Danny Wells gave the History Club a photographic tour of some of the intriguing decorations in churches in Derbyshire and Staffordshire at their February meeting. Centuries ago and before most people could read, church decorations and stained glass windows were regarded as the “bible of the poor” and we are lucky to still have a rich heritage of these relics.
Danny took us to places in South Derbyshire that many of us had never visited. Places like Norbury Church with its effigies of knights in armour lying on their tombs with their feet resting on various animals. Even these animals had symbolism – a boar represented courage, a lion, Christ Judah and a dog, fidelity. Blore Church has an enormous alabaster tomb with five beautifully carved figures on it. The nearby gypsum workings at Chellaston and Tutbury provided high quality gypsum known as alabaster which was quite easy to carve.
One of the biggest surprises was Fenny Bentley Church which has a beautiful ceiling of lovely designs painted onto panels of aluminium! This was commissioned at the very beginning of commercial aluminium sheet manufacture in England. Some of the effigies in this church seem quite weird to our modern eyes – the alabaster representations of Thomas and Elizabeth Beresford could actually be anyone because they are portrayed in shrouds and they are surrounded on all sides by their 21 shrouded children! The symbolism here is that the shroud is emblematic of a chrysalis from where new life is expected to spring from the old.
Danny explained that the Victorians were so fond of building in the Gothic Revival style because they liked to hark back to a time when life was more ordered and “everyone knew their place”. In this vein Augustus Pugin (he of House of Commons fame) designed the interior of St. Giles in Cheadle in Staffordshire. Apparently, when you go in there you put a pound in the slot and this immensely decorated church is lit up and heavenly music begins to play.
We were shown the 9th century scrollwork on the Saxon shaft in Bakewell churchyard which is also famous for the fragments of ancient coffin lids in the porch. And closer to home, one of the photographs showed Advent Hunstone’s carving of a bishop blessing a kneeling figure in Tideswell Church, so we do have our share of fame here in the Cathedral of the Peak.
This talk gave us much to look out for and admire on our travels. Thanks very much Danny. Our next talk sees John Robinson telling us of 350 years of the Robinsons in Chesterfield.
Brian Woodall