Tag Archives: churches

Some More Wall Paintings

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Hardham: St. Botolphs Church: The "Lewes Group" 12th century wall paintings

 

 

 

I’ve just been looking up church wall paintings  as  a result of their appearance in one of yesterdays posts.

I am trying to learn more about them, though it is not, at this time, possible to visit any churches.

One of the best preserved painted interiors seems to be found in St Botolph’s Church, Hadham, in West Sussex. It’s not a part of the country I’m familiar with,though it’s always seemed very pleasant on the rare occasions I have visited. The church is either Saxon or early Norman and is quite small and plain on the outside. It’s a different matter on the inside, where the original wall paintings were rediscovered in 1862.

Hardham: St. Botolphs Church: The "Lewes Group" 12th century wall paintings

There are 39 different scenes, including four of St George, the earliest depiction of him in a British church.

Hardham: St. Botolphs Church: The "Lewes Group" 12th century wall paintings

This is St George being tortured on a wheel. I’m fascinated by the age of the paintings, and the way they have survived over the years, less fascinated by the subjects. It seems to me that our ancestors took far too much interest in torture and death.

This church is one of a group of five churches known to have been painted by a locally-based group of crafstmen using locally available pigments (red and yellow ochre), which led to the colour palette being referred to as ‘bacon and eggs’.

At St John the Baptist’s Church, Clayton, the paintings feature scenes of the Day of Judgement, making them an early example of Doom paintings.

There is a conservation dilemma at the church, as they also have bats. Bat urine is damaging the roof timbers and bat droppings have to be cleaned from the walls before services. This leaves the 800-year-old wall paintings at risk. It’s a case of irresistable force and immovable object. The paintings are listed for preservation purposes, but it is illegal to interfere with the bats.

One of the things I note, is that the paintings at Hardham were whitewashed in the 13th Century, when I normally think of it happening in the 16th century, at the time of the Reformation.

Photographs © Copyright Michael Garlick and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

More Postcodes

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Postcodes today. As usual, all my palns have fallen apart so I’m falling back on the old favourites.

IP 23, CT 17 and TS 25.

We’ll start with TS 25. I used to live in Middlesbrough (note the single “o”), though I was in TS3. It was not the most sought after location and from our ninth floor flat we were able to spend a year watching people dismantle the last vestiges of shipbuilding on the Tees. They replaced it with a retail park. We could see two nuclear plants from our flat – the private one at ICI a few miles down the road (though we had to stick our heads out of the kitchen window to do it) and the one at Hartlepool.

The one at Hartlepool is in the TS 25  postcode area. Normally they put nuclear power stations in desolate areas of the country, often surrounded by open country and beaches. In the case of Hartlepool they got the desolate bit right but put it within easy nuking distance of Middlesbrough and Hartlepool. If the whole thing had lit up it wouldn’t have made a lot of difference to the surrounding area, as a post-apocalyptic urban wasteland was basically the look the town planners had already achieved. The ability to glow in the dark would have been a positive step forward.

Like Heysham, Hartlepool was one of the later generation of nuclear power stations seen as being safe enough to build near towns. This means it is easier to get the electricity where it nweeds to be without damaging the environment with pylons. On the other hand…

IP 23 is in Sufflok and includes Brome, a village containing one of the 38 round-towered churches in Suffolk. I imagine this was because they couldn’t get the hang of corners. It’s probably good for strength or economy, but not much good for furniture. I’ve always wondered how you go about furnishing a windmill after converting one to living accommodation.

There are 185 of them in the UK. That’s out of a total of 16,000 churches.

CT 17 will have to wait as it’s time for a fix of junk TV.

Today’s photo is a large cast iron coat of arms – the state of Württemberg fro those of you who are interested. It’s up for auction and we are prepared to put it in the post if you feel the urge to pay for the stamps.