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.