John Ruskin

Feb17

I have long loved the art of John Ruskin (1819-1900). I was given a card in the 1970s with a reproduction of one of his watercolours, and I still have it. It’s a study of a peacock breast feather, held in the Collection of the Guild of St George, Museums Sheffield.

John Ruskin. Study of a Peacock’s Breast Feather. 1875, watercolour, 22.3 x 14.7 cm.

This first got me interested in his art, especially his stunning watercolours (click on all pics to make bigger):

John Ruskin. Rocks and Ferns in a Wood at Crossmount. 1847. Perthshire. Pencil, ink, watercolour and bodycolour, 32.3 x 46.5 cm

John Ruskin. Rocks and Ferns in a Wood at Crossmount, Perthshire. 1847, pencil, ink, watercolour and bodycolour, 32.3 x 46.5 cm.

John Ruskin. The Garden of San Miniato near Florence. 1845, watercolour on paper.

John Ruskin. Mountain Rock and Alpine Rose. 1844-1849, pencil, ink, chalk, watercolour and bodycolour, 29.8 x 41.4 cm.

John Ruskin. Part of the Façade, San Michele, Lucca. 1845, pencil and watercolour on pale cream paper, 33 x 23.3 cm.

John Ruskin. The Chateau of Neuchatel at dusk, with Jura mountains beyond. 1866, pencil and watercolour, 13.3 x 21 cm.

John Ruskin. Coast Scene near Dunbar. 1847, pencil and watercolour, 32.5 x 47.5 cm.

John Ruskin. The Casa d’Oro, Venice. 1845, pencil and watercolour, with bodycolour, 33 x 47.6 cm.

John Ruskin. Study of a peacock feather and another feather.

Ruskin was particularly fond of painting peacock feathers. In 1875 he wrote, ‘I’ve to draw a peacock’s breast-feather, and paint as much of it as I can without having heaven to dip my brush in.’

I wanted to get some postcards printed for my Etsy shop – my first attempt at branding – and needed an image. My photography doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny, so in the end I thought I’d just choose an image I love, and that was available for free use. It meant that my postcards wouldn’t reflect what I sell in my shop – probably a huge no-no when it comes to branding, but I’d rather have a lovely picture rather than a crappy one I took of some of my beautiful vintage jewellery. The image I settled on is one Ruskin painted of a kingfisher.

John Ruskin. Kingfisher. 1870-1871, pencil, ink, watercolour and bodycolour, 25.8 × 21.8 cm.

If you would like to know more about John Ruskin – he was so much more than just an artist – his Wikipedia page has much information and many links to more. Also, this blog is an interesting place to start.

Sunday stroll: Portland Bill

Jan24

Today we went for a walk at Portland Bill, the most southerly point on the Isle of Portland. The Isle of Portland is a strange place, hanging off the bottom of Chesil Beach like a stony teardrop. The island is an outcrop of Jurassic limestone which has been valued as a building stone for centuries. If you know the Tower of London: that’s Portland Stone. And St Paul’s Cathedral. And Buckingham Palace. And the United Nations headquarters building in New York City. And the Auckland War Memorial Museum in New Zealand. I could go on …

The Isle of Portland seen from Ringstead Bay on a sunny summer's day. To the right of the photo is Weymouth.

The Isle of Portland seen from Ringstead Bay on a sunny summer’s day in 2012. To the right of the photo is Wyke Regis, near Weymouth. Chesil Beach – a narrow spit of land, or tombolo – joins the two.

Quarrying has created a weird and atmospheric landscape on the island, with worked-out quarries and others that are still in use, and piles of discarded, sub-standard stone and workings piled in heaps and dumped over the edges of the high cliffs.

At the southerly end of the island is Portland Bill, with its two lighthouses to warn ships of the rocks and the deadly currents – the Race – where the water of the English Channel churns around the tip of the island in a furious boiling wash of water. Pulpit Rock is all that remains of a stone arch that was cut away by quarrymen.

Portland Bill lighthouse, and the other lighthouse (once the home of Marie Stopes) visible in the mid distance.

The Trinity House Obelisk, a daymarker to warn shipping off the coast during the day. All the land in the foreground is made ground, waste dumped by the quarrymen in centuries past.

Pulpit Rock.

It was a mild and windy day, and we scrambled down to a sea ledge to have a look at the stone and the seascape better.

Fossiliferous limestone exposed on the ledge by Pulpit Rock.

Dumped rejected stone near Pulpit Rock. The black dot on the water is a cormorant - we watched it repeatedly dive for food.

Dumped, rejected stone on a waste heap near Pulpit Rock. The black dot on the water is a cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) – we watched it repeatedly dive for food.

Earlier in the day we had been in Weymouth looking for jewellery goodies for my Etsy shop, and met this fellow in the car park:

Herring gull on the bonnet of our car in Weymouth.

Herring gull (Larus argentatus) on the bonnet of our car in Weymouth.

Tuesday stroll: Glastonbury Tor

Dec29

Today we went for a walk up Glastonbury Tor: it seemed like half of Somerset had the same idea as it was such a beautifully sunny day compared to the mostly soggy grey ones we’ve been having recently. (Click on all photos to embiggen/bigify/largeificate).

Glastonbury Tor in the distance with the ruins of the church of St Michael’s Church on top, the tor rising prominently out of the Somerset Levels that surround it.

Glastonbury Tor is a small, isolated hill which stands out from the flat expanse of the Somerset Levels around it. It is formed from layers dating from the Jurassic period: the tor itself is Bridport Sandstone, overlying Blue Lias and clay. Only the tower of the church of St Michael that formerly stood there now remains. This dates from the 14th century. Local lore says that Glastonbury Tor is the Isle of Avalon of legend, and is reputedly the burial place of King Arthur.

The tower of the Church of St Michael on top of Glastonbury Tor.

South-west face of the tower.

South-east face of the tower.

Lovely graffiti on the tower by J H Burgess, who visited on 21 May 1864, and revisited in 1869 and 1874.

Panorama from the tor, looking from the north-east (in the first photo) clockwise round to the south-west (sixth photo). The village at the foot of the hill in the middle distance in the second photo is Pilton, and nearby is Worthy Farm, of the famed Glastonbury Festival.

On the top of the hill is a lovely engraved plaque showing directions and distances to other notable places and features in the area.

The tor cast a wonderful shadow over the surrounding lower land (view looking north).

The low-lying Somerset Levels are very prone to flooding and drainage is a very important part of the land management there, with many straight drainage ditches (rhynes, pronounced reens) cutting across the landscape.

Waterlogged fields after the heavy rains of the past few weeks.

The countryside is looking unnaturally green for the time of year, a result of the very mild and wet weather we have been having. We’ve barely had a frost this winter, let alone a prolonged cold spell: compare with photos I took on 16 January 2015 on a walk in Wiltshire, almost exactly a year ago.

Wells

Nov8

It’s been pretty wet and miserable here for the last few days. This is a photo I took of a rainy day in the beautiful cathedral city of Wells a few years ago. It had been a lovely sunny day, and we’d been for a long walk around the sights – the Cathedral, Vicar’s Close, Bishop’s Palace and the many beautiful secular buildings – and then the heavens opened. We went back to the car and I took this photo from inside through the windscreen as the rain pelted down. I quite like its impressionistic quality.

A rainy day in Wells.

Earlier on had been like this:

Vicar’s Close, Wells. Constructed between 1348 and 1430.

Wells Cathedral. Built between 1176 and 1490.

Wells Cathedral.

and then the rain blew in. I like the fact that we get such changeable weather here – there’s often drama in the skies (apart from when it’s a flat, dull, grey day – not much drama then).

If you’re a film fan, Wells is the setting for Hot Fuzz: the co-writer and director, Edgar Wright, grew up in Wells. The Cathedral was digitally removed from the film though, I think because it was too imposing and took away from the smaller parish church, the Church of St Cuthbert, that featured in the film. Some of the filming took place in the Bishop’s Palace grounds, though.

The Piet Oudolf garden at Hauser & Wirth, Bruton

Sep22

We had a look round here on Saturday. The old farm buildings have been beautifully restored and altered for use as a gallery exhibition space, and new buildings have been added. My favourite part was the modern cloister, with clever planting. I assume the planting is by Piet Oudolf, who designed the beautiful meadow garden behind the gallery. The gallery and gardens are free to enter. The next exhibition there is one of photos by Don McCullin.

The late summer prairie-style planting was looking spectacular, and the garden was alive with bees and butterflies and hoverflies and dragonflies and damselflies and other assorted bugs and beasties. I think any beekeepers round there must be delighted!

Hauser & Wirth Somerset website

Sunday stroll: Down through Dorset

Sep14

Not really so much a stroll as a bimble in the car with a short walk at the end of it. Chap and I headed for the seaside yesterday, taking a long and slow route through Somerset and Dorset’s winding country lanes.

We stopped off at several places en route. First stop was the church of St Andrews in Yetminster. Here we admired the 15th-century painted decoration still surviving on the stonework and woodwork and a reminder of how our mostly now-plain parish churches would have looked in the past. There was a splendid brass monument to John Horsey (died 1531) and his wife on one wall, and another, stone this time, to Bridgett Minterne, who died in 1649. While we were there we were surprised by the church bells, which rang out ‘God Save the Queen’ – very unexpected. Apparently this happens every three hours to remind the villagers of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897. I wonder if it happens through the night? There are some fantastic gargoyles on the tower, and a beautiful golden weathercock, but my photos of these haven’t come out very well and so don’t do them justice.

15th-century painted decoration at St Andrew’s, Yetminster.

Brass monument to John Horsey (died 1531) and his wife, St Andrew’s, Yetminster.

Monument to Bridgett Minterne (died 1649), St Andrew’s, Yetminster.

The tower with gargoyles and golden weathercock, St Andrew’s, Yetminster.

Next stop was the reservoir at Sutton Bingham. We went for a short walk along the edge of the reservoir through the wildflower hay meadow that is managed by Wessex Water, but as it had been given its annual cut not too long ago there wasn’t much to see. On the water there were mainly gulls and a few ducks, and a heron perched on the opposite shore. Sadly we didn’t see the osprey that are summer visitors here. A few dinghies and sailboats from the yacht club were pootling up and down the water, all very Swallows and Amazons.

A Mirror dinghy on Sutton Bingham Reservoir.

Then down into deepest Dorset and the Marshwood Vale. We stopped at the village of Stoke Abbott, parking near a lovely lion’s-head fountain of spring water with a spring-fed stone trough for horses nearby, both under a mighty oak planted in 1901 to celebrate the accession of Edward VII to the throne following the death of Victoria. We wandered off to look at the church of St Mary the Virgin. There had been a wedding there recently, as the fresh and dried flower confetti lay on the path and the church was still adorned with the wedding flowers. The church is in such a pretty setting, and has a 12th-century font with wonderful carvings.

Lion-headed fountain for spring water at Stoke Abbott.

Spring-fed water trough for horses, Stoke Abbott.

St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

Wedding flowers at the porch, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

The 12th-century font, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

Wedding flowers and the simple lectern, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott. The flowers included agapanthus and Mollucella laevis (Bells of Ireland).

Notice in the porch, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

The sadly sheep-free graveyard, set in the most beautiful countryside, St Mary the Virgin, Stoke Abbott.

A lovely thatched house near the church in Stoke Abbott.

When we got back to the car a family (grandparents and wee granddaughter, we guessed) were filling up a car boot-load with numerous bottles and containers of the spring water, so I assume it’s safe to drink.

After a fruitless search for the cottage in Ryall where my family had spent several summer holidays in the late 60s (Mr and Mrs Kinchin’s B&B), we headed for the sea at nearby Charmouth. The weather was wild and windy, and we had a chuckle over the couple braving it out with their windbreak and deck chairs. We watched a kestrel quartering the top of the landslip cliffs, searched in vain for fossils, walked a short way up the beach and then decided to head home, via Bridport, Dorchester and Shaftesbury. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

A blustery afternoon at Charmouth.

No-one in the water, unsuprisingly.

The well-named Golden Cap on the right.

The shell grotto at St Giles House

Sep10

One of the nominations for the recent prestigious Historic England Angel Awards was for the craftsmanship in the restoration of the shell grotto at St Giles House near Wimborne St Giles in Dorset. Chap and I were very disappointed when it didn’t win – we thought it deserved the title, but then again, we are a little biased as we know the team from Sally Strachey Conservation that undertook the work.

The grotto is featured in the video above, from 2:10 onwards.

The grotto was built in the grounds of St Giles House, the family seat of the Earls of Shaftesbury. It dates from the early 1750s, and was built by John Castles (d. 1757) of Marylebone in London. Unlike some other grottoes, this one is free-standing rather than built into a rock face or hill slope, and is built over a springhead in the grounds. It is now safely roofed once more and even though it is not quite ordinary-looking from the outside, nothing prepares you for the fantastical realm within.

The grotto comprises an entranceway leading to a central room – the inner chamber – with tiled floor and a fireplace. This is flanked on either side by a curving side passage.

The main room is described in the Shell Guide to Dorset by Michael Pitt-Rivers (1966) as ‘an attempt at an underwater room rather than just a shell room’, and you certainly get the sense of being in some mysterious and magical undersea kingdom. The decoration comprises shells of all sorts of kinds, sizes and colours – huge conches are fixed to the walls as well as tiny jewel-like bivalves – and the marine effect is heightened by the clever way corals and sparkling mineral crystals, such as quartz, have been incorporated in the decor, as well as the way the shells have been attached to branches to mimic life in a coral garden. (You wouldn’t know there are branches under there, as they have been fully covered).

The main chamber of the shell grotto at Wimborne St Giles. Photo by SPAB.

The main chamber of the shell grotto at Wimborne St Giles, following the recent restoration work. Photo by SPAB.

Old photo of the grotto used by the conservators as a guide.

Old photo of the grotto before it fell into disrepair, used by the conservators as a guide.

Apparently some of the original shells came from the Caribbean, courtesy of the father of William Beckford of Fonthill Abbey: we know Fonthill and its grottoes well. In the restoration many of the shells had fallen from the walls and part of the work included sifting and storing those that could be saved. Replacement shells were sourced from all over, including eBay and beaches!

Repair work under way, rebuilding the shells on to the lath and plaster work.

Conservation work under way, rebuilding the shells on to the lath and plaster work.

Conservation work under way. Photo by Sally Strachey Conservation.

The main chamber after the completion of the conservation project. Photo by Sally Strachey Conservation.

We were impressed with how meticulous and intricate the work was, and the great care that was being taken by the team.

The side passages are mainly decorated with huge, knobbly flint nodules, though hiding in amongst these are the occasional whale vertebra and piece of architectural stone. The floors of the passages are set with smaller flint pebbles, much like the wonderful grotto at Stourhead and the much smaller one at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The grotto is described as ‘recently restored’ in the 1966 Shell Guide; clearly it fell back into disrepair not long afterwards as by the time of its listing by English Heritage in 1986 it is described as ‘overgrown and in a state of dereliction … The main grotto which cannot now be easily entered has walls lined with shells, fossils, coral and stone mounted on a lathe and plaster vault, partially collapsed … An important example of this type of grotto but now in a state of considerable disrepair.’ It was placed on the English Heritage Buildings at Risk Register, and its fate looked bleak.

However, in the past few years the present Earl of Shaftesbury instigated a sizeable programme of works to save not just the grotto, but St Giles House itself, which was also on the Register. The work was largely funded by various government bodies. The work done on the house won the Earl and Countess of Shaftesbury the Award for the Best Rescue of Any Other Type of Historic Building or Site at the recent Angel Awards.

Repairing the roof of the grotto.

Huge congratulations to everyone involved in the work, both at the grotto and St Giles House, both of which are now firmly off the Register.

If you want to know more about John Castles’ grotto work, this blog post is an interesting place to start.

Further information and reading

The English Heritage Grade 2* listing of the grotto

Sally Strachey Conservation page about the project

A blog post about a SPAB visit to the grotto while the restoration work was underway last summer

RCHM (Royal Commission on Historical Monuments), Dorset vol V, 1972, p. 97, no. 6.

Newman, J and Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 1972, p. 473.

Pitt-Rivers, M, Shell Guide to Dorset, 1966, p. 141.

Jones, B, Follies and Grottoes, 1953, pp. 47-49.

Sunday stroll: Larmer Tree Gardens

Aug17

Yesterday we headed out to visit the Larmer Tree Gardens, near Tollard Royal in south Wiltshire. These beautiful Victorian gardens have the distinction of being the first privately owned gardens in the UK that were opened for the enjoyment of the general public.

The Larmer Tree Gardens: the Temple on the left and the General’s Room on the right.

The gardens are on the Rushmore Estate, which is in the ownership of the Pitt Rivers family. In 1880 Augustus Pitt Rivers inherited the estate, and started work almost immediately on the gardens, the development of which continued over the entire 20 years that the gardens were open.

Bust of Augusts Pitt Rivers in the Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Bust of Augustus Pitt Rivers in the Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The gardens became a massive attraction, at one point entertaining 44,000 visitors a year. Thomas Hardy visited, and even wrote a poem celebrating an evening spent there. The gardens closed with the death of Pitt Rivers in 1900, and gradually fell into disrepair.

The Lower Indian Room (left) and the Singing Theatre (right) at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The central lawn area is surrounded by various structures and buildings; others are set further back in the gardens, linked to the central lawn by wide grass paths flanked by cherry laurel hedges. These hedges also enclose several small picnicking areas, all part of Pitt Rivers’ design to allow the maximum enjoyment of the gardens by his estate workers and the general public. Around the edges of the garden are woodland areas and a few herbaceous beds. However, it is the buildings around the lawn that characterise this extraordinary garden, though the free-roaming peacocks and macaws are pretty iconic too.

Free-roaming peacock at the Larmer Tree Gardens. In the background are the Singing Theatre (left) and the Lodge (right).

By the entrance gate at the southern edge of the gardens is the Lodge, which now houses the cafe and a private residence. Next to this around the lawn is the magnificent Singing Theatre, with its wooden structure and painted backdrop. The paintwork is peeling and faded, and mercifully the theatre hasn’t been restored from its gently and elegantly ageing state.

The Singing Theatre at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The Funeral of Phocion by Nicolas Poussin (1648), the painting on which the Singing Theatre painted backdrop is based.

Detail of the painted backdrop: you can clearly see the curved boards onto which the painting has been made.

Detail of the painted backdrop: you can clearly see the boards onto which the painting has been made.

Detail of the painted backdrop. There are three doors hidden in the painting: one at the back and one at either side.

Next is the Lower Indian Room, and then the General’s Room. Both of these are traditional Indian buildings transposed to a bucolic English setting.

The Lower Indian Room at the Larmer Tree Gardens, with peahen resting on the front verandah.

The General’s Room at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Detail of an intricately carved window of the General’s Room at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The final building around the lawn is the Temple, a beautiful small stone building in the Palladian style. It has a fireplace and a beautiful floor (including a maze mosaic) and decorative ceiling, and I can so easily picture Augustus sitting there with his pipe, reading a tome or working on his archaeological notes.

The Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens. The reddish hue on some of the stonework is due to lichen.

The white marble fireplace in the temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The maze mosaic in the floor of the Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Domed stone ceiling with carved sun-ray motif in the Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

A steep flight of steps lead down from the Temple to a series of ornamental ponds with small waterfalls, with a small grotto complete with statue of Neptune complete with trident.

The Temple at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

View of the Temple across the ornamental ponds at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Neptune in his flint nodule-lined grotto at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Further behind the central lawn are two small thatched wooden shelters, Band View and Stag’s Arbour, and the corrugated iron-clad Jubilee Hall, built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the reign of Queen Victoria.

Following Augustus Pitt Rivers’ death, the gardens were neglected, with the cherry laurels gradually taking over and swamping the carefully-maintained paths and small picnic gardens, and the buildings slowly falling into disrepair, with some rotting away all together: the octagonal base of the bandstand is still visible by the lawn, and another building base on the opposite side near the Singing Theatre. The restoration was started in 1991, and the gardens reopened in 1995.

The gardens have a wonderful atmosphere. There are deck chairs available for visitors’ use, as well as a croquet set, apparently. Peacocks roam freely throughout the gardens: the lady in the cafe told us that one of the peahens had two chicks, but we didn’t spot them. The males have lost their glorious tail feathers in their annual moult, but were still very spectacular.

A canny peacock lurking at the cafe garden at the Larmer Tree Gardens. Lovely bark on the Acer griseum tree in the foreground.

My haul of shed peacock feathers.

And we loved seeing the pair of macaws sitting in an ash tree: such an unexpected sight for an English country garden!

Macaws in an ash tree at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

They are totally free to come and go as they please, and apparently are often seen at the nearby Rushmore Golf Course.

An extra treat for children (and the young at heart) visiting the gardens are the eleven fairy doors hidden in the base of trees the gardens. We found three:

Peacock fairy door at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Peacock fairy door at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Scottish fairy door in a Western Red Cedar at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Red fairy door in a yew tree at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Luckily there’s a fairy door trail leaflet to help you find them all.

A little way away from the gardens is a massive and very strange Indian-style folly. We walked over to it: it is in the middle of a field, surrounded by quite a deep ditch, and there is a ride cut through the trees to allow a vista of the folly from King John’s House in Tollard Royal. Pitt Rivers owned King John’s House, a 13th century manor house.

The Indian-style folly near the Larmer Tree Gardens.

The gardens are open at a small charge (currently £4 for an adult). Unsurprisingly they are a favourite venue for weddings, and there are also a couple of festivals held there each year (the Larmer Tree Festival and the End of the Road Festival). Consequently there are often times when the gardens are closed: I have driven to it quite a few times now only to be disappointed. Needless to say it’s highly recommended to check opening days and times online first!

I always think of the gardens being in Dorset rather than Wiltshire, possibly because Pitt Rivers is so inextricably linked with his groundbreaking archaeological work in Cranborne Chase in Dorset; looking at the 1:25,000 OS map of the area I see that the county boundary between Wiltshire and Dorset actually runs along the southern edge of the gardens. Unusual to park our car in Dorset to visit a garden in Wiltshire!

Timeline of the development of the garden buildings:

* 1880 The Temple

* 1881 The Lodge

* 1882 Stag’s Arbour

* 1886 Band View

* 1895 The Singing Theatre; The Larmer Tree studio attached to the Lodge

* 1896 Jubilee Hall

* 1897 Lower Indian Room

* 1899 The General’s Room

Can't resist it: I'm not a grily girl by any strecth of the imagination (I wear a dress about twice a year), but look at this gorgeous dress on a bride at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Can’t resist it: I’m not a girly girl by any stretch of the imagination (I wear a dress about once a year), but look at this gorgeous gown on a bride at the Larmer Tree Gardens.

Larmer Tree Gardens website.

Outlander at Wilton House

Aug11

One of my earlier blog posts was about Wilton House, the wonderful pile not too far from where I live belonging to the Earl of Pembroke, and its use in various films as a location.

I’ve just learned that the British-American television series Outlander has finished filming at Wilton House in the last few days. The film crew were in residence for two weeks, with Wilton House standing in for the Palace of Versailles. To fully create a French milieu, all the British furniture was moved out and appropriate French furniture moved in its place. Filming took place in the Double Cube Room, the Single Cube Room and elsewhere. The actors include Simon Callow, and the candle budget was £1000 a day!

Wilton House Double Cube Room.

Certainly as you drove past Wilton House you could see droves of trailers and trucks parked up inside the high estate walls. We’d wondered what was going on there, and now we know!

I haven’t seen Outlander, but apparently it’s hugely popular in the States, and has spawned something of an interest in the fashions and jewellery of the period: the Jacobite Rebellions in Scotland. These took place from 1688-1746 and the series is set in 1743.

So if any fans of the series are reading this, I have a good selection of Scottish vintage jewellery in my Etsy shop which would look just the part (click on the pictures for details):

Fabulous Scottish craftsmanship!

Wilton House website.

Outlander official website.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton

Jul22

One of the things Chap and I love to do is to visit parish churches. There are some that strike a particular, atmospheric chord: redundant churches that are no longer used for worship. A good number of these churches are looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust. One of our favourites is not too far from where we live: St Mary’s Church at Old Dilton, near Westbury in Wiltshire. We love old buildings, and this one is a beauty.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton, Wiltshire.

This is a 14th century church situated in a quiet, out-of-the way spot near the River Biss. The community it originally served, Dilton, was a thriving wool-producing settlement, with houses, a mill and the church. However, with the decline of the woollen industry in the 17th century, the village became eclipsed by the new, thriving settlement of Dilton Marsh some 2.5 km to the north, and the much-reduced Dilton became known as Old Dilton.

With the shrinking community, St Mary’s church struggled after the new church was built at Dilton Marsh in 1844. In 1956 St Mary’s was closed for congregational use, and remained in the care of the parish until 26 April 1973, when it was declared pastorally redundant. In 1974 it was vested in the care of the then-Redundant Churches Fund (now the Churches Conservation Trust).

The church’s plan is very simple, with a 14th century porch that might be a survivor of an earlier church; the main body of the building dates from the 15th century.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: the spire and south porch.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: the stumpy spire at the west end of the church.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: the 14th century porch.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: view from the road of the north side of the church.

Inside, there is no division between the nave and the chancel. The nave is filled with 18th century box pews, some of which are built to incorporate medieval benches. The triple decker pulpit dominates the south side of the nave.

Looking from the west end towards the chancel. The font is a 19th century copy of a 15th century font.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: looking from the west end towards the chancel. The triple decker pulpit is on the right (south side of the church). The font is a 19th century copy of a 15th century font.

The interior of the church, looking towards the gallery at the north end. The triple decker pulpit is on the left (the south side of the nave).

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: the interior of the church, looking towards the gallery at the west end.

Over the northern side of the chancel is a gallery, which was used as a schoolroom, and which is accessed by a separate door on the outside of the church. Another gallery is situated at the western end of the nave. The chancel has a very long and simple communion table, dating from the 17th century. The plain glass in the windows is modern, replacing what would have been the medieval coloured glass.

View from the west gallery of the chancel and the gallery on the north side of the church.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: view from the west gallery of the chancel with its plain communion table and the gallery on the north side of the church.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: view from the pulpit of the west gallery and box pews.

St Mary’s Church, Old Dilton: the nave aisle on the north side of the church, and horribly incongruous fire extinguisher.

St Mary’s has no electricity, and so no intrusive modern light fittings. At Christmas, candlelit services are held. They must be extremely beautiful. I have always wondered whether St Mary’s has been used as a filming location for a period piece, as the marks of the modern world on it are so light, but haven’t yet found anything to suggest that it has. It is certainly a very atmospheric and special place. Chap and I were lucky enough to do some work on the conservation of this church a few years ago: masonry work, replastering and limewashing.

Sadly the church has to be kept locked (a depressing sign of the times). The key is held by a neighbouring householder: details are on one of the church doors.

Sources:

The Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Old Dilton, Wiltshire Neil Skelton, 1986, Redundant Churches Fund.

Churches Conservation Trust website.

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