St Thomas of Hereford

Today is the Feast of St Thomas of Hereford, who died in 1282, and whose canonisation in 1320 was the last of a non-martyr Englishman until that of St John Henry Newman.

I wrote about St Thomas and his well documented process of canonisation and his cult in St Thomas of Hereford in 2011, and I added to that in the following year in St Thomas of Hereford

St Thomas of Hereford

From a stained glass window commissioned by one of his successors, Thomas Spofford OSB, in 1430 for his episcopal chapel in his Manor House at Stratton Sugwas. Now in the church at Ross on Wye

Image:Flickr

Looking online I see that Wikipedia has a quite detailed account of his life and canonisation at Thomas de Cantilupe. As an article it is superior to many biographies of medieval ecclesiastical figures on that site in drawing out details of his life and career and his family connections.

This does not mention in his early preferments the church at Kirk Deighton in the central West Riding. Though he may well have had little to do with it directly it raised my awareness of him, as it is relatively close to my home area, and a handsome building in its own right. His leading role in the life of thirteenth century Oxford before his elevation to the episcopate caught my attention when studying the history of the University.

There is a really splendidly illustrated 2019 article from the website of Belmont Abbey, which lies just on the western outskirts of the city of Hereford. It is by the Dean of Hereford and  looks at the life and relics of the saint. It can be seen here

The British Medical Journal in 1990 had an interesting article which examined some of the stories of those who believed they had been saved by the intercession of St Thomas, and which looks into the medical conditions which may be being described.  Not only is that interesting but they also are revealing of incidental features of life at the time, both in Herefordshire and further afield. It can be read here

There is an excellent study of the representation of St Thomas in medieval art by Ian L. Blass in ‘Commemorating Cantilupe: England’s Other St Thomas: The Iconography of England’s Second St Thomas’ in The Antiquaries Journal, 2023, pp 1-23 © The Author(s). Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society of Antiquaries of London.  Together with another article by the same author examining the recorded evidence for the miracles attributed to St Thomas and a recent Oxford D.Phil thesis on his cult by Andrew Fleming can all be accessed on Researchgate. net by entering that and St Thomas Cantilupe. 

May St Thomas of Hereford pray for us

Malmesbury

Today I had amost enjoyable day out with a college friend from Oriel and it was an opportunity to talk about plans and hopes for the future.

We drove westwards to Malmesbury in northern Wiltshire. I had been there once before but for him it was a first visit. Attractive and slightly intriguing town on a hill almost surrounded by the river Avon, and having parked down by the river we climbed up the hill. The town is dominated by the remains of the medieval Benedictine abbey.

There is an online account of it at Malmesbury Abbey and more from a BBC site here.
The local museum website has more about it at Malmesbury Abbey by Athelstan Museum

Today only a fragment remains of the church, that is the majority of the nave, and most of the site is accessible, although the eastern chapels have disappeared under a path and gardens. The central tower appears to have fallen as a result of a lightening strike a few years before the dissolution, hence teh fragmentary stae of the church

 

A reconstruction of the lost features of the abbey superimposed on the existing remains

Image: Athelstan Museum

Malmesbury Abbey from the air
In the lower part of the picture is the tower and spire, all that now remains of the church of St Paul, once the place of worship for the townspeople

 Image: malmesburybells.co.uk

Plan of the abbey church

Image:rareoldprints.com

The plan has been recovered of the Norman rebuilding with its later extensions eastwards. Prior to its collapse the spire, is said to have been, at 431 feet, taller than that of Salisbury Cathedral at 404 feet.

A reconstruction of the chrch and the lightning strike

 Image: Athelstan Museum

Today the especual glory of Malmesbury is the south door and porch. This is some of the most important Norman sculpture in England, encased in a late medieval outer casing. The sculpture is  sadly worn on the  outer portal but is still very impressive.

 Image:staticflickr.com

Within the porch are carvings of the Apostles:

 

 Image:saintsandstones.net

The inner door has Christ in Majesty, flanked by angels:

 Image: wikimedia commons

From what remains of the ruined west end the great west door was similar. Today this is still very striking; if it was originally painted to enhance as well as protect it the effect must have been much more intense, a powerful introduction to the House of God. This is all from a  period when Malmesbury Abbey was a leading intellectual centre, with the community including the chronicler William of Malmesbury and the house possessing a major library. This was also the era of the early eleventh century Flying Monk - Eilmer of Malmesbury. 

The church from the south-west

Image: Cotswold Info

 

Today about three-quarters of the nave survives. The exterior is a fourteenth to fifteenth century recasing, and inside Norman work with a gothic vault. It has arguable links to the design of the nave at Hereford both in respect of the arcades and the west end. Both churches added a western tower over the two western bays of the nave - and both collapsed wrecking catastrophic damage.

 

The interior of the nave looking west to the Victorian west wall

Image: malmesbury.com

The church is now parochial and the layout of the interior reflected its modern Evangelical churchmanship. This was welcoming, but as my friend, who is a practising Muslim observed it felt like a Community centre. Yes - I know churches are communitues, but they are also more than that. I told him about the Februart half-term use of the nave as a skate park - andif you do not believe me look at  malmesbury abbey skate - Skate — Malmesbury Abbey

That said we did receive a friendly but not oppressive welcome to the abbey church, which was quite busy with other visitors.

We paid our respects to the fourteenth century tomb of King Athelstan (924-39) - arguably the first King of a unified England, and I saw there was an extensive number of books about him on sale.

The tomb of King Athelstan

Image: Athelstan Museum

The tomb was presumably rescued from the choir, and I assume his bones still lie is the destroyed part of the church. It is somewhat battered but the detail of, for examle, his shoes suggest this was once avery splendid tomb indeed.

Afterwards we looked at the very attractive late medieval Market Cross - a simpler version of the ones in Salisbury and Chichester, and about which there is more at Malmesbury Market Cross and at Malmesbury Market Cross by Athelstan Museum - and found the fine garden at Abbey House, but that was not open until tmorrow.

 

Malmesbury Market Cross

Image: Pinterest 

After lunch - not at the pub called in honour of Eilmer The Flying Monk, which we did not find - and a further walk round this attractive and quite distinctive town we travelled back via Fairford - where we did not find space to park and enable me to show the wonderful stained glass in the church to my friend - to Lechlade, where we stopped for tea and so returned to Oxford.

A very enjoyable day out with a good friend and a good way to celebrate the anniversary of my reception in 2005 into the Catholic Church.

The return journey from Belmont

This morning we packed up and left Belmont after breakfast to make our return to Oxford. I gather that we as the Brothers from the Oratory had managed to impress the monks at Belmont by our assiduity in attending the Offices in church. I think we all wish to return at some time or anothe rto the peace and dignity of the abbey and its community.

Belmont Abbey church from the south east

Image: Wikimedia/geograph.org.uk

Our first stop was in Hereford. Our time there was spent mainly in and around the cathedral, with Fr Jerome checking that all was well with the fine array of monumental brasses the cathedral still posseses despite the depredations of time, destruction and neglect. On ehe poined out to me is the  brass of a Dean from just before the reformation which has two represntations of the Holy Trinity - one being the standard late medieval enthroned father holding the Crucifix with the Holy Spirit hovering and the other, unique in his enormous experience of brass iconography, is the Orthodox equivalent, the Three Angels in the Hospitality of Abraham.

We also went into the Catholic church of St Francis Xavier, which is close by and holds the relic of St John Kemble I posted about in conecction with our pilgrimage to his grave.

 The interior of St Francis Xavier Hereford

The relic of St John Kemble is at the altar on the right

Image: Flickr

I have visited the church before and it is beautifully appointed and cared for. It is in the care of the monks of belmont, one of whom occupies the Presbytery anmd is Pariah Priest

After a bit of shopping in the open market  we set off, past the remains of the Hereford Blackfriars and the unique survival of the Preaching Cross from their graveyard. This is not far from the site of St John Kemble's martyrdom. We did not stop at the Blackfriars and the following notes and illustrations are taken from an online source:

One of Hereford’s hidden gems is the Black Friars Rose Garden hidden down a passageway in Widemarsh Street.  The garden contains the remains of the friary of the Black Friars, once one of the city’s most important religious houses.  The Black Friars were given the site outside Widemarsh Gate in around 1246 and the monastic buildings were consecrated in around 1276.  The Black Friars were also known as ‘Friars Preachers’ and regularly gave sermons to the local populace from their preaching crosses.  The cross in the grounds is one of the few surviving examples in England and was considerably restored in the 19th century.

In 1538 the Friary was dissolved by Henry VIII and the buildings were converted into a fine town house by Sir Thomas Coningby of Hampton Court near Dinmore.  This was badly damaged during the Civil War and later became a farm building.  The existing ruins are the Refectory and the Prior’s House dating from about 1322.

In the 13th century the roadside site was occupied by a house of the Knight’s Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and parts of the hall and chapel dating from this period are now incorporated into the almshouses built by Sir Thomas Coningsby in 1614.  Grouped around a quiet quadrangle, the twelve separate lodgings were formerly used to accommodate a chaplain and eleven retired soldiers, seamen or servants who were known as ‘The Coningsby Servilors’.

The preaching cross and monastic ruins are now set in an attractive rose garden

Text and images;shawsseasonalliving.

We called in at a pub for lunch, before our final stop at the church at Stanford Bishop near Bromyard.

 Stanford Bishop church

Image: Birmingham Post

This is an intriguing place and raises all manner of historical and archaeological questions. The parish is a scattered community and the church stands by itself on a low eminence. Dedicated to St James it  is not mentioned in Domesday Book, and the present, rather plain structure is mid- to late-twelfth century, when the cult of St James was at its height. There is more about work of that period at St James, Stanford Bishop, Herefordshire · The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture

However what we had come to see is claimed to be much older - the chair of St Augustine, in which he sat - and continued to sit rather than rise - at his fateful and futile meeting with the British bishops in 603.

 

The reputed Chair of St Augustine

Image: catexpert.co.uk

The story of the chair can be read in an article from the Birmingham Post from 2014 at The battle over a chair once thought to be the oldest in Britain, and from which I quote "The earliest claim for its importance was made in the 1840s. Some years afterwards, the chair was discovered in the church tower, when a restoration of the church was taking place, probably in the 1890s. Later on it was turfed out, and served the church sexton as a piece of garden furniture. Later still (in 1899), when it was recognised that the chair might be of major importance, the church authorities presented it to the Beaney Institute or Royal Museum in Canterbury"

In 1943 it was returned to the church and scholarly opinion at the time thought it might be no earlier than eighteenth century in date.  

This is clearly an ancient site.  There is a prehistoric standing stone by the gate into the churchyard and within an ancient yew - there is more about these at  Stanford Bishop Church Stone Standing Stone (Menhir) It may have once been the site of circle, or perhaps a place of assembly. It lies close to the county boundary with Worcestershirewhich is essesntially the same as that between the seventh century sub-Kingdoms of the Hwicce ( represented by Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and part at lease of Oxfordshire - Hwicce as in Wychwood ) and the Magonsaeten ( the medieval diocese of Hereford ). If the ill-fated meeting did not take place at Aust on the banks of the Bristol Channel, as is usually claimed, could it have taken place ata  recognised place of meeting near the borders of two tribal units? looking around from the slightly raised site occupied by the church it is a tempting hypothesis. Time to get the a dendrochronologists to work I suspect.

We travelled back across Worcestershire - a subtly different landscape from that of Herefordshire - and had time to look slightly wistfully as we drove past at the remains of Pershore Abbey in the middle of that attractive town, but had not the time to stop. Pershore was Benedictine, and today just the choir, south transept and central tower of the monastic church survive:

Pershore Abbey from the south east

Image: Wikimedia

 Pershore Abbey from the south west

Image:pershoreabbey.org.uk

Then we continued our journey ascending Broadway Hill with its panoramic view of the county and on home across the edge of the Cotswolds to the Oratory and Oxford - and the chance to collect my mobile phone which has been in for repair, of which I have been physically and emotionally bereft.

This has been a wonderful break both spiritually and recreationally and I am immensely grateful to all who made it possible, Fr Jerome, the community at Belmont, my fellow Brothers and others besides.

English Iconoclasm revisited

Last year I posted a series of nine pieces under the title English Iconoclasm. these followed on from a lecture I gave to a summer school here in Oxford organised by Second Spring. this year they asked me to give the talk again. This was with a new title, suggested by the organisers, of  " A Shattered Culture: The Impact of the Reformation in England" and, with revisions to the text and a set of illustrations put together online with the technical assistance of a friend, I did so. I am now reposting the links to the posts from last year, which cover some, but not all, of the themes and examples I spoke about. This is inituially for the use of the US students on the course, but may also be, indeed I hope will be, of interest to other readers.


English Iconoclasm I

English Iconoclasm II - the fate of the cult of St George

English Iconoclasm III - An eyewitness account

English Iconoclasm IV

English Iconoclasm V

English Iconoclasm VI

English Iconoclasm VII

English Iconoclasm VIII

English Iconoclasm IX

I am also adding another post from the sme time last year with the same tag

St Modwen and Burton on Trent Abbey

and the following posts from previous years which apply to other places I spoke about:

Disaster at Hereford

Vandalism at Salisbury Cathedral

St Augustine's Abbey Canterbury

 More on St Augustine's Abbey Canterbury

 St John the Baptist Chester

and, from Wikipedia, articles about Reculver at 

St Mary's Church, Reculver  and Reculver

A day in Hereford

Yesterday I joined a party from the Oxford Oratory for a day at Hereford Cathedral. I am very fond of it as a cathedral, and it is one which is, undeservedly, not as well known or visited as it should be. Quite a few of the party yeasterday had not been their previously. These days it offers a lot for the visitor and pilgrim.

I have adapted the  post on the Oratory website, adding to it more comments and information for this piece.

The Wednesday Morning Group and others in the cloister of the Vicars Choral. 

The coach ride over to Herefordshire took us through some beautiful scenery, with lush foliage lining the roads, and sweeping views over the Cotswolds, Severn valley and Malvern Hills.

Hereford Cathedral is noted for the shrines of St Ethelbert, King of the East Anglia, who was murdered near Hereford by King Offa of Mercia in 794 AD, and St Thomas Cantilupe (sometime Chancellor of Oxford University) who died in 1282. Both of these shrines have been restored in recent years under the leadership of the Dean. 

We had coffee on arrival, lunch and then afternoon tea in the Hall of the former College of the Vicars Choral - this was only dissolved as an institution in 1937 as part of the revision of the cathedral statutes. The buildings date from 1475, when the Vicars were given a residence in the Close, rather than running the hazards of walking from Castle Street late at night. The former Chapel can still be seen, as well as the Hall, whaich has been extended and modified over succeeding centuries.

The Oxford pilgrims in the Hall of the Vicars Choral

We were divided into two groups so as to have a tour of the cathedral or to visit the exhibition which includes the Mappa Mundi, of circa 1300, a copy of the writ from King John accompanying the 1215 Magna Carta (the original writ is unique and onshow at the Bristish Librray exhibition this summer), a copy of the 1217 reissue of Magna Carta - considered the best surviving example - and the Chained Library, which, it was noted, houses three editions of the Annals of the Christian Church by Cardinal Baronius of the Roman Oratory. The Chained Library was installed in the late sixteenth century in the disused Lady Chapel, removed from there in the nineteenth century restoration and only finally and fully reassembled in 1996 in the new Mappa Mundi centre. It was only in those years that the original frame of the Mappa Mundi was rediscovered in a cellar - a remarkable story of survival.

Before lunch, we were able to go to Holy Mass at the Catholic church of St Francis Xavier, in Broad Street, just next to the Cathedral.

St Francis Xavier is a magnificent church, splendidly restored in recent years. Originally built by the Jesuits and opened in 1839  it has been since the 1850s in the care of the Benedictines of Belmont Abbey, which is on the western edge of the city. Dom Michael Evans, O.S.B. was most gracious in his welcome, as were his enthusiastic parishioners, who clearly have a great love for their beautiful, well-restored church. It is evident that it is open as an important act of witness in the centre of the city - they too had recently held a Corpus Christi procession through the city centre. There is more about the church at St Francis Xavier Church, Hereford

 Here are some of our group, after Mass:

To the right of the High Altar is the relic of St John Kemble, a local martyr who ministered as a priest in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire for over fifty years, before being arrested on false charges during the Popish Plot and executed on nearby Widemarsh Common on 22 August 1679. there is more about him online at  St John Kemble . A Catholic woman managed to catch his left arm as it fell from the gallows when he was quartered, and it is this relic which is preserved at St Francis Xavier. The relic is believed to have worked miracles, down to our own time.

After lunch we had had the second part of our tour, either of the cathedral or the Mappa Mundi-Magna carta exhibition and then a tour of the lovely gardens, which was a great treat - especially to see the gardens of the Bishop's Palace and the Deanery.

The wall behind the party is all that survives of the handsome twelfth century Bishop's chapel, "taken down" in the mid-eighteenth century - which was a bad century for the cathedral with the demolition of the remains of the late fourteenth century Chapter House in 1779, and the collapse of the west end in 1786, and the consequent disastrous "restoration" by James Wyatt, who also remocved the spire from the central tower.

Two views in the gardens of the Bishop's Palace

After tea we attended said Evensong in the Lady Chapel. We were warmly welcomed by the Dean, The Very Reverend Michael Tavinor, and other members of the Cathedral community. Afterwards I spoke with the dean, whom i knew slightly when he was Vicar of Tewkesbury and where i spent several Christmas- New Year and summer breaks

Our journey back to Oxford was in wonderful in summer evening sunshine, which enabled one to appreciate the countryside of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire.

this was an excelelnt day out,  and quite a tonic, with plenty to see and think about historically, as well as being amongst friends. Hereford cathedral offers an excellent welcome and plenty to do, and is well worth a visit.

Images: Oxford oratory website

St Thomas Cantilupe of Hereford

Today is the feast of St Thomas of Hereford, a day which is observed here in Oxford in that he was born in Buckinghamshire and that he served as Chancellor of the University. My post from last year about him, with its links and pictures, can be seen at  St Thomas of Hereford.

To the links I would add this site about his life which can be read here.

A conscientious  Bishop of Hereford from 1275 his conflict with Archbishop John Pecham of Canterbury led to his excommunication and his journey in March 1282 to appeal to Pope Martin IV. Although he received absolution, he died of fever on 25 August 1282.  His bones were brought back to Hereford and buried in the north transept. It is this tomb which has been restored in recent years as a new shrine. On Easter Monday 1287, a series of miracles began, which lasted well into the fourteenth century.

When reviewed by Commissioners in 1307,  over 400 miracles had been recorded – second only to St Thomas Becket in Canterbury. These are well documented in the surviving canonisation depositions. Modern writers, such as Canon Bannister, the great early twentieth century historian of the cathedral in Hereford, may have tended to be sceptical about how medieval people misdiagnosed illnesses or seeming death, but the accounts are rich in circumstantial detail.  In consequence Bishop Thomas Cantilupe was canonised in 1320 and 2 October was designated as his feast day.  

On 25 October 1349 his remains were translated to a new shrine in the Lady chapel and new effigies of bishops were provided either side of the processional aisles, to lead pilgrims to the greatest of all the bishops, the new saint of Hereford. At the same time, offerings at the shrine of St. Thomas helped re-build parts of the cathedral – notably the central tower, with its ball-flower decoration. 

In the late fourteenth century, the cult of St. Thomas declined - there are fashions in saints as in most things - and in the late 1540s, the shrine itself was destroyed, and the relics dispersed. However, devotion to St. Thomas continued in a modest fashion and there is evidence of his relics being used in a procession in Hereford in 1610, to ward off plague. (Adapted from Hereford cathedral website with my own comments on the miracle evidence and the fashion in saints.)

The skull of St Thomas is now preserved in a reliquary at Downside Abbey.

Last year I wrote that there appeared to be no contemporary depictions of him, although it is recorded that he had red hair, and the corresponding temperament. However I had forgotten his own public image on his episcopal seal:

 

Seal of Bishop Thomas de Cantilupe.

Legend: TOMAS DEI GRATIA HEREFORDENSIS EP(ISCOPU)S (Thomas by the grace of God Bishop of Hereford).
The arms of Cantilupe ancient are displayed on each side of the bishop: 3 fleurs-de-lys. Hereford Cathedral Archives 6460.

Image:Wikipedia

There is also this stained glass figure from the time of his canonisation. The artist appears to have given him red hair.

St Thomas of Canterbury and St Thomas of Hereford

Stained glass in Credenhill Church, Herefordshire.

This has been dated to circa 1300, but I suspect that it dates from the time of the canonisation of St Thomas in 1320. The pairing with St Thomas of Canterbury is significant, and may point to the number of miracles attributed to their intercession.

Image: Gordon Plumb on Flickr

The restored first shrine of St Thomas in Hereford Cathedral

Image: Aidan McRae Thomson on Flickr

A heretic abroad

Christopher Howse's article in last Saturday's Daily Telegraph featured the sad story of Richard Atkins from Ross on Wye and his fairly single-minded determination to come to a sticky end for his heretical ideas in 1581. You can read the story at The man of Ross cheerful to burn.

It is interesting in that it shows the reluctance of the authorities to proceed against a man who appears to have been deranged, and that he was shown kindness by those whose ideas he so clearly rejected.

The author of the book which Christopher Howse is reviewing is Michael Tavinor, the Dean of Hereford, whom I knew slightly when he was Vicar of Tewkesbury. In both of those great churches he has done much to enhanc the appearance of the buildings and their worship, and to reconnect them with their Catholic origins and practices

St Thomas of Hereford

Today is the feast of St Thomas Canteloupe, Bishop of Hereford, and a former Chancellor of both Oxford University and of the realm. He died in 1282, and whose eventual canonization in 1320 was the last of an English confessor, as opposed to martyrs, before the beatification of John Henry Newman last year. In recent years he has attracted more attention from historians and from his cathedral church.

R. C. Finucane's life from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography can be read here.

The present Dean of Hereford, whom I knew slightly when he was Vicar of Tewkesbury, initiated a scheme to commemorate in the cathedral St Ethelbert the Martyr King and its co-patron with Our Lady, St Thomas and Thomas Traherne, the seventeenth century Anglican devotional writer.

In the case of St Thomas his original tomb base from the 1280s in the north transept has been given a new freretory in medieval style, and it now houses a relic of St Thomas lent by Stonyhurst College. After 1320 his relics were moved to a new shrine in the retrochoir, which was destroyed at the reformation. Since 1881 his skull, which somone had safeguarded, has been housed as a relic at Downside Abbey in Somerset.

The west gable of the new shrine
St Thomas of Hereford is on the left, with St Thomas of Canterbury on the right.
Behind are St John the Baptist and St Ethelbert flanking Our Lady and the Christ Child.

Image: petermurphyicons.co.uk

The new shrine on the original base

Image: hereford cathedral.org

There is an article which links the Mappa Mundi to the shrine which is discussed in this article

which has this reconstruction of how the ghrine and Mappa might have appeared c.1300 - alas the loss of painted decoration from our historic churches.

There appears to be no contemporary depiction of St Thomas but he is depicted in some glass now in the church at Ross on Wye and commissioned by a later Bishop of Hereford, Thomas Spofford OSB, c.1430 for the chapel at his manor house at Stretton Sugwas, north-west of Hereford. The chapel was destroyed by fire in the late eighteenth century but the glass survived and was eventually inserted in the window at Ross.

On the left is, I assume, St Ethelbert holding the cathedral and on the right St Thomas of Hereford. In the middle lights are St Anne holding the Virgin Mary and St Joachim, with the kneeling figure of Bishop Spofford, a friend and patron of Bishop Fleming. Bishop Spofford appears to have had a considerable devotion to St Anne from his time as abbot of St Mary's York.

Image: mysite.verizon.net/gamelbarbthomas1.html

Disaster at Hereford

April 17th 1786 was Easter Monday, and the calm of the cathedral close at Hereford was shattered by the collapse of the western tower of the cathedral.

The west front about 1700.

Image: British Library

The original Norman west front is similar to that of Rochester Cathedral, and shows similariries to that of Tewkesbury, although lacking the great recessed arch that is so distinctive afeature of the Gloucestershire abbey church.

To this was added the western tower. It was clearly designed to complement the central tower of 1320-40, hence the pattern of fenestration and use of ballflower ornament. Built as it was on top of the west front and clerestory, rather than from the ground, it is perhaps not altogether surprising that it collapsed - the only other similar examle in England was at Malmesbury, which suffered the same fate.

The west front on the eve of the collapse.
The spirelets have been removed, the stonework appears to be in poor condition and there is what should have been a worrying crack in the masonry to the north of the doorway.

Image: British Library

The head of the statue of St Ethelbert from the west front is said to now adorn St Ethelbert's Well in Quay St in Hereford.

The North Prospect of the Cathedral Church of St Ethelbert at Hereford
1742



Another view from the north of 1779

The aftereffects of the collapse as depicted by I. Wathen in 1786

Image: British Library

The Dean and chapter called in the architect James Wyatt to restore the building. As a Neo-Classical architect was fine - as for example the Oriel Library of 1788. Let loose on a medieval church he showed at Hereford, even more than he had at Durham and Salisbury, all the sensitivity of a1960s town planner faced with an historic town centre. Over the decade 1786-96 he shortened the nave by a bay, rebuilt the whole of that part of the cathedral above the nave arcade, and removed the timber spire, pinnacles and parapet from the central tower. Inside the cathedral a vast amount of damage was done, including the loss of many monumental brasses, although the figure of 2 tons weight is surely exaggerated.

Not until Lewis Cottingham's 1841 restoration were the parapet and pinnacles, rather larger in the latter case than those there previous to Wyatt, but which work well, replaced on the central tower.

Wyatts' insipid west front found little favour and in 1878 Sir George Gilbert Scott produced a design in the romanesque style, that perhaps mercifully, was not carried out. In 1902-8 his son J. Oldrid Scott rebuilt the west end as a memorial to Queen Victoria. This is a much more impressive design, though the nave still remains short of a bay.

The present west front

Image: Britannia.com

The front which collapsed in 1786 was perhaps a little awkward in its appearance, the result of piecemeal alterations and development. The current front is in many a fine piece of work, but part of me regrets that there was not the decision to reconstruct the pre-1786 design.

Hereford is a cathedral for which I have a great affection. Part of that I recognise is because I am aware of the damage it has sustained over the centuries since the reformation, but it has survived neglect and the attentions of vandals and restorers, and still presides over the city.

Continuing Cornish Catholicism

Fr Hunwicke had an interesting post yesterday about the continuing practise of Catholicism in mid-sixteenth century England - or in this case, particularly, the diocese of Exeter. He begins with the life of Fr Tregear, vicar of St Allen in western Cornwall from 1544 - 83, and his conformity or otherwise to the changes visited upon the parish and parishioners by successive governments. It can be read here.

St Allen church
Photo by Steve Beazley