Heritage Open and Not So Open Days

I love Heritage Open Days, but often fail to nosy around places that are usually out of bounds by getting myself booked up to do other stuff the same weekend. Not so this year. I noted the dates in my diary in May, and came up with a packed schedule of Places To Visit that made even seasoned jaunter, the Friend-Formerly-Known-As-'Er-Over-The-Road, baulk.

But then I was asked to be poet-in-residence at the Methodist District Synod in Bath on the Saturday. And I said yes, which necessitated a rethink. Several of the places I'd put on my list were only open on the Saturday. The main thing was to get to the graveyard of St John on the Wall in the centre of Bristol, which hadn't been opened to the public since 1968. The other place I really wanted to visit was St Saviour's in Coalpit Heath, which I'd failed to get inside on two previous attempts. So that's where the F-F-K-A-E-O-T-R and I decided to visit on Friday.

Except when we arrived there was no one about. No signs. No tell-tale bunting. And the door was locked. We walked around the church. No one there. I fished out my phone and googled. THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. Gah. 

Saturday's events at the Methodist Synod weren't that photogenic, but very enjoyable all the same, and included lots of connections made with people through poetry, which was brilliant. 

Sunday morning found me and the Northerner in town, ready to visit the secret, perpetually shut churchyard of St John on the Wall, between the railings of which I've pressed my face for years. 

I could see the gates were open as we wandered down Tailors' Court and felt quite emotional walking through them at last. 

Once inside, there's a feeling that you're treading on the bones of the dead. An average of 13 burials a week were taking place by the mid-18th century, when it was declared full and closed.  And since the church was built in the 14th century, that's a lot of corpses. 

The juxtaposition of the very old and the modern was striking ... 

... and I was fascinated by the views of the familiar lanes from a new perspective. 

Best of all, though, the ruinous, the decayed, the overgrown. 

Memorial of the merchant Edmund Browne, who died in 1635

The mausoleum of  merchant-venturer Hugh Brown (died 1653) and his wife

Detail of mausoleum ceiling

Disappointingly, the church itself was shut and the crypt, though open, was full of modern stained glass that was displayed for sale on cloths spread over the tombs so you couldn't see them.

I consoled myself with the knowledge that I'd seen it all before anyway and we went for a drink in one of our favourite pubs, the Seven Stars, instead.

Angels in Tailors' Court

After maundering along Gropecunt Lane, I concluded my Artist's Date with a visit to another favourite spot very nearby, this one far less affected by the passage of time. It's so tucked away that until earlier this summer, I didn't even know it existed.  













Like the neighbouring Church of St John the Baptist (St John on the Wall), Tailors' Court is a rare mediaeval survivor of Nazi bombs and city planners.  It is accessed by a short passageway under part of an old house in Broad Street. 

At the other end is the Church burial ground. It's just inside the boundary of the ancient city walls, and looks so verdant and peaceful here, given that it's so close to the city centre. 

What wouldn't I give to go in there? But it's always locked.

The Guild of Merchant Tailors was one of the ancient guilds of Bristol, set up by charter of Richard II in 1399. The Guild's Hall was built in 1740, replacing an earlier one on the site. It has a very ornate porch hood, showing the arms of the Guild.  The moulding includes St John Baptist's head on a platter. St John was patron saint of the Guild. The Guild's motto was 'Concord makes small things flourish'.

Rules of the Guild were very strict. For example:

• A master was allowed 3 apprentices at one time and no more.
• None to be admitted to the Guild unless they had served 7 years as apprentice and had a testimonial.
• No-one not a freeman of the company was to make garments, make or sell stockings.
• None to backbite or undervalue another's workmanship.
• No-one to open shop or work on the Sabbath or festivals.
• In 1489 it was ordained that no merchant taylor was to sell hose (men or women's) on a stall in a market except at fair time but only in shops or houses.
• Some were allowed only to be hosiers - one person, David ap Howell was allowed to make no new garments but only to mend old.

The Tailors' Company was moribund by the early 19th century. John Latimer, in his Annals of Bristol in the Nineteenth Century, says the last surviving Merchant Tailor in Bristol was a Mr Isaac Amos, who died in 1824, having been for many years the sole surviving member: 

'Mr Amos, so long as he lived, carried out the ancient customs of the guild with great gravity. He yearly elected himself master, and allowed himself £10 10s for serving 'an extra time'; summoned himself to committee meetings, and paid himself £12 12s for his attendances; audited his own accounts, and rewarded himself with £2 2s therefor; and finally put into his pocket various trifling gratuities authorised by established precedents.'

These were substantial sums of money! It's fair to say that Mr Amos did very well out of being the last of the Fraternity of Tailors.

This is the porch hood over the earlier Court House. The date is 1692.

 In ye oldene daies, there would have been wooden shutters in place of these windows.

 

These two figures of angels are probably mediaeval. How long they have been in situ or why they find themselves in Tailors' Court, no one knows.