By Simon Cotton

It’s the tower that does it. Your first sight of Ludlow from afar is drawn to the great middle 15th-century central tower of the church. The gateway to the Western Marches, Ludlow was an important frontier town, whose castle was built around the end of the 11th century to ensure the security of the area by the Lacys, the Marcher Lords mandated by William the Conqueror to secure the border against the unconquered Welsh. It was the administrative capital of Wales in the 16th and 17th centuries. Arthur, Prince of Wales and heir to King Henry VII who had lately married Katharine of Aragon, died here of the “sweating sickness” in 1502, which meant that his younger brother, Henry, succeeded him, becoming king and marrying Katharine. How different might history have been if Arthur had recovered?

Ludlow remains an unspoiled town. The church is surrounded by so much later infilling that you are not aware of its size until you push the door open and enter the vast aisled nave. Before that, though, you have to traverse the rare early 14th-century hexagonal porch — the only others are at Chipping Norton and St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. Although there are parts of earlier building from the 12th century onward, what you see in the church today is largely from a middle 15th-century rebuild — and what a rebuild.

The chapels at the ends of the aisles contain much medieval glass, like a restored Jesse Tree in the south chapel, but this is outdone by the north chapel, where you find the legend of Edward the Confessor and his ring in the “Palmers’ Window.” The story was that King Edward gave a gold ring to a beggar, and sometime later two pilgrims to the Holy Land (palmers) met a man who revealed himself to be the Apostle John, who handed back the ring, instructing them to return it to the king and tell him that he would be in Paradise within six months.

This window is topped by a fine carved medieval canopy of honor. Other windows to notice in this aisle includes Saint Christopher bearing the Christ Child and the Twelve Apostles at the Council of Jerusalem, while one should also look for the small kneeling figure of John Parys and his wife. Parys, a wealthy draper, was warden of the Palmers’ Guild, and died in 1449. There is a fine set of Royal Arms, whose Dieu et Mon Droit motto suggests a Stuart origin, confirmed by the initials CR and the date 1674. The 20th century enters the picture with the banner of the patron, Saint Laurence, by Ninian Comper (1923).

The rebuild of the chancel was completed by 1450 — don’t miss the stalls and misericords, whose subjects include an owl, a dragon-like wyvern, a hart, and a king, as well as some fine post-Reformation monuments, like that to Edward Waties and his wife, who face each other across a prie-dieu (1635). Also spot a putto from the Salway monument.

Here also there is excellent medieval glass. A south window features six of the Ten Commandments, while above the reconstructed reredos is the great East Window. Most of it is taken up with the Passion of the patron saint; above it — at the apex the Holy Trinity, below are the Virgin and Child; St. John the Baptist with the Agnus Dei; St. Anne teaching the Virgin to read; Bishop Spufford of Hereford (1422-48); a king; and St. Laurence.

Returning to the crossing, look up at the tower, building c. 1450-71 with contribution from the guilds — carpenters, smiths, dyers, tailors, cordwainers, butchers, bakers (but not candlestick makers). The great poet A.E. Housman (1859-1936) — who is buried here — celebrated the great tower in verse:

Leave your home behind, lad,
    And reach your friends your hand,
And go, and luck go with you
    While Ludlow tower shall stand.

Simon Cotton is honorary senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and a former churchwarden of St. Giles, Norwich, and St. Jude, Peterborough. He is a member of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Readers of Professor Orme’s earlier books, such as Going to Church in Medieval England, will have a good idea of the level of scholarship to expect in this book; they will not be disappointed. This is a fine account of the history of cathedrals, from the mists of Roman Britain to today. Rather than considering all the individual buildings, the book looks at what they have in common — how and when they were founded; how they have been used; and their involvement beyond their precincts.

In August 314, the year after the Edict of Milan had tolerated Christianity, a church council met in the city of Arles, in Gaul. We know the names of three British bishops in attendance — Adelfius, Eborius, and Restitutus — and that two of them were associated with York and London. They presumably had buildings housing their cathedra, but nothing survives from that time, unlike in countries such as Italy and Egypt. When Augustine and his monks arrived in Canterbury in 597, they used the Church of St. Martin, which is partly constructed of Roman materials (its dedication probably reflects that Berta, Ethelbert’s Christian queen, came from Tours, St. Martin’s home city).

The re-evangelization prospered gradually, and as Orme points out, by the time of Bede (731) there were around 20 bishops across the country, though there were some areas without cathedrals, like the West Country, as a map of dioceses in circa 800 shows. Orme points out that some Saxon bishops looked after dioceses based on kingdoms rather than city-states, which led to much larger dioceses than in the Mediterranean world.

True, but medieval France combined the very small dioceses in Provence (presumably founded in Roman times) with the very large dioceses of central France (Bourges, Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges). Few traces of pre-Conquest cathedrals remain — North Elmham (Norfolk); Rochester (Kent); and Hexham (Northumberland) are examples of surviving fragments. And of course there is St. Albans, a building that only became a cathedral in 1877 and has some reused Saxon stonework in the transepts (and even some Roman tegulae, roof tiles).

A greater number of cathedrals became monastic foundations from late Saxon times into the Norman age, and a number of bishoprics were relocated. Moreover, among the Saxon bishops, only Wulfstan of Worcester retained his see after the Norman Conquest. The Normans wanted bigger cathedrals than the existing Saxon buildings, so rebuilding campaigns began at once. We see the fruits to this day in places like Durham, Ely, and Norwich.

Just as many of the great early Gothic campaigns in French cathedrals arose out of the ashes of fires at earlier cathedrals (just think of Chartres), similar things occurred in England. Just after the martyrdom of Thomas Becket in 1170, a fire gutted the choir of Canterbury Cathedral in 1174. The Frenchman William de Sens was chosen as the master mason for the rebuilding.

With the entry into the Gothic age, building campaigns led to some justly famous buildings, whose splendor lives on — Wells, Salisbury, Lincoln, Lichfield, York, and Canterbury, for example. Gloucester’s choir gives us a pioneering example of the very English Perpendicular style, in what was at the time an abbey. The pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury was at this time a big source of revenue, and this pilgrimage was not atypical. Cathedrals became huge buildings, with many chapels, clearly shown in the plan of Exeter Cathedral. These were necessary for the proliferation of services, which in turn required large numbers of clergy.

The Reformation in England kept bishops and cathedrals, though it got rid of monasteries, which changed the way in which some cathedrals ran. And of course the services on offer changed, as they did in parish churches. Some former abbeys became cathedrals, like Peterborough and Bristol, so the boundaries of some dioceses changed. One hundred years later, they survived the desire of some Puritans to demolish them (just as the French cathedrals mainly survived the revolution).

Hard on the heels of the Restoration, the Great Fire of London ensured that London needed a new cathedral. The Long 18th Century saw things remain largely unchanged until the growing population saw the establishment of new dioceses. And these were not just Anglican cathedrals (Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Wakefield, Southwell, St. Albans, Truro), but a goodly number of Catholic cathedrals, following the “restoration of the hierarchy.”

Obviously new cathedrals had to be built for the new Catholic dioceses, the most majestic being Westminster; in the Anglican case, some parish churches were “upgraded,” though there was a new build that gave us J.L. Pearson’s magnificent building at Truro. And at Liverpool, construction of both the Anglican and Catholic cathedrals did not begin until the 20th century, which saw the creation of yet more cathedrals, including upgrades (Derby and Leicester), replacements (Coventry), and new builds (Guildford).

Orme raises the question of maintenance of these massive buildings, together with the question of who provides the money. It is a remarkable thing that in England, a country with an established church, the cathedrals are expected to raise the income. In France, a land with strict separation of church and state, the state maintains the cathedrals.

This somewhat breathless review concentrates on the buildings, but Orme does not do that, putting flesh on the bones, explaining the roles of the people (clergy and laity) who made the buildings live — as well as describing some of the personalities. If you want to know about what cathedrals have done for the best part of 2,000 years, this is your go-to.

One of the few towns in this rural idyll, Mauriac stands on the zero meridian. The church of Notre Dame des Miracles is a largely Romanesque building, made into a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XV in 1921, the largest and finest church in the region. The west portal has a Romanesque sculpture (c. 1120) of the Ascension of Christ. Though mutilated, with Our Lady and the Apostles headless, it is of high quality.

Inside you first see a splendid, generously proportioned Romanesque font, its colored and sculpted bowl decorated with figures including the Baptism of Christ, Christ in Majesty, the Agnus Dei, St. Michael and the Dragon, and the Evangelistic symbols, while above the high altar is the venerated statue of Notre Dame des Miracles (said to have stopped droughts and a cholera outbreak in 1832). A characteristic 16th-century statue of the Virgin and Child, a Vierge â l’oiseau, flanks the chancel arch, while the altar in the south chapel has a retable of the virgin donating the rosary to St. Dominic and St. Catherine of Siena. On the outside wall is a plain cross that commemorates the Abbé Filiol, executed on May 14, 1793.

The Basilica of Notre Dame des Miracles at Mauriac has a quite wonderful silence (sadly lost to most of us today). There is no coincidence that this has produced saints. Catherine Jarrige (1754-1836), known as Catinon Menette (“Cathy the little nun”) in the local patois, was born on a farm at Doumis in the Cantal. The youngest of seven children, she worked on the farm before becoming a lacemaker when she was 20.

Devout, even from childhood, she looked after the poor all her life, begging to provide food and clothing for them. She became a Third Order Dominican, taking vows and becoming a member of the tertiary order, but really came into her own in 1791 when the French Revolution’s leaders began persecuting the Catholic Church. Priests were asked to swear an oath to the state, which many regarded as apostasy.

A death sentence awaited these non-jurors and their helpers. Priests who would not prêter le serment, as it was called, went into hiding, often in the forests, or caves; in the straw in barns; in the lofts of houses; or dovecotes. Working under cover of night, Jarrige visited the priests in their hideaways, providing them with vestments, wine, wafers, and sacred vessels, so that they could celebrate Mass.

She brought them babies to baptize. She also escorted them to remote locations; as they were in mufti, she could pretend to be their wife, often scolding them to fool the troops and gendarmes. They would pray to Our Lady of Miracles to help them. Her eye was open to all that was going on, and was always on her guard. She went into areas where even the strongest men would not venture after dark.

People said to her, “Weren’t you afraid?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “When leaving Mauriac I’d make my act of contrition, put my rosary in my hand and set off. In any case, I wasn’t alone.”

“Really, who was with you?”

“Oh, le bon Dieu!”

Sometimes she’d sing the Marseillaise or put a cockade on her hat. She was arrested several times but the Revolutionary tribunals she appeared before set her free each time. She had immense support in Mauriac and the civil authorities simply couldn’t believe that someone of such a wretched appearance could trick them as Catherine did. She saved all the priests she looked after, except one.

The 11th of 14 children, François Filiol was born at Bouval, near Mauriac, on August 22, 1764, and baptized the following day. He studied at Mauriac, then went to the seminary in Clermont-Ferrand in 1786; he was ordained priest on March 26, 1789, and became the assistant priest (Vicaire) of Drugeac, near Mauriac, in October 1790.

The next year he refused to take the oath and decided to go into exile in Spain, along with other clergy, but soon after he set off, he had a change of heart, and retraced his steps to exercise a clandestine ministry in his hometown, hiding in farms and the woods.

Betrayed, he was sent to the guillotine by the revolutionary tribunal of Aurillac. Catherine Jarrige walked with him to the scaffold by the church in Mauriac on May 14, 1793. After his martyrdom, she dipped a cloth in his blood and applied it to the face of a blind child, who saw again.

After the Revolution ended, Catherine went back to begging alms for the poor. No one would refuse her. She fed whole families and took particular care of orphans.

Blessed Catherine Jarrige was beatified by John Paul II in 1996.

Dr. Simon Cotton is honorary senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and a former churchwarden of St. Giles, Norwich, and St. Jude, Peterborough. He is a member of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Cornerstones

Getting to Pennant Melangell in Wales is a memorable journey in itself. Beyond Llangnog, the last three miles are up a very narrow single-track road, the remote Tanat Valley growing narrower and steeper as you head down Cwm Pennant. The hills get closer and at some times of the year you look at purple-headed mountains that remind you of Cecil Frances Alexander’s hymn, “All Things Bright and Beautiful.”

Melangell (Monacella) was a seventh-century Irish princess who escaped a forced marriage and settled here in search of tranquility, living as a hermit. According to legend, Brochwel Ysgithrog, Prince of Powys, was out hunting one day, pursuing a hare. His hounds chased it into a thicket, where they found the hare sheltering under Melangell’s cloak. The prince gave her the valley, where she could set up a religious community. After her death, Melangell’s tomb became a place of pilgrimage. Devotion to her survived the Reformation.

Part of a much smaller settlement than it once was, the 12th-century church (and the shrine) may have been built by Rhirid Flaidd (d. 1189), a local chieftain and landowner. Set in a circular churchyard of early origin, the oldest part of the church is 12th-century. The churchyard contains several yew trees, four of them believed to be 2,000 years old.The 17th-century tower with its smaller timber belfry stage was rebuilt in 1877, like much of the rest of the church. Its design, though, is much older, and part of the north wall is 12th-century.

The building was in a bad way in the 1980s and was substantially restored and rebuilt in 1988-92. The main change was the replacement of an 18th-century cell-y-bedd (grave chamber) that had become unsafe (it stood on the site of the original apse). The rebuild put a new apse on the 12th-century foundations.

The big changes inside during the restoration involved the screen and shrine. The 15th-century screen would once have been one of the fine screens of the Welsh Marches. It was dismantled after the Reformation, and partly restored at the west end of the church. In 1989 the screen was reassembled with a new loft that incorporates the remarkable carved frieze depicting the legend of Melangell.

The part of the frieze shown in the picture shows the prince’s huntsman on the left with his horn, which is said to have cleaved to his lips; Melangell facing the viewer; and the hare. In front of the screen hangs a striking timber candelabrum of 1733. On the other side of the screen are the Apostles’ Creed, Decalogue, and Lord’s Prayer in Welsh (moved from the east wall, where they once formed a reredos). These are 18th-century, like the Hanoverian Royal Arms of George I.

The shrine of Melangell, dating from 1160-70, was destroyed at the Reformation, and its stones dispersed among other stones in the walls of the church and lychgate. The shrine was rebuilt, partly in 1958 and then completely in 1988-92. Described as the earliest surviving Romanesque shrine in northern Europe, it now occupies pride of place in the chancel.

A note in the register in 1723 says: Mil engyl a Melangell Trechant lu fyddin y fall (Melangell with a thousand angels Triumphs over all the powers of evil).

Further reading: A.M. Allchin, Pennant Melangell: Place of Pilgrimage, Oswestry, 1994.

John Hainsworth, Saint Melangell’s Church: A Historical Guide, Oswestry, 2005.

By Simon Cotton

The Vale of the White Horse is probably the finest scenery in Oxfordshire. It takes its name from the Uffington White Horse, a Bronze Age figure cut into a grass-covered hilltop that exposes the white chalk beneath. Compton Beauchamp is a very small settlement nearby, located beneath the Downs.

Near a moated manor, the church has a low tower that only just manages to peep over the nave roof, but the white chalk walls make it stand out from its surroundings. Unusually, it is largely constructed of the chalk known as clunch. There was a church here by the late 11th century, at the time of Domesday Book, but there is little suggestion of that. What you see appears to be from the 13th to 15th century, with the nave raised last of all. The chancel is 13th-century, with a reticulated east window of circa 1330.

You walk into the north porch, and there is one of those familiar notices: “Whosoever that entereth this church.” You have seen lots of them before, but not so many that end with the words “and forget not the Souls of the Dead in Christ.” Onward through the door, and you are pulled up short: an interior full of gilded baroque fittings is not what you expect to see in a small English country church.

The church captures a unique moment in Anglican history. To appreciate it, you have to go back to the inception of the Oxford Movement, paralleled by the Cambridge Camden Society, which promoted “the study of Gothic Architecture, and of Ecclesiastical Antiques.” This appreciation of medieval architecture and furnishings was greeted with suspicion by some Low Church clergymen. The Rev. F. Close of Cheltenham preached a sermon in 1844, arguing that “The restoration of churches is the restoration of popery: proved and illustrated from the authenticated publications of the ‘Cambridge Camden Society.’”

As the 19th century drew on, both architecture and ceremonial progressed, and many were drawn to the Gothic Revival by both means. Services were closely based on the Book of Common Prayer, but the attendant ceremonies and furnishings followed different trajectories.

Ninian Comper’s study of medieval precedent resulted in the first “English altar,” complete with riddel posts and curtains, in the Yorkshire church of Cantley in 1897. The design was widely adopted in “English use” churches, which sought to model their practice closely on the late medieval Sarum rite, turning back the clock to the very moment before the Reformation altered Anglican worship.

Another group looked to the living practice of the Western church, favoring Roman ceremonial, with fiddleback vestments, and sometimes drawing texts directly from the Roman Missal (though some combined the BCP with Roman ceremonial). In 1910, proponents of this school of thought formed the Society of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (SSPP). It was supported and financed by Samuel Gurney, and after World War I ran the Anglo-Catholic Congresses. SSPP and the Anglo-Catholic Congress Movement became for a few years the driving force for renewal in the Church of England.

Samuel Gurney (1885-1968) bought the Old Rectory at Compton Beauchamp around 1924 and immediately asked Martin Travers to undertake a refurnishing of the church. Howard Martin Otho Travers (1886-1948), always known as Martin, studied at Tonbridge School, then at the Royal College of Art (1904-08), followed by very short periods with the architects Beresford Pite and Ninian Comper, before he set up on his own in 1911. He was a most distinguished stained-glass artist, but also was a designer of church furnishings and vestments for the Society of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Travers had worked with SSPP members from 1911 onward, and was an obvious candidate to embellish the little church. A very versatile designer, he had a facility for creating furnishings in the baroque style. Although like his former master Ninian Comper he is associated with gilded furnishings, Travers toned down the gold, creating the impression that his 20th-century furnishings had graced the church for centuries.

Travers started with a rood group of Jesus flanked by Mary and John over the chancel arch (1927); the use of papier-maché is typical of many of Travers’s furnishings, as his patrons’ taste usually exceeded their means. The chancel already had striking vine murals by Lydia Lawrence, painted around 1900; Travers designed a characteristic Virgin and Child in the glass of the East window (1937); below the window is a gilded reredos and riddel-posted altar, with the tabernacle bearing a cross. There is a distinguished plaque attached to the south side of the chancel arch, depicting St. Swithin, the patron saint, holding a miniature of the church.

In memory of his mother, Lady Talbot de Malahide, Gurney commissioned from Travers a font canopy based on those at Great and Little Walsingham, Gurney’s home village in Norfolk (1933). One surprise is Travers’s placing of a Lady Altar in the very small space under the tower (1934), with a Virgin and Child altarpiece somewhat reminiscent of the one he designed for the Lady Chapel of St Augustine’s, Queen’s Gate, in South Kensington. Travers also provided ornate covers for the prayer books and hymn books, through the services strictly followed the BCP.

The attractions of Compton Beauchamp church do not end with Travers’ work. There are some fine 18th-century wall monuments, several imbued with Dr. Johnson’s belief that “in a lapidary inscription, no man is on oath,” not least that of Mary Cooper (1762), who was a housekeeper who “became strictly intitled to the Commendation of a truly good and faithfull Servant.” There is also a very understated tablet to Sam Gurney.

Go and see this joyful little church, where Sam Gurney lies among the daffodils in Compton Beauchamp churchyard.

Further reading

Richard Wheeler, Oxfordshire’s Best Churches, Eardisley, Fircone Books, 2013.
Jennifer Sherwood, A Guide to The Churches of Oxfordshire, Oxford, Robert Dugdale, 1989.
Michael Yelton, Outposts of the Faith, London, Canterbury Press, 2009, pp 82-103.
Rodney Warrener and Michael Yelton, Martin Travers, 1886-1948: An Appreciation, London, Unicorn Press, 2003.
Peter F. Anson, Fashions in Church Furnishings, 1840-1940, Faith Press, 1960 (second edition Studio Vista London 1965)

Online

An essay at bit.ly/BacktoBaroque is a brilliantly illustrated account of Travers’ work at Compton Beauchamp church.

Dr. Simon Cotton is honorary senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. and a former churchwarden of St. Giles, Norwich, and St. Jude, Peterborough. He is a member of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.