I've always had a passion for English parish churches, so it will be a pleasure to share with you some of those establishments in this area that I already know during this month - and a great excuse to visit some more!
Today I give you a glimpse of the church of St Peter, Hurstbourne Tarrant - just a few miles south of Autumn Cottage. There was a church on this site in Saxon times, but the present church dates from the end of the 12th century - about 1180. I believe that every church in the UK holds a unique treasure. Sometimes you have to search hard to find it - but not so here, where there is treasure a-plenty. My most favoured item is this beautiful window, commissioned for the Millennium, showing scenes in and around the village, by the Winchester glass engraver Tracey Sheppard. Here is the window as a 'regular' photograph
...and below, after I had played around with it in a photo editing suite, as a colourised 'negative', to striking effect, I think.
A somewhat earlier work of art is that of the 14th century mural of the legend of The Three Living and the Three Dead', discovered at the end of the last century, under later application of whitewash (that act of puritanical obliteration which inadvertantly preseved these treasures for centuries, away from the critical Protestant eye!). Three rather jolly yellow skeletons (or 'skenticles' as my three year old Hugh once called them :-)), admonishing the kings to take note that 'as you are, so once were we...as we are now, so shall ye be...'
The discovery of the mural under the whitewash reminds me of the book I read a few weeks ago, "A Month in the Country", by JL Carr. The new windows, with their creative typography,are lovely.Treasure in each church, and a church or two in each village, that's a lot of treasure to cherish!
Posted by: Margaret Lambert | Tuesday, August 02, 2011 at 14:57
I finally figured out where you live on a map!
Posted by: Gracie | Monday, August 08, 2011 at 12:44