I fell in love with it at first sight and emailed a jpeg to my publisher, Ronnie Goodyer of Indigo Dreams. He replied that he used to live near there last century and often walked his dogs (seven border collies, if memory serves) in the valley. He also sent a couple of verses of a poem he'd written about the church with its miraculously surviving rood screen. The next day at Bristol Can Openers in its new venue of Foyle's, our guest, Graham Harthill, mentioned that he lived in the same area of Wales so I showed him the picture and he revealed that he had written several poems about this place I'd never heard of until a day or two earlier.
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Our first stop was the eglwys-y-bedd - or Church of the Grave - now a shrine to the Martyr Ishaw who is said to have been murdered by an ungrateful traveller at the Holy Well. Its considerable age is indicated by the most marvellously wonky window. I also loved the graveslab of Elizabeth, the daughter of Thomas Sanders, who died the 9th day of December 1770 aged 28, because the smily angel at the foot is holding its wings in the shape of a heart.
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Ah, but the rood screen ... so intricately carved yet so plain in its unvarnished, unpainted simplicity! Being 16th century, it would have been modern when King Henry VIII destroyed the monasteries and his son's vandals carried out their Cultural Revolution, yet it survived both of them. It survived the zealotry of the Roundheads. It survived the depredations of Victorian 'restoration'. I hope it can even survive my rubbish photography so you can get some idea of just how astounding it is. Some of the ivy that had decorated the church over Christmas was still in place, giving the impression that to step through the opening was to enter a fairy-tale forest or Narnia. There were even dragons there.
Beyond, a simple, light-filled chancel, with 18th century memorials featuring blowsy angels which could have been designed by Beryl Cook and a small print of William Holman Hunt's 'Light of the World', which echoed the Edwardian lantern atop the shaft of the mediaeval cross outside in the churchyard.
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This is the central lock on the parish chest which, unusually, is hollowed out of a tree trunk.
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One of the oldest fonts in Wales with an inscription of c1055.


Forgot the cattle, dammit!
More about Partrishow anon.
*Note to anyone who doesn't know him: this is the John Terry, not the footballer, obviously.
Thank you for sharing your treasures here. I feel like I've travelled a bit while reading this, which is so welcome on a January afternoon. Good luck for the new year!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jodi - I think the memory of it will keep me going through a few more dull wintry days yet. I wish you happy and fruitful journeying for 2013 XX
DeleteSo glad this proved a worthwhile and special expedition. We have happy memories of our visit ... though badger and hare eluded us!
ReplyDeleteThere in spirit, I'm sure!
DeleteFollowed you here from the Small Stones blog...I loved your entry today! And so glad I wandered here. This post, this site, are wonderful. I do feel that i am exploring a wight inverse right along with you. Thank you for sharing your view of the world!
ReplyDeleteGreetings from Annapolis, Maryland, USA
Melanie
Dratted spell correct. That should be "exploring a new universe"
ReplyDeleteI dunno, I kind of like 'wight inverse', wight being an old English word for a man. Sort of like the hanged man on a Tarot card. But thanks for the compliment - we will never get to visit all the places we would wish, but we can see them through another's eyes.
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