Garway - a 12th C Templar Church

 Update to Sue and Tricia - Tam was able to get the colour embroidery thread I needed, but many thanks for both offering.

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We decided to make the most of the sunshine early on and go into Herefordshire to visit a church which we had read about and which Keith, especially, wanted to see.  The countryside was lovely, even though it had clouded over rather on our journey. Some areas are very familiar to us, others less so. We went through Bredwardine, and I told Keith about the time when Kilvert was Rector there and it had snowed and then rained and frozen solid (pretty much like 2010 when we could only make it to the front gate by hanging onto things.) Back in those days, people were very keen to go to church, and even the folk way up Bredwardine Hill, past the house we tried to buy, made it to church on their hands and knees along the ditches.

We cut across country when we neared Madley, following the lane (Stone Lane it's called) past the car boot sale we go to in the summer, noticing that Allenmore Nurseries had REALLY extended  their growing areas with huge glass greenhouses and then huge polytunnels, as well as outdoor nurseries. I'm sure I didn't notice all this back in the summer. All around this area there are acres of fruit trees too.  It is good to know that Herefordshire is self-sufficient in fruit, vegetables and livestock. Then we crossed a road, onto a narrow single track lane where you usually put your lights on in summer as the trees grow right over it and make it very gloomy.  Then we turned left onto the B road, but a narrow-way opposite the end of the single track lane continues up onto the wooded hillside.  I wouldn't mind betting that route came into being in prehistoric times.

We went "all around the houses" along single track lanes for several miles before getting to our destination.  Over 2,000 acres of land had been granted to the Templars to clear (using the local peasantry I don't doubt!) by Henry II.

Garway church is one of only 6 Templar churches in England.  It is in the most complete state of repair too.  The  tower dates to 1180 and looks to have been for defensive purposes. The Templar church which was built (with a circular nave and chancel in homage to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem).  However, this was replaced with a rectangular one by the Knights of St John (the Hospitalers) in the 15th C.  They took over from the Templars in 1326.

The font dates to the 14th C and the snake twirling round the cross represents healing  (Hospitaler iconography).

The beautiful Norman  archway and how it looks when you look up beneath it.

The Green Man.  It has been argued that he is more of a Green Cat, but I think those look like horns with human ears in their normal place.

More carvings at the top of the capitals - these are considered to be based on water leaves, Eastern iconography.

Keith is always taken by the age and integrity of the wooden chests which survive. This is a Templar one made from a hollowed-out trunk and dates to the 12th- 13th C- and would have been used for church vestements.

This would have been the top of a Templar tomb.

There were examples of the dedicated needlewomen of the parish too.

We will go back as it was a somewhat whistle-stop tour - we didn't look round outside and so missed the holy well and the carvings on stones externally, and also the Dovecote. There are castles in the area - Skenfrith is jut 2 miles away, White Castle and Grosmont about 5 in different directions. It's not that far from lovely Tretower Court either, so we will go back in the spring and see them all.