Читать книгу Betjeman’s Best British Churches - Richard Surman - Страница 8
ОглавлениеDUNSTABLE: ST PETER – a red brick wall now stands where the church’s eastern end was abruptly truncated
The north-bound train traveller from St Pancras retains a poor impression of Bedfordshire, the verdict generally being one of flat Midland scenery, at its more unrelieved; this is as unfair as it is uninformed. Sadly, many of the villages and small towns within easy reach of the M1 or major stations have been engulfed by large modern housing estates. However, it must be admitted at once that the central clay vale is a wilderness, raped for brick-making, and with a similar fate awaiting still-virgin land. Otherwise the county, for its limited area, is varied to a degree that is unique.
In the north the Ouse winds through a landscape of gracious tranquillity, a summer country of stone villages and broad water meadows which rises in the north-east to a continuation of Walpole’s ‘dumpling hills’ of Northamptonshire. This is often surprisingly lonely country and, though the woods are now few and far between, the ghost of the old ‘Bruneswald’ forest still haunts the land.
In the centre of the county lies the Greensand ridge, a corridor of fifteen miles which historian W. G. Hoskins (1908–92) in his book Midland England considered ‘unsurpassed in sanctity and peculiar purity’; it broadens in the west to the ducal country of Woburn, scenically magnificent with pine-woods and open heaths. In the east, being in part overlaid by clay and dissected by the River Ivel, the scenery is even more varied. Old Warden in particular retains a delightful Victorian picture-book quality almost unimpaired.
Beyond the Greensand the Gault clay valley is a prelude to the chalk hills, and, save around Toddington where a considerable elevation is reached, is subdued to them; it is largely unspoiled country, much of it formerly marsh of which Flitwick Moor remains as a fragment. There are one or two chalk outliers in the valley, of which Shillington church hill is the most renowned, and Billington the most beautiful.
The chalk reaches its greatest development at Dunstable, but its greatest beauty in the folded coombes and open windswept downs around Barton. At Totternhoe Knolls, a promontory of the lower chalk overlooking the vast Aylesbury Vale and the line of the Chilterns to the west, lies the site of the old quarries that gave to this area a building stone of poor external weathering quality, but one which served as inspiration for a local school of 13th-century carving, little known, but of high artistic merit.
Luton forms an industrial and suburban area ‘as unexpected as it is unprepossessing’, and with the dreadful tentacle that links it to Dunstable has straddled a large area of the foothills to the Downs. Much of the surrounding countryside is losing the battle against suburbia, and unforgivable crimes have been committed in the hills, the worst perhaps the cutting of the skyline at Totternhoe. In spite of all this, however, much charming country remains, particularly around Studham and Kensworth, where at 700 feet the chalk attains its highest elevation in the county.
The varied geology of Bedfordshire is echoed in the variety of its churches; in the north of the county the influence of Northamptonshire masons appears in the number of stone spires, fine ashlar masonry, and the use of the ferruginous brown stone which has been the scenic ruin of the iron-mining districts of the neighbouring county. Wymington is the finest example, but Swineshead and Podington have churches of very great merit. Two of the grandest buildings in the county, Felmersham church of the 13th century, and Odell of the 15th, lie in this area. The sandstone country has contributed a building stone which gives great character to the churches of the district; Northill is one of the most perfect examples. The churches of the south of the county are sometimes not very convincing from the outside, since the Totternhoe stone has often weathered so badly that they have been encased in 19th-century cement plaster with frightful aesthetic result. Flint used in chequerboard pattern with clunch, a soft chalky limestone, is a feature here and there, and a very attractive one. The showplaces of the area are Dunstable Priory, and the churches of Leighton Buzzard, Eaton Bray and St Mary’s, Luton.
Until the 20th century Bedfordshire escaped the overbuilding of, for example, Hertfordshire, and in consequence Victorian church building is limited to Bedford, Luton and one or two examples connected with the big estates, of which Clutton’s magnificent St Mary’s, Woburn is outstanding. Scott gave Turvey church a chancel which it would be a euphemism to call a vigorous example of his mature style; more suitable to some rich inner London suburb than a village church, it is saved by impeccable craftsmanship, and a Collyweston (limestone slate) roof. Scott also worked at Eversholt in 1864 but on a more limited scale. There is one building that must be seen by those who like their Victorian architecture ‘neat’, and that is the Bury Park Congregational church of 1895, an early example of art nouveau Gothic which is one of Luton’s many architectural surprises; it is difficult to imagine it ever having been on paper! There is one interesting 20th-century church, St Andrew’s, Blenheim Crescent, Luton, a fine work by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott in his Cambridge University library manner, with red brick and pantile roofs.
There has been a certain amount of ill-considered restoration in the county, but in the main, save for the barbarous rebuilding of Cardington, the county has been well served by its church restorers.
FELMERSHAM: ST MARY – clustered piers of the crossing and delicate rood screen
DUNSTABLE: ST PETER – the western front freely mixes Norman and Early English forms
BEDFORD † St Mary
On corner of Cardington Road and St Mary’s Street
OS TL051493 GPS 52.1328N, 0.4656W
St Mary’s is from the Saxon/Norman period, with 16th- and 19th-century additions. There is a Norman crossing tower with Perpendicular top.
BEDFORD † St Paul
St Paul’s Square
OS TL049496 GPS 52.1354N, 0.4675W
This, the largest church in Bedford, is in its final form mainly a work of the 19th and early 20th centuries, but its magnificent silhouette and striking scale justify the process. The S. aisle with its porch is medieval, the former a fine two-storeyed structure of the 15th century. It is from this side that one first appreciates that the building is a ‘hall church’, its clerestory windows being directly over those of the aisles. The tower and spire are 19th century, a somewhat enriched reconstruction of an original 14th-century feature. F. C. Eden did much to improve the interior in the early 20th century, and the chancel is now a model of rubrical correctness. The late 20th-century W. door, a slightly anachronistic combination of 14th- and 15th-century details, is very fine in effect.
BLUNHAM † St Edmund and St James
7m/1km E. of Bedford
OS TL153511 GPS 52.1462N, 0.3163W
The church has a massive yet delicate sandstone and limestone tower, and is charmingly set in this thatch and whitewash village. The W. door is Norman, otherwise the predominant style is Perpendicular, including the fine stone screen between the chancel and the S. chapel.
CHALGRAVE † All Saints
6m/10km N.W. of Luton
OS TL008274 GPS 51.9362N, 0.5343W
Set on an isolated site on a plateau overlooking the Chiltern hills, All Saints has a wonderful unspoiled interior, no doubt due to its poverty. The 13th-century carving of the nave arcade capitals is very fine and belongs to the Totternhoe stone group mentioned later. There are 15th-century traceried bench-ends in the old pewing. The tower was reduced to its present height in 1889, consequent upon the failure of the Totternhoe stone as at Eaton Bray. Wall-paintings, impressive as an overall scheme, unusually feature St Martin, and heraldic shields fill the spandrels in the nave.
CLAPHAM † St Thomas of Canterbury
2m/3km N.W. of Bedford
OS TL034524 GPS 52.1609N, 0.4898W
Important for the enormous Saxon tower with Norman top stage, St Thomas of Canterbury has a 13th-century font and a 17th-century communion table. The chancel is by Sir George Gilbert Scott, 1861–2.
DEAN † All Saints
11m/18km N. of Bedford
OS TL046676 GPS 52.2969N, 0.4664W
Dean is a scattered and unspoiled village embowered in trees, and its church has a perfect country interior; the roofs are wonderful specimens belonging to the 15th-century remodelling, from which only the 13th-century chancel arch and the 14th-century tower and spire were retained. Fine screens are at the W. end of both chapels and across the chancel arch.
DUNSTABLE † St Peter
5m/8km W. of Luton
OS TL021218 GPS 51.8860N, 0.5175W
This truncated fragment of Dunstable Priory still has a grandeur, particularly in its fine Norman nave of c. 1150, which makes the disappearance of the eastern parts a tragedy. The W. front is a magnificent makeshift, Norman and Early English in combination, of which the most lovely feature is the N.W. door, a sumptuous 13th-century creation loaded with ornament. Restored by Bodley in 1900 and later by Richardson. Scholarly re-creation of the Norman vaulting of the S. aisle, based upon the survival of three bays at the E. end. How much of the original material has been re-used is hard to tell, but the general effect greatly enhances the monastic character of the building.
EATON BRAY: ST MARY THE VIRGIN – decorative corbel in the south arcade
EATON BRAY † St Mary the Virgin
3m/4km W. of Dunstable
OS SP969207 GPS 51.8767N, 0.5925W
A complete 15th-century reconstruction and W. tower effectively conceal the interior core of the original 13th-century building, which has nave arcades of absolute and quite unexpected magnificence. That on the N. is the richer, with deep mouldings and conventional leaf-carving on the capitals, a tour de force of craftsmanship. On the S. arcade the decoration is simpler and the mouldings plainer, but the corbels at each end are wonderfully detailed. The 13th-century font is richly carved to match the N. arcade. The village may well have been the centre of the Totternhoe stone school of carving. Thomas of Leighton may have been responsible for the 13th-century foliated ironwork on the S. door; similar scrollwork can be found at All Saints, Leighton Buzzard.
ELSTOW † St Mary and St Helen
2m/3km S. of Bedford
OS TL049473 GPS 52.1149N, 0.4693W
A church of monastic foundation, this truncated but magnificent remnant of a Norman cruciform church is the central feature of an attractive village. The W. front was begun in the 13th century, but was never finished; it decayed until sensitive restoration by Professor Richardson in the mid-20th century. Two coeval 13th-century bays remain at the W. end inside, the rest being massive Norman work. The detached 15th-century bell-tower, witness to the religious doubts of the young John Bunyan, who was born nearby, completes a noble composition.
FELMERSHAM † St Mary
6m/10km N.W. of Bedford
OS SP991578 GPS 52.2099N, 0.5505W
On a superb site looking out over the Great Ouse, St Mary’s was begun in 1220 and finished in 20 years – the finest Early English church in the county. The W. front is a noble arcaded composition. The raising of the nave walls in the 15th century to give a low pitched roof and clerestory, with a tower in place of an intended spire, created a fine four-square composition. There is competent restoration in the chancel, carried out by J. Brandon in 1853–4, when he reinstated lancet windows to match the existing. The interior is wonderful, particularly the great clustered piers of the crossing contrasting with the delicacy of an excellent 15th-century screen.
KEMPSTON † All Saints
2m/3km S.W. of Bedford across R. Ouse
OS TL015479 GPS 52.1209N, 0.5185W
Set by the river, All Saints is Perpendicular outside, including the tower. Inside are a 12th-century chancel arch and Early English arcades.
KNOTTING † St Margaret
4m/6km S.E. of Rushden
OS TL002634 GPS 52.2603N, 0.5324W
Churches Conservation Trust
A delightful church with Norman nave, 13th-century chancel and transept and W. tower dated 1615. There are simple 16th- and 17th-century furnishings, and chancel gates dated 1637.
LEIGHTON BUZZARD † All Saints
11m/18km N.W. of Luton
OS SP919248 GPS 51.9148N, 0.6653W
The finest parish church in the county, in an attractive market-town setting; 13th-century, of cruciform plan and with a gigantic spire. It had an excellent restoration after a major fire in 1985.The walls were raised in the 15th century and the magnificent timber roofs of typical flattish pitch were then constructed. The complete collegiate late 15th-century chancel, with seating and screens intact, is the great treasure of All Saints. Medieval graffiti on the piers, including a drawing of a Decorated window in the S. chapel. The elaborate ironwork on the W. door may be by Thomas of Leighton, creator in 1294 of the delicate grille at the tomb of Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abbey. There are good Kempe windows, 1887–1905.
LUTON † St Andrew
Blenheim Crescent
OS TL082227 GPS 51.8928N, 0.4279W
A fine church by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, 1931–2, it is built of red brick with pantile roofs and a massive W. tower, and effectively lit by grouped clerestory windows.
LUTON † St Mary
Between Church Street and St Mary’s Road
OS TL095212 GPS 51.8787N, 0.4102W
This magnificent church resists, by sheer architectural merit, the desolation of its setting. Begun in the 13th century, enlarged in the 14th, it reached its present form in the 15th when Lord Wenlock built his sumptuous chapel. Octagonal 14th-century baptistry, a work of great richness and competence. The W. tower has flint and clunch chequerwork panels, the latter, in part, replaced by harder limestone in modern times. Street’s work in the chancel is of a dark richness, but the external refacing of the E. end was heartless. 14th-century font and canopy; Wenlock tombs.
ELSTOW: ST MARY AND ST HELEN – sturdy Norman arcades run down the nave
MARSTON MORETEYNE † St Mary the Virgin
6m/10km S.W. of Bedford
Village also spelt Marston Moretaine
OS SP996411 GPS 52.0598N, 0.5484W
A magnificent building practically rebuilt in 1445, in a decade that yielded much rich architecture. The nave is very grand, with slender pillars, and a roof resplendent with bosses and angels. Detailing is bold and confident, though lacking the full richness of stained glass and screening. The detached bell-tower is a fine massive building; the whole is reminiscent of neighbouring Elstow.
NORTHILL † St Mary the Virgin
6m/10km E. of Bedford
OS TL149465 GPS 52.1054N, 0.3238W
The church is a blend of Totternhoe clunch and ironstone. Inside are 14th-century collegiate stalls. The golden glass of 1664 was commissioned by the Grocers’ Company. Originally this formed the E. window, but the three panels were moved to the S. aisle in 1880.
ODELL † All Saints
8m/12km N.W. of Bedford
OS SP966580 GPS 52.2118N, 0.5865W
Set on an eminence in a good stone village, this is an excellent example of a unified 15th-century church. Grand W. tower of Northamptonshire type; the gentle incline up to a pinnacled parapet relieves what might otherwise be an overpowering bulk. The interior is marked by tall arcades, an original rood screen and very satisfying diamond-pattern flooring in nave and aisles. A group of seraphs in the 15th-century stained glass E. window of the S. aisle of a rare and naive beauty.
OLD WARDEN † St Leonard
7m/11km S.E. of Bedford
OS TL136443 GPS 52.0856N, 0.3424W
Perpendicular mostly, St Leonard’s was substantially renovated in the 19th century. A Norman tower arch remains, and the interior has Jacobean panelling and an abundance of other carved woodwork, much of it culled from abroad, especially Belgium. Monuments include a lifesize Classical statue of Sir Samuel Ongley, d. 1726.
LEIGHTON BUZZARD: ALL SAINTS – refined medieval graffiti and rich carving in the choir
PAVENHAM † St Peter
5m/8km N.W. of Bedford
OS SP991559 GPS 52.1929N, 0.5510W
On the hillside above one of the loveliest of the riverside villages, Pavenham church, like Old Warden, is full of carved panelling and rich woodwork, most of it installed in 1848; Jacobean in the main, consisting of everything from marquetry to high relief. There is a two-storey 13th-century S. porch, otherwise everything is mostly Perpendicular.
PODINGTON † St Mary the Virgin
5m/8km S.E. of Wellingborough
OS SP941626 GPS 52.2543N, 0.6218W
Mostly 13th-century, with 14th-century leaning spire, the church contains a Norman font, monuments and Orlebar wall-plaques.
SHARNBROOK † St Peter
7m/11km N.W. of Bedford
OS SP993595 GPS 52.2256N, 0.5468W
Perpendicular outside, including the noble spire which surmounts a Decorated tower, St Peter’s is a sensitive modern restoration. Massive 19th-century Magniac Mausoleum stands in the churchyard.
SHELTON † St Mary the Virgin
11m/18km N. of Bedford
OS TL033687 GPS 52.3076N, 0.4852W
Remote and rustic, and delightfully chaste inside, the building is a mixture of Norman and later fabric. Pews, screen and clear glass form a comely assemblage, and there are a few wall-paintings.
SHILLINGTON † All Saints
8m/13km N.E. of Luton
OS TL123339 GPS 51.9926N, 0.3647W
This is a wonderful hill-top site, typical of many similar church-crowned hills along the line of the Chilterns. Alas, it was rather too long to fit the top comfortably, a factor which doubtless caused the failure of the tower footings in 1701. The present red-brick erection of 1750 is not really worthy of the church. A clerestoried hall, hardly interrupted in its continuity from W. to E., is mainly a work of the 14th century, only slightly altered subsequently, though with much 19th-century window tracery. The rood screen (15th-century with some later repairs) inside forms the only actual division and, save for the loss of its loft, is perfect. A vaulted crypt lies under the chancel; there are brasses, pews and screens to delight the eye.
STEVINGTON † St Mary the Virgin
4m/6km N.W. of Bedford
OS SP990536 GPS 52.1722N, 0.5532W
On a terrace above the Ouse, the church has a pre-Conquest tower complete with long-and-short quoins, augmented in the 15th century with an upper stage. There is a 14th-century nave roof with shield-bearing supporters, and a brass to Sir Thomas Salle, d. 1422.
SWINESHEAD † St Nicholas
10m/16km N. of Bedford
OS TL057658 GPS 52.2806N, 0.4508W
St Nicholas is a handsome Decorated church, including the tower, slender recessed spire and arcades. Inside are a richly carved Easter Sepulchre, good misericords and a fine W. door.
THURLEIGH † St Peter
6m/10km N. of Bedford
OS TL051584 GPS 52.2144N, 0.4626W
By a castle motte, St Peter’s has an early Norman central tower with S. doorway, and a crude Adam and Eve carved in the tympanum. Otherwise the church is mostly Perpendicular with some early glass, a nave floor brass of c. 1420 and a 1590 wall brass to Edmond Daye in the S. aisle.
TOTTERNHOE † St Giles
2m/3km W. of Dunstable
OS SP988208 GPS 51.8778N, 0.5656W
This church, built from the quarries in the village, has an unusually fine exterior. In the gable of the nave is flint flushwork in the Chiltern style. Begun in the 14th century and adorned in the 16th by a pinnacled skyline, it provides a most satisfactory silhouette. Inside, all is space and light with carved roofs and woodwork, brasses and a good E. window by John Piper.
TURVEY † All Saints
7m/11km W. of Bedford
OS SP940525 GPS 52.1632N, 0.6267W
The Ouse Valley village is Victorian-Jacobean in character; its pre-Conquest church with 14th- to 15th-century additions was sumptuously ‘improved’ by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the mid-19th century. Exuberant scrolled ironwork by the local man, Thomas of Leighton, decorates the S. door, and there is a fine collection of 15th- and 16th-century brasses and monuments, largely to the Mordaunt family.
WILLINGTON † St Lawrence
4m/6km E. of Bedford
OS TL106498 GPS 52.1360N, 0.3847W
A grand early 16th-century church, St Lawrence was paid for by Sir John Gostwick, d. 1545, who was in the service of Henry VIII; his tomb is beside the altar. A memorable N. chapel contains helmets and monuments. The 1876–7 restoration was by Henry Clutton.
WOBURN † St Mary
5m/8km N. of Leighton Buzzard
OS SP948332 GPS 51.9896N, 0.6199W
St Mary’s was erected in 1865–8 by William, eighth Duke of Bedford, to the designs of Henry Clutton, Bath stone being used throughout. It is an absolutely magnificent building; the interior is vaulted in stone and the echoes of the Ile de France are strong. The tall reredos by Caroe, choir-stalls and pulpit are later additions.
WYMINGTON † St Lawrence
2m/3km S. of Rushden
OS SP955643 GPS 52.2695N, 0.6016W
St Lawrence was begun in the mid-14th century by wool merchant John Curteys, who, with his wife, is buried in the chancel. This church must be an example of work carried out by masons based on jobs in the neighbouring county of Northamptonshire, but working here on a slightly tighter budget. All the Nene Valley features are to be seen, though delightfully out of scale, particularly in the tower and spire which are lavishly ornamented. The interior is rich and complex: a fine nave roof; the remains of a suitably horrific Doom painting; old pewing and some colour still on capitals and arches. The building provides the county’s best instance of the luxuriant spirit of the 14th century.
