The visitor might be first struck by the peculiar top stage of the tower which sits at a forty-five degree angle to the stages below. It was added in the early fifteenth century and is unique in England. It was not built thus for the sake of being “different”, however. It is much more likely that the original crossing below was already showing signs of strain. The diagonal configuration will have helped to ensure that the arches did not spring apart under the added weight.
The configuration has changed little over the centuries. It was built on a true cruciform plan: that is with a central tower and crossing at the centre of two transepts, the chancel and the nave. The chapels that flank the chancel also date from the that time. The south side is known as the Town Choir and this rather small space was that reserved for worship by the local people. The north chapel is now known as the Piper Choir and is little changed.
The chancel is very much the beauty of this church. Rather unusually it has a triforium - a galleried intermediate space between arcade and clerestory - that is not mirrored within the nave. This is a very pretty feature with a long run of wide (but low) pointed arches supported by neat and slim columns. The whole architectural composition at this east end is, in fact, a text book example of the transition from Norman to gothic styles. The triforium is a lovely piece that would be quite at home in an Early English style church. Similarly, the crossing arches are pointed but plain. The arches leading from chancel to Town Choir are, on the other hand, round in the Norman style, matching the south doorway. All of these round arches, however, have decorative courses of simple geometric designs that eschew the zig zag and beakhead tropes of the Norman era. To add to the glorious ambiguity of it all, the arches leading from the nave to the side chapels via the transepts have narrow pointed arches with courses of decoration that would have been perfectly at home on Norman round arches! The masons here had a field day mixing the old and new forms.
The fourteenth century saw the expansion of the Town Choir in the Decorated style of the day. It was extended to accommodate the tomb of the first Lord Harrington who died in 1347. Meanwhile, however, the monastic buildings on the south side of the church were becoming ruinous owing to their being built on riverine alluvial land rather than on the rocky outcrop occupied by the church. The program to rebuild it all on the more stable north side also saw the addition of the top stage of the tower, the extension westwards of the nave and the magnificent east window, all in the Perpendicular style. This window probably replaced a set of two groups of three early gothic lancet windows thus more or less eradicating the Transitional nature of the exterior.
This period also saw the installation of the twenty-six misericord seats in the chancel, probably in around 1450. All are more or less intact and their subject matter is fascinating. Interestingly, there were only thirteen monks as the foundation of the monastery, a mere seven in 1381 before the misericords were installed, and ten at the Dissolution. Did the twenty-six stalls point to a short-lived golden age or to a dose of wishful thinking? The church might have survived the Dissolution but the monastic chancel was probably seen as fair game for the despoilers. Thus the lead was stripped from the roof and the chancel was left open to the elements, causing damage to the surrounding stalls.
Between 1618 and 1622 one George Preston of nearby Holker Hall had a new chancel screen installed. The excellent booklet about the misericords says that at this time the minister was expected to conduct evensong and matins in the nave so that he could be seen and heard by the parishioners but also to carry out Holy Communion in an area screened from the rest of the church. That the screen escaped intact from the Cromwell’s troops is something of a miracle. Amongst other things they destroyed the organ. New canopies were installed over the misericords. Preston paid for many other improvements, including a new roof. His funds were supplemented by substantial contributions from the parishioners. The screen is adorned with a lot of entertaining iconography that seems to nod to a period two or three hundred years before. This might be explained by the church’s belief that a lot of the timber was re-used. Altogether, the woodwork here is a glorious thing for those that have eyes to see. Or who pay the paltry sum of ¢G1.99 for the explanatory booklet. Why anyone would look around the church and not bother with it is quite beyond me. Because if you are not interested in the bizarre misericords and other woodwork you certainly ain’t going to understand the styles of architecture, are you?
Finally, the church retains substantial fragments of its original mediaeval stained glass. If you have read this web page and visit the village without visiting the church - with your eyes OPEN - than I don’t know why I bother!
|