The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #56763   Message #892935
Posted By: Penny S.
18-Feb-03 - 03:16 PM
Thread Name: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
Subject: RE: Help us find beaut. tiny English Village
When you say chapel, do you mean that it was small, or was it actually "Chapel" as in Methodist, Congregational, Baptist etc? There are parts of the country where people built these on their own land. They tend not to be really old, though. Did it have a chancel with altar, or was the pulpit central and dominant? If Anglican, the parish church, did it have any notable architectural features, painting, carving etc? Box pews. Fancy font? Any clues of this sort could find the church in something like Betjeman, or the 100 best churches.

(One of my favourite discoveries, another farmyard church, is West Hampnett near Cirencester. Tiny, and decorated in Arts and Craft medieval style by the Victorian rector. Beautiful angels over the altar, in the style of an Anglo-Saxon manuscript. And in the joint parish children's guide in another church, the question, "Do you think this style is really suited to worship in the 21st century?" There is a name for a rhetorical question demanding the answer no, isn't there? Sorry for the thread creep, but until I placed it on the map, I thought it might be your church.)

Penny