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| Ab Kettleby St James in May 2012 |
8 April 2013, the first trip of the year. Ab Kettleby.
It sounds like a station on a long closed rural branch line immortalised
in a poem by John Betjeman. Actually
it’s a village of ironstone houses just north of Melton Mowbray, blessed with a
lovely C13 spired church, described in the 1960 Pevsner as being “in a nicely decayed
state”. I don’t know what constitutes
“nicely decayed” but the church has in fact been closed since 2006
having been declared unsafe and not so nicely decayed. The parish was then faced with a tricky
decision, either to close the church and let nature take its course or try to
raise the money to save it. They opted
for the latter course and following a vigorous campaign, including a feature on BBC1's One Show and help from English Heritage, work on the church
has now progressed to the point where Easter has just been celebrated in the
church for the first time in years. Well
done to the campaigners!
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| Working on the spire in April 2013 |
There seems to be some mystery as to why the church had become so unstable. Exploratory excavations have revealed that
the church was built over a Roman villa site and an ancient ditch running
north-south under the church may also have contributed to the problem. Many ancient burials and inhumations were
also discovered showing that the site has had a history of occupation and worship
for many centuries before the present church was built. Many church sites, and maybe most, have
similar long histories but in many cases all remains are hidden below the
church or all traces of previous occupation may have gone. Whatever the cause of the problems at Ab
Kettleby it looks as if the church will soon be back in use which really is an
achievement to celebrate.
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| Ab Kettleby St James interior |
But we didn’t
know that when we came to the church, out on our first trip this year. I’d
expected the church still to be closed but when we arrived the stone masons
working on the church were on their lunch break in the back of the church and
they were happy for us to come in and look around. It must have been a welcome break for them inside
the church as they were working that day high up on the spire and there was a
vicious east wind outside, despite the bright sunlight. They told us that they’d had to remove 10
courses from the top of the spire and then replace them after stabilising it. That had followed extensive work on the C13
south aisle wall which had required substantial strengthening. What a job it must have been but I hope that
the church will now survive for many more centuries to come.
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| North arcade: C19 copy |
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| South arcade: C13 capital |
The church has a
normal plan for one of its size with the C13 south aisle matched by a nicely executed north
aisle built in the C19. The chancel is
also C13, perhaps an unusual survival when so many in the area were replaced in
Victorian times. Of special note is the
tomb of Everard Digby of Holwell, who died in 1628, a relative of his namesake,
Sir Everard Digby, one of the Gunpowder Plotters, who was
executed in 1606. Also to note are the
C15 carved bench ends, some with curious faces, including one little man with his
tongue sticking out. How many times have
we seen that in other churches?
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| Everard Digby Memorial (1628) |
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| C15 man with tongue sticking out |
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| Another bearded man |
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| And yet another! |
Another
survival is the massive boiler by the London Warming Company. I seem to remember a lot of these still in
use in churches 50 years ago but they are quite a rarity these days so I hope
it will be retained. Despite its size
and its industrial nature it has a certain beauty. Another unusual feature is the C18 slate memorial to Thomas and Lucy Keal, not unusual in itself, particularly in this part of Leicestershire where there are many beautiful C18 Swithland slate memorials in local graveyards. This one is unusual in its placing outside on the chancel wall below the east window.
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| Monumental Boiler - Not Many of These Left |
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| Memorial to Thomas and Lucy Keal |
By the way the Ab
in Ab Kettleby apparently derives from a long forgotten local tribal leader
Abba so I hope you’ll note that I’ve resisted the temptation to weave in a lot
of Abba song puns into this piece. Maybe
that’s just because I’ve got good taste or maybe it would have been different
if some of those song titles had been more appropriate to the piece. I guess we’ll never know…
For now let’s be
thankful that the seemingly never ending winter weather looks like it’s finally
retreated back to the Arctic. Now we can get down to planning some more
trips out in the country.
