Thursday 23 March 2023

A five star Church - Part 1 - St Laurence's Church, Ludlow

 When I am planning my little "escapes", the parameters are places within an hour's travel of home.  Ludlow falls into that category and it was last year - winter I think - when we last went.  Keith was a bit more mobile then and we went to a couple of monthly Antiques Markets held in the Market Place.  We had to get there early though, and tbh, not much there to interest us although a Windsor "grandfather" chair we bought is in the kitchen here with us still.  Anyway, I wanted to visit the church (St Laurence's) again as I remembered it had amazing Misericords and good stained glass.  I wasn't disappointed.


The hexagonal south porch (I should have taken an internal photo as it had a fabulous ceiling) is shared only with Chipping Norton in in Oxon and St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol.



The church is in Simon Jenkins' "England's Thousand Best Churches" and gets a five star rating from him.  Hardly surprising as it is stunning.  Also known locally as the Cathedral of the Marches.






Poor Alice was a long way from home - Lymington is in Hampshire and I know it well.  Interesting that they say it's in the county of Southampton.

St Catherine's Chapel.  The reclining figure remembers Dame Mary Eure, late wife to the Right Honourable Raiphe, Lord Eure, Baron of Malton, Lord President of the Principalities and Marches of Wales.  A shame she has to share her eternity with stacks of chairs!



Fragments of Medieval glass in the same side chapel - the Restoration had much to answer for - made up into a window.


The beautiful rood screen and loft leading into the Lady Chapel, which had a beautiful atmosphere.

This is the stunning Jesse Window, which dates to c. 1330 (restored 1890).  Jesse windows were designed to show the lineage of Christ and there is one of a similar date at Dorchester Abbey,  Oxfordshire.



Lots of bequests to help the poor of the town.




The West Window.  The glass is by T Williment and was fittred during the 1859-69 restoration of the church.  He was an heraldic painter to Queen Victoria.  The stone tracery is from the Perpendicular period.  The figures in the window are, top row:

Roger de Montgomery, Early of Shrewsbury

Joce de Dinan

Fulk Fitzwarine

Peter de Geneville

Roger  Mortimer

Richard, Duke of Cambridge


Bottom row, kneeling:

Richard Plantagenet

King Edward IV

King Edward V

Arthur, Prince of Wales



One of the beautiful poppy-headed bench ends - that carving is superb - as it is throughout.



Klein suggests that "the central figure is the warder of the Palmers' Guild, whose money paid for the enlargement of the choir stalls in 1447, although this misericord is somewhat earlier.  The central figure is certainly the image of the successful man in his prime, perhaps a wealthy mercer or tradesman, dressed in a fine coat with a silver or gold collar, and backed with tools and objects of various trades and the source of his Prosperity; they include a barrel, a pair of clogs or pattens, a pair of bellows, and a hammer.  The figure on the left is now mutilated but leans forward with its left arm originally pointing across the misericord towards the right hand side.  Here we find all the symbols of the grave - a tomb, bones, skulls, spades, and the arm of the sexton holding his aspergillum or holy water pot.  The message is simple - that despite material wealth and success in this life, all eventually ends in death and the grave."



This is an interesting one - "a porter or peddler draws on his right boot and prepared for the road.  The pack, strapped to his back, could be a consignment of cloth, and it is worth noting that bales of good quality white woollen material known as "Ludlow Whytes" were well known in London and fetched good prices there.  An almost identical misericord from the same design is to be found on the north side of the choir-stalls in the chapel of All Souls College, Oxford."  (Many thanks to Peter Klein's booklet on the Misericords, which I brought back as a present for Keith).


This probably shows the "ideal of womanhood" - this is an attractive face.  See below for opposite!!


This reminds me of a Medieval painting which has been in my newsfeeds recently - was it a man, some pundits were asking?  Do go to the link - the resemblance is uncanny!!


Today life is back to normal.  I have SO much to do - I need cloning.  I started the day off by rescuing a (very grateful) baby bunny who was brought in completely alive and unharmed by L. Whale, who promptly went under the settle with it.  I was alerted to its presence by the kittens suddenly homing in on it, and L. Whale growling at them!  I managed to gently remove it from his mouth and let it go in the yard.  It sprinted out of the front gate so he'd obviously caught it along the lane.


There will be ironing, bed changing, wallpapering, gardening and Ancestry family treeing - hopefully I can fit it all in . . .  Yesterday's outing bucked me up no end.  It was Market day (photos tomorrow) and I had a lovely lunch from one of the stalls - a little Indian open tart, spicy with Onion Bhaji and chickpea filling.  Yum.



16 comments:

  1. Such good carvings on the misericords and lovely stained glass, it's good to get out and about - your lunch sounds nice too.
    I'm sure I've been to Ludlow but can't remember anything about it except walking up a hill!

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    1. Yup, probably the same hill I walked up from Tesco into the town. Lunch was lovely - put Greggs to shame! The Market Stall cheese is excellent too. Wonderful stained glass. It truly is the Cathedral of the Marches.

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  2. Well, you've sent me off to Google for the second time this morning (blog reading teaches me a great deal). Alice was a 'relict'. Never heard that word before. Relict means that her husband had died before her. Consort would have been used if she had gone while he was still alive. Thanks for my new word.

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    1. Haha. I think I am a teacher at heart - love to get people interested in things. Relict is often used in memorials. Hope you don't have to use your new word too often!

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  3. You are right, that painting has a striking resemblance. (I had to look up misericords, a word I will store away and pull out to surprise people.)

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    1. Ah, misericords trips off the tongue. Painting almost a doppleganger!

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  4. We visited Ludlow several years ago, lots of lovely food shops I seem to remember. I found the castle fascinating and well documented and described with lovely views of the surrounding area. I don’t remember the church so thank you for the photos.

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    1. Be warned, there are more to come! I am looking foreward to the castle as I've only been there when there was a Food Festival on.

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  5. Magnificent windows there. I had to look up both relict and misericord! I doubt my elder sister would appreciate being referred to as a relict! Tho since she's remarried as of just two weeks ago, maybe the term wouldn't apply. I think the ugly woman painting and that carving must be the same poor person.

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    1. We do use some rather obscure words in Britain. I have to say that is quite the ugliest "fizzog" (lovely word my mum used!) I've ever seen!

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  6. Its a super church with so much of interest. It was the misericords I really loved though. I must go back one day as there was a Christmas Fayre in the church when I went and taking photos was difficult. To be honest when we went to Ludlow the year before last I think it was that busy we didn't linger. But I do love that market stall that sells Heron's Cross jugs!! I seem to remember there is a good book shop and cheese shop too and also that super castle! So glad you got out.

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    1. I hope you will return soon, when you are back at the caravan. I didn't get to any book shop, and bought my cheese on the Market - good choice but cheaper.

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  7. A fitting church for the heart of the wool trade. The carvings are exquisite, as is the medieval glass and the rood screen is still extant - brilliant, Is this the church where Arthur, Prince of Wales (son of Henry VII) is buried? Yesterday we were in All Hallows’ Church, Tillingham (a step from Petworth) where there is a steep narrow stone staircase leading to the rood loft. The rood screen is no longer but I was intrigued that the rood beam would have been strong enough for men to walk along to light candles or hang lanterns from. We visited Ludlow when we were staying at Berrington Hall, in the Triumphal Arch no less. It was the Easter holidays of the year the Queen Mother died and we did all the Easter Egg trails at all the National Trust properties, the children were in Heaven! Which reminds me to remind you to visit Brockhampton at blossom time. The orchards there are still imprinted on my memory and are mostly damson trees so the blossom is earlier than apple. Hope you had a productive day yesterday, I’ve been all at sea lately and not enjoying these endless rainy days. But yesterday we had a sunshiny blowy walk in Petworth park and around the daffodil-strewn pleasure grounds before going to the Horse Guards Inn for lunch and visiting the church opposite. Back to Petworth today and tomorrow for the bookshop and I see a favourite garden is open for the NGS on Sunday. T’s foot has not yet mended, it’s a very spiky acute break so a lot of surface area to fuse together but we had a good talk yesterday evening and a hug and really I should count my blessings that I have a wonderful son who I love. Let’s keep cheerful BB - I’m off now to check where Arthur, Prince of Wales died and was buried. Sarah x

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    1. I will make a mental note to visit Brockhampton when the blossom's out. Ditto the apple orchards of Herefordshire too.

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  8. So Arthur’s bowels were buried in a lead box in the choir of the church but removed before 1723 and his body is buried in Worcester cathedral. Looking forward to your Ludlow Castle post. Really must get up to this neck of the woods as my mother was born in Shrewsbury. Her parents moved to London when she was still a baby but she was evacuated back to Shropshire during the war. Sarah x

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    1. Indeed, though say say it was his heart stowed away there - until 1723 anyway. Not a nice job to disembowel him!

      I hope you will find a lovely Landmark Trust property to stay in and go and explore Shropshire.

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