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Andy D
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« Reply #105 on: 23:10:02, 30-03-2008 » |
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St Peter's has 3 fine lychgates. Here is the middle one.  [cotitsalv] |
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Daniel
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« Reply #106 on: 13:29:08, 31-03-2008 » |
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Well, not the same overwhelming splendour or scale as York Minster or King's College Chapel, but St. Mary the Virgin, Iffley, Oxford is one of the most handsome churches I have ever visited.  Sitting just a couple of hundred yards from the Thames, it's a twelfth century church which had a chancel added on the East End in the following century, but otherwise has kept its original narrow shape. It is described as 'one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in the country'. Just on the right as you walk in.through the very beautiful West Front, is a John Piper window, and inside there are more chevron carvings on the splendid arches and windows.  St. Mary's, also had its own Anchoress ( Annora), who lived in a cell attached to the church in the thirteenth century. |
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« Last Edit: 13:32:14, 31-03-2008 by Daniel »
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MabelJane
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« Reply #107 on: 15:15:50, 31-03-2008 » |
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Very interesting, Daniel, I enjoyed reading about Annora. I'd never heard of anchoresses.
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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David_Underdown
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« Reply #108 on: 15:23:21, 31-03-2008 » |
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St. Mary's, Cholsey is easily viewed from the Western main line between Reading and Didcot, looking particularly fetching when the big field which separates it from the embankment is full of oilseed rape. Amongst its claims to fame is the fact that it's the last resting place of Agatha Christie.
Thanks for putting those up Ron, my grandfather was vicar there (indeed it was he who performed the funeral service for Agatha Christie) |
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« Last Edit: 15:26:01, 31-03-2008 by David_Underdown »
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David
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...trj...
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« Reply #109 on: 15:30:16, 31-03-2008 » |
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At the opposite end of the scale is the little Saxon church at Sompting, near Lancing, with its unique (for Southern England) Helm tower, built in around 960. It's a beautiful, peaceful little church (despite the A27 thundering past a couple of hundred metres away) - a place where people have found peace for more than a thousand years. here too there's that powerful sense of stepping back into history.  I've come back to this picture so often I've had to set it as my desktop background - that geometry makes the heart beat faster: beautiful. |
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Morticia
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« Reply #110 on: 16:04:36, 31-03-2008 » |
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Very interesting, Daniel, I enjoyed reading about Annora. I'd never heard of anchoresses.
Yes, thanks Daniel. That is fascinating. I, too, had never heard of 'anchoress'. In fact, I have saved that page so that I can re-read it. Thanks again. |
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George Garnett
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« Reply #111 on: 17:23:55, 31-03-2008 » |
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Well, not the same overwhelming splendour or scale as York Minster or King's College Chapel, but St. Mary the Virgin, Iffley, Oxford is one of the most handsome churches I have ever visited. Oh, yes! Just by Iffley Lock. It is so 'right' in every possible respect. It is another of those very early churches which, as PW mentioned, would have had a richly coloured interior when it was first built. IIRC it is one of the few where representative traces of paint still exist (or haven't been covered in later centuries) from almost all the surfaces so it is possible to reconstruct exactly how it would have looked. Wildly psychedelic jagged patterns on those sombre Norman arches if I remember it right. |
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #112 on: 17:28:11, 31-03-2008 » |
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Very interesting, Daniel, I enjoyed reading about Annora. I'd never heard of anchoresses.
The most famous was the woman known as Julian of Norwich, as she was attached to the church of St Julian in Norwich. Her Revelations of Divine Love are probably the best known piece of medieval mystical writing. The church still exists, surrounded by inner city commercial sprawl (next to a second car dealer, or something like that) and her cell is a place of pilgrimage. It is not architecturally or artistically significant, but for those who know Dame Julian, very moving. |
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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh: a time to mourn, and a time to dance
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George Garnett
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« Reply #113 on: 17:40:54, 31-03-2008 » |
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I've come back to this picture so often I've had to set it as my desktop background - that geometry makes the heart beat faster: beautiful.
 It's not the same, I know, but the architect and the painter (Braque), although centuries apart, seem to have a similar understanding of how the world is put together. |
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« Last Edit: 17:45:51, 31-03-2008 by George Garnett »
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #114 on: 17:54:46, 31-03-2008 » |
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Whilst out and about today, I managed to grab a couple of shots of kirks hereabouts. The first is rather lacking in geometry compared to the church at Sompting, though it has a simple beauty all its own: the White Kirk, at Inverarity (fairly close to my favourite stand of trees, far from unknown on these pages). It was originally in a different location, on a nearby estate, but moved piece by piece and rebuilt closer to the village. |
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Mary Chambers
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« Reply #115 on: 17:56:21, 31-03-2008 » |
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I do see what you mean there, George! A surprising church is St Andrew, Wellingham, Norfolk. A bare little place, in the sleepiest village imaginable - I've never actually seen a person in Wellingham - but inside there is an extraordinary painted dado (I think that's the term), dated 1532. Here are St George and the Dragon:  You can see the rest here, courtesy of Simon Knott: http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/wellingham/wellingham.htm |
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John W
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« Reply #116 on: 18:03:14, 31-03-2008 » |
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Fascinating, Mary, that it survived the Protestants, though the horse's face seems to have been scratched out as idolatrous  |
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David_Underdown
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« Reply #117 on: 19:37:38, 31-03-2008 » |
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Only my camera phone, so quality's not great, but this is what Lichfield looked like on Sunday morning (to cross back to the weather thread briefly, on Saturday the weather was horrible).   |
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David
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MabelJane
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« Reply #118 on: 20:04:19, 31-03-2008 » |
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St. Mary's, Cholsey is easily viewed from the Western main line between Reading and Didcot, looking particularly fetching when the big field which separates it from the embankment is full of oilseed rape. Amongst its claims to fame is the fact that it's the last resting place of Agatha Christie.
Thanks for putting those up Ron, my grandfather was vicar there (indeed it was he who performed the funeral service for Agatha Christie) That's interesting, David, what a coincidence. Lovely pic, especially good from a phone. |
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Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #119 on: 21:12:33, 31-03-2008 » |
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I'm so glad people have enjoyed the Sompting picture. Here's another wonderful little church - this time from the Mayenne region of France (but emphasising our common Norman heritage). It's in Domfront, a small town much better known for its ruined castle (where Henry II and Thomas Beckett made their last attempt at reconciliation). But when I visited Domfront last autumn, this little church, at the bottom of the hill below the castle, struck me as the real glory of the place; a tiny, perfect little gem of pure Romanesque, unchanged and unrestored since Norman times:    |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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