Rood Screen

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jsSt Michael's, Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire, is a treasure house, a fine cruciform church of Norman origin, containing a wonderful array of monuments and important fittings. The Early English chancel, built around 1250, is a space of breathtaking purity and beauty. It's triple lancets are divided by clusters of slender shafts, topped with stiff leaf... Continue Reading →

29th Apr 2018 4

The Image of Pity – the Wellingham rood screen.

Wellingham is a remote little hamlet in the middle of Norfolk to the south of Fakenham. It's church, heavily rebuilt in 1896 is rather undistinguished, but it contains a great treasure. The dado of a rood screen from the 1530s. Rather interestingly the screen is inscribed and precisely dated. The inscription on the upper... Continue Reading →