Heaven in Scarborough ... and then we went to Filey

I tried the door. St Martin-on-the-Hill was locked. But there was a sign alongside - guided tours at 10.30am every Tuesday. I looked at my phone. It was nearly 10am. I looked at my partner. Was it Tuesday? Yes, it was. 

While he took Ted dog off to sample the delights of Scarborough, I counted off the minutes until I could get in. The guide and his wife made me a cup of coffee when they arrived. I was about to enter heaven on earth.  

Almost immediately, I was struck by the similarity with All Saints Church in Selsley, near Stroud, so it was no surprise to learn that this church and that are sister churches, designed by the same architect, G F Bodley, and both fitted out by Morris & Co.  

Our guide took me and three other people who had arrived on a guided tour of the beautiful windows. I'm posting pictures of some my favourites but there are more. 

St Martin divides his cloak in two and gives half to a beggar ...

... then dreams that the beggar is Christ in Majesty, conqueror of sin and  death, holding up the cloak while angels wipe their noses on it kiss it.

The rose window in the west wall, with a central Annunciation designed by Burne Jones, and circling angels by him and William Morris 

The story of SS Dorothea and Theophilus (now demoted to non-official sainthood owing to Lack Of Evidence Of Their Existence), with the most beautiful angel/fruit bearer between them. Dorothea is modelled by Jane Morris.  Burne Jones was paid £12 for its design.

The Three Marys window, originally made for St Martin's Church in Brighton but rejected because it features Lizzie Siddal, a probable suicide 

Mary Magdalene, modelled by Annie Miller and designed by Morris

Mary the Virgin, modelled by Georgiana Burne Jones and designed by her husband

Mary of Bethany, modelled by Lizzie Siddal and designed by Morris

As well as these and other beautiful windows, there is a pulpit with panels on the front painted to designs by Ford Madox Brown and Morris. The top row shows the Four Evangelists; the bottom panels, depicting SS Augustine of Hippo, Gregory, Jerome and Ambrose of Milan, were considered close to popery by some of the townsfolk of Scarborough and had to be curtained when the pulpit was first installed, for fear of causing offence. 

To the side there are two panels featuring scenes from the Annunciation by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 

The organ 

The rood screen and cross, both late additions after the death of the principle benefactor of the Church, Mary Craven, the crossing of which  symbolises death

The chancel, or heaven

The east window, telling the story of the Crucifixion through the Parable of the Vineyard

The beautiful beautiful ceiling of the Lady Chapel










Tearing myself away, I met up with the Northerner, who was rather underwhelmed by the secular delights of Scarborough, and we headed off to Filey, his childhood holiday destination. I'd been enthusing about how much I'd liked it during my stay a couple of years ago, when I went to my nephew's wedding, but I hadn't had my dog with me then and now much of the beach was out of bounds to us - or under water. 

And it was really hard to find anywhere decent to eat. And a gull managed to shit on both of us with one well-aimed evacuation. 

'Never mind,' said the woman in Boots when we went in for baby wipes. 'At least it wasn't one of those horrible gulls from Bridlington.' 

Yes, even non local gulls are to be denigrated in post-Brexit Britain. 

'We must remember to buy a lottery ticket' said the Northerner as he dabbed off a second direct hit - but needless to say, we forgot. 

Still at least one of our party was having a great time ... 

To Hetty Pegler's Tump and Selsley

Dru was off to release a few Inking Bitterns into the wilds of Gloucestershire and did I want to come too? I said I could spare a morning (with Ted in tow) and she agreed that was all it would take, so off we went.

First stop Thornbury, where Dru snapped up a copy of 'Biggles Gets His Men' in a charity shop, then Berkeley (where there are no bookshops but a soon-to-close newsagents and a pharmacy in the former pub), followed by the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge.
    
We also hoped to pop into the church with its graceful spire but it was locked.  The churchyard was interesting, though,  if swampy. In contrast to the elegance of the architecture, there were some very thuggish cherubs.  I suspect they are bouncers at the Pearly Gates.

Then it was off to Hetty Pegler's Tump, the Neolithic Long Barrow at Uley, just outside Dursley.  The mound is named after Hester, wife of the the 17th century owner of the field, who died in 1694.  

We took the scenic route to the tump, which led past a quarry in the wood.  

It was pretty rainy and the ground was sodden and slippy, but the colour and geometry of rock and trees made up for that.  

Back up on the road we found ourselves in cloud, but the skies were clearing from the west and by the time we reached the tump, the day was brightening.

Is it my imagination or is there an oval, Paul Klee-esque face staring out of the stone lintel?

The entrance being much smaller than the one at Stoney Littleton - or me possibly being rather fatter - I didn't attempt to squeeze through it, but this is what it looks like inside.  

View across to the River Severn

En route to Nailsworth to drop off some books in the Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, we saw a sign for Selsley, a small village outside Stroud with a remarkable Arts and Crafts Church, and as Dru had yet to visit it, we made a brief detour.  

Look, isn't it stunning, seen through the Lych Gate with attendant jackdaws?








The last of the great Cotswold wool churches. 

Selsey's chief treasure is its windows, which date from 1862 and are the only complete set designed by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co.  

This is one of my favourites - another Ascension, like the mediaeval window at Fairford and the stone carving in Wells Cathedral.  

And this is the beautiful West window.

There were lots of lovely Arts and Crafts touches - the delicately carved screen around the Lady Chapel, the capitals on the (rather ugly marble) columns, the altarcloth and pulpit hanging, but I'm sticking with the windows for now. 

In the churchyard, some of the more modern headstones were reminiscent of those at Mells and Partrishow.  This one is engraved with a few lines from 'Parting' by Jorge Luis Borges.

Back at the car, Ted was twiddling his paws so we let him drive us home via Nailsworth and Wotton-under-Edge (whose bookshop, unfortunately, was closed), returning somewhat later than planned ... but what a cracking day out.