Before the Welfare State

A number of churches we have visited have monuments or plaques that record acts of great generosity. Parishioners who made money, often as merchants in London, seem to have remembered their humble origins and left bequests to the poor. Here are three examples.

The first is a simple plaque to the memory of Mr John Brown, of Barrowden in Rutland, who left rents from a property in Hammersmith, London, for blankets to be given to the poor of Barrowden every New Years Day.


According to Kelly's Directory of Rutland for 1928, the Charity Commissioners in 1908 agreed that the money, then half the rent, or £50, could be applied more generally to the relief of the sick, poor and needy. 'The Leicestershire & Rutland Village Book', compiled by the Leicestershire & Rutland Federation of Women's Institutes, records that the relief was distributed monthly as free groceries to elderly residents, in the 1990's at least, by the village shop and post office.

Barrowden church, St Peter's,  is a listed building, grade II*. Its spire is a "broach", fitting the corners of the tower without a parapet.

Barrowden

In Billingborough, Lincolnshire, Thomas Buckberry left £100 in 1827 to be invested in Government securities. The dividends were to be used to purchase bread, to be distributed to the poorest persons in the parish after divine service on the first sunday of the months of November, December, January, February and March "for ever."

To qualify for the bread, regular attendance at divine service was necessary and the vicar and churchwardens were to use their discretion in deciding who was most proper to receive it. The executors had to fix or erect a shelf for the bread and a stone in a conspicuous place which stated the nature of the bequest.  Conspicuous, yes, but not that easy to read!

Billingborough

Billingborough is on the edge of The Fens and the church's imposing 150ft high spire, with its delicate flying buttresses, is prominent for miles around. St Andrew's is listed grade I.

The most generous bequest we have seen so far is that of Rev William Dodwell to the parishioners of Welby, near Grantham in Lincolnshire (and Stoke Rochford, where he was also rector). He left the income from £1608, 11 shillings and 6 pence, held in 3% annuities - that's £106,000 in today's money. His executors were to ensure that £15 a year was available for the education of 12 poor boys and girls between the ages of 6 and 12; £10 for one or more apprenticeships for a useful trade or service and the residue for money, clothes, bedding, coals or other fuels for the "deserving poor". According to the records of the Charity Commission, the charity was still paying out £360 in 2010. (All historical info courtesy of Google).

The church, St Bartholomew's,  is a gem of a grade I listed building and was open when we visited.

Welby

Church Crawling - What's the Fascination?

When I was at school there was always great excitement approaching four o’clock in the afternoon when a double headed express would come steaming past our school playing fields. My friends, perfectly sane kids and most with a good sense of humour, would rush out after lessons with their little books of train numbers desperate to record whatever came past and as it was the early 60’s there were often a few odd engines well outside their normal territory which apparently added to the fascination. Except I didn’t get it. Engines were just engines, big black noisy smelly things with smoke and steam pouring out of low funnels, but essentially all the same. Photogenic maybe but none of my friends had cameras and the object of it all seemed just to find out the number of each engine and underline it in the little books. Instead I liked to go and visit old churches, also photogenic, also iconic in the context of old England, often full of architectural beauty, redolent with social history, imbued with the mystery of centuries and a bit scary with all those dead bodies in the churchyards. Especially if you were only 12 and alone on your bike because all your mates were clustered somewhere along the East Coast Main Line watching out for the Flying Scotsman or whatever else happened to pass. I was an odd child; I even liked Brussels sprouts.

So what do you do if 50 years down the line you find yourself retired with lots of time on your hands and located in a part of the country where there is a medieval church every two or three miles and some of them good enough to feature in all the best guide books? No good asking my wife as she sees churches as I used to see steam engines (though I must admit that to see a steamer in full flight now is something really special….). So with Martin’s wife having similar views to mine the idea arose that the two of us might just occasionally have a day out in the country, provided the weather was good, have a nice drive through the countryside, maybe an occasional walk across fields and along streams, of course a good pub lunch and a few churches just to give the day a bit of structure.

So our church crawls began and the areas we chose to see first, mainly Rutland and Lincolnshire, are full of wonderful churches and not just the splendid well known ones like Heckington, Swaton or Lyddington, but also little quirky churches like Brooke (Rutland), Howell (near Sleaford) or Peakirk(near Peterborough). In fact every church has its beauties, often poignant, often dilapidated but still beautiful. Every church has its human stories of happenings long ago and the people involved in those events, and while visiting churches we often meet up with people, sometimes a local coffee morning held in the church, American tourists looking for ancestors, local church helpers, village vicars, other church crawlers, or even the local squire who wants to know what we are doing, especially if the lead has just been removed from the local church.

There are four of us now who go out for a day, usually once a month throughout the warmer months. We’ve been doing it for a couple of years and have visited over 100 churches, averaging around 12 per trip, probably spending about half an hour at a church if we can get in, much less if the church is locked up. We’ve been lucky so far and out of our 12 usually 7 will be open. Many thanks to all those dedicated people out there who still keep their churches open, especially in these days when many churches have sadly been targeted by thieves.

We venture into Cambridgeshire

INTRODUCTION

Chris Bentley had the idea. Martin Gorman agreed it would be a good thing to do during retirement. Fiona Forgham and Will Wiseman shared the interest and wanted to come along when they were free. So the photographic expeditions to East Midlands churches began, starting with Rutland in 2009.

After 2 years and mounting numbers of digital photos we wanted to "do something with them" so this shared blog has come about.  It is not going to be a complete record of church exteriors.  Any topic, narrative, historical or architectural, is likely to come up and will reflect our personal interests in the region where we have worked for many years, mainly in the field of town and country planning and, in Will's case, transport planning.

OCTOBER 2011

Our 9th trip. On this occasion, our furthest expedition so far, Martin, Chris and Fiona couldn't resist crossing the southern edge of the regional boundary to have a look at the splendours of the old Soke of Peterborough area. After all, it was part of the ancient county of Northamptonshire and therefore in the East Midlands until 1888. Barnack and Castor churches are exceptional and the John Clare memorial at Helpston and Glinton's fine needle spire are features of interest. On the Lincolnshire side of the divide Deeping St James was a priory church with a central arcade in the nave and the rich carving of the chancel arch at Tickencote in Rutland is wondrous to behold.

Anglo Saxon Christ figure at Barnack, found quite recently

Barnack

Castor

Glinton

Helpston

John Clare memorial

Deeping St James

Tickencote