Description of the Church.
Having finished the history of the Church, it will be best to follow it up by a description of the fabric of the Church, and of all its details.
Styles of Architecture. In deciding as to the different “periods” under which to classify the various styles into which almost every parish church is more or less divided, it is perhaps wisest to confine oneself to the simple and generally accepted divisions of English architecture, originally adopted by Mr. Rickman, viz. (1) the Saxon, from 800 to 1066; (2) the Norman, from 1066 to 1145; (3) the Early English, from 1145 to 1272; (4) the Decorated, from 1272 to 1377; and (5) the Perpendicular, from 1377 to 1509. Some competent writers always speak of three periods of Transition, covering the reigns of Henry II., Edward I., and Richard II.; whilst others, and this may be well adopted, speak of only one regular “Transition,” meaning by that term the period between the Early English and Decorated, or the reign of Edward I. (1272-1307).
These divisions are generally accepted as sufficing for popular purposes; but of the more detailed and technical divisions of later writers, there are none so correct in nomenclature, and so accurate in separation of style, as the seven periods of Mr. Edmund Sharpe. The first and second of his periods are the same as given above, but the third is styled the Transitional, from 1145 to 1190; the fourth, the Lancet, from 1190 to 1245; the fifth, the Geometrical, from 1245 to 1315; the sixth, the Curvilinear, from 1315 to 1360; and the seventh, the Rectilinear, from 1360 to 1550. See Sharpe’s “Seven Periods of English Architecture,” with its excellent series of plates.
There are numerous architectural manuals, but Parker’s “Glossary of Gothic Architecture” has not been surpassed, and is very comprehensive. The best edition is the fourth, with the two additional volumes of plates.
Before classifying the different parts of the building according to the various periods, a most careful inspection should be made of both inner and outer walls, when fragments of mouldings, pertaining possibly to an earlier church than any now standing, may not unfrequently be detected.
Monuments. Inscriptions on monuments now missing, or partly obliterated, may sometimes be recovered from the Church Notes of Heraldic Visitations, or other MS. note books of ecclesiologists of past generations, in which some counties are peculiarly fortunate. For a list of MSS. of this description, that may be found in our public libraries, arranged under counties, see Sims’ “Manual.” It may also be useful to refer to two printed works—Le Neve’s “Monumenta Anglicana,” 5 vols. 8vo. (1717-1719), and Weever’s “Ancient Funerall Monuments,” the latest edition of which, with additions, is a 4to. vol. of 1767. The former gives inscriptions on monuments of eminent persons who deceased between 1600 and 1718, the latter treats generally of all monuments in the dioceses of Canterbury, Rochester, London, and Norwich. Bloxam, on “Monumental Architecture” (1834), is a useful handbook on the general subject of monuments.
Cutts’ “Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses” is the only book dealing with the interesting subject of early INCISED SLABS. It is well done, but much more has come to light on the subject since it was written (1849), and a new manual is much wanted. In some counties, where stone abounds, remains of this description are found in most churches. If any part of the church is being rebuilt, the debris should be most carefully looked over; and a minute inspection of the existing masonry will often detect more or less perfect specimens of incised crosses that have been utilised in the masonry by the church restorers of past generations. The lintels of the windows (especially of the clerestory and of the tower), the inner side of the parapets or battlements, the stone seats of the porch, and of course the whole of the flooring, should be critically scanned for these relics. See also Boutell’s “Christian Monuments.”
Haines’ “Manual of Monumental Brasses” (2 vols. 8vo., 1861) is the best book on that class of memorials. The second volume consists of a fairly exhaustive list of brasses throughout the kingdom.
There is no good handbook dealing exclusively with STONE EFFIGIES, a great desideratum; the big illustrated folios of Gough’s “Sepulchral Monuments,” and Stothard’s “Monumental Effigies,” may be consulted with advantage. For the details of ARMOUR, Hewitt’s “Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe” (3 vols) is the most exhaustive work; for the details of COSTUME there are several expensive works, but the best handbook is Fairholt’s “Costume in England,” to which is appended an illustrated glossary of terms.
In connection with stained or painted Glass, Winston’s “Hints on Glass Painting” (2nd edition, 1867) should be read, wherein the different styles of successive periods are critically distinguished and illustrated.
For the important item of Heraldry, both in glass and on monuments, the best of the numerous manuals (and there are several very trashy) is Cussan’s “Handbook of Heraldry.” Burke’s “General Armoury,” of which a new and extended edition was published in 1878, is a dictionary of arms classified under families. Papworth’s “Dictionary of British Armorials” is arranged on the opposite principle, viz., the blazonry or description of the arms is given first, and the name of the family or families to which it pertains follows. It is an expensive work, but indispensable in the identification of arms. It will also be found to be far more accurate than Burke, and gives references to the various rolls and other MSS. from which the arms are cited.
Fonts are almost a speciality in themselves. Simpson’s “Series of Ancient Baptismal Fonts,” 1825, has a large number of beautifully finished plates of the more remarkable examples. Paley’s “Baptismal Font,” 1844, has illustrations and critical descriptions of a great number, arranged alphabetically. See also the “Archæologia,” vols. x. and xi.
Bells have now a literature of their own. Ellacombe’s “Bells of the Church,” and Fowler’s “Bells and Bell-ringing” are admirable works. The inscriptions, etc., on the church bells of the majority of English counties have already been published, and most of the remainder are now in progress. North’s “Bells of Leicestershire,” and “Bells of Northamptonshire,” are the best books of their class, but the “Bells of Derbyshire,” now in course of publication in the “Reliquary,” and chiefly contributed by St. John Hope, are being yet more thoroughly treated, both in description and illustration.
Church Plate should always be inspected, and the date, character, inscription, or arms on each piece carefully recorded. Chaffers’ “Hall Marks on Plate” gives the fullest description of the different marks, and how the precise date can be thereby ascertained. The fifth edition, published in 1875, is a considerable improvement on its predecessors.
Inventories of Church Goods often need explanation, or remains of various ancient church furniture may make some description necessary. There is no one book that can be thoroughly recommended on this subject; but, perhaps, the most satisfactory in some respects is Walcott’s “Sacred Archæology,” a popular dictionary of ecclesiastical art and institutions. Jules Corblet’s “Manuel Elémentaire d’Archéologie Nationale” may be consulted with advantage; it is a better done work than anything of the size and scope in English, and is well illustrated. For the various details of Church worship and ceremonies, reference should be made to Rock’s “Church of our Fathers,” and to Chambers’ valuable work, “Divine Worship in England in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, contrasted with and adapted to that in the Nineteenth.”
Before beginning the description of the Church, it will be well, in the first place, in order to ensure clearness and accuracy, that some general PLAN OF PROCEDURE should be adopted. We give the following skeleton of a suggested outline, that has been proved to be useful and orderly, but it can, of course, be altered or expanded or re-arranged in any direction.
1. Enumeration of component parts of structure, remarks as to its general or special characteristics.
2 Ground plan, i.e., dimensions of area of chancel, nave, etc., different levels, and number of chancel and altar steps.
3. Description of parts of the permanent structure that are (a) Saxon, (b) Norman, (c) Early English, (d) Transition, (e) Decorated, (f) Perpendicular, (g) Debased, (h) Churchwarden, and (i) Restored. Some definite order should be observed under each head, otherwise it is likely that some details may escape, e.g. doorways, windows, piers, arches, etc., of chancel, nave, aisles, porches, transepts, tower, and chapels.
4. External details—parapets, gurgoyles, niches, stoup, arms, inscriptions, “low side windows.”
5. Internal details—[Stone] altar or altar stone, piscina, almery, hagioscope, Easter or sepulchral recess, niches, brackets, roof-corbels, and sedilia of (a) chancel, (b) south aisle, (c) north aisle, and (d) chapels or transepts; also groined roofs, doorway or steps to roodloft, and stone screens—[Wood] altar table, altar rails, reading desk, lectern, pulpit, pews, benches, poppy-heads, panelling, roofs, doors, galleries, rood or chancel screen, other screens or parcloses, parish or vestment chests, alms boxes—[Iron or other metal]—any old details.
6. Font—(a) position, (b) description, (c) measurements, (d) cover.
7. Monuments—beginning with early incised stones, and carefully following them down in chronological order, an order which should not be broken except for the purpose of keeping a family group together. Arms should be correctly blazoned, and inscriptions faithfully copied.
8. Stained glass, according to age.
9. Encaustic tiles—pavement generally.
10. Fresco paintings, black-letter texts, patterns on roof or elsewhere, royal arms, charity bequest boards.
11. Bells—(a) number, (b) inscription and marks, (c) frame, (d) remarkable peals, or bell-ringers rhymes, (e) legends; also sanctus bell, or bell cote on nave gable.
12. Parish registers and other documents; church books, or library.
13. Church plate.
14. Church yard, (a) cross, (b) remarkable monuments or epitaphs, (c) yew tree, (d) lychgate, (e) sundial.
15. More recent fittings or ornaments, such as altar appurtenances, organ, etc.; the previous headings being supposed to be confined to older details possessing some historic value. But if the date, or probable date, is given of each particular, it might perhaps be as well to describe everything (if a complete account up to date is desired) under its proper head; thus a modern altar cross and candlesticks might be mentioned under the 5th head.
A few words on church “Restoration” may be here introduced; for it cannot surely be inappropriate to include a sentence or two in these pages (whose object it is to further the preservation of local records), that may possibly have some small influence in preventing the needless destruction of any part of those noble buildings round which the history of each English parish so closely clusters. From the standpoint of a local annalist nothing has been more painful in the “restorations” of the past forty years than the wanton way in which monuments, and more especially flat tombstones, of all ages, have been often treated.
It is necessary to enter a warm protest against the notion that any honour can be paid to God, or respect to the memory of those that He created in His own image, by burying inscribed gravestones beneath many inches of concrete in order to stick therein the glossy tiles of recent manufacture. The effacing or removal (wherever it can be avoided) of the memorials of the dead should in all cases be strongly resisted, no matter what be the eminence of the architect that recommends it. There are not many unrestored churches left in the country, but there are some of much value and interest for whose fate we tremble. When a “restoration” (the term is a necessity for the lack of a better) is contemplated, let it be recollected that all work—beyond the removal of galleries, and modern fittings, the opening out of flat plaster ceilings, above which good timber roofs often lie concealed, the scraping off the accumulated layers of whitewash and paint, the letting in of light through blocked-up windows, the allowing of feet to pass through doorways closed in recent days by the mason or bricklayer, and the making strong of really perishing parts—all work beyond this is in great danger of destroying the traces of the historic continuity of our Church, and of doing a damage that can never be repaired. And in preserving this historic continuity, let it not be thought that any service is being rendered to history or religion by sweeping clean out of the church all fittings of a post-Reformation date. The sturdy Elizabethan benches, the well-carved Jacobean pulpit, or the altar rails of beaten iron of last century, should all be preserved as memorials of their respective periods; in short, everything that our forefathers gave to God’s service that was costly and good, should be by us preserved, provided that it does not mar the devout ritual ordered by the Common Prayer, or in other respects interfere with the Church’s due proclaiming of her Divine mission to the nineteenth century. The reaction against over-restoration is now happily setting in, but a word of caution is also necessary lest that cry should be adopted as the cloak of a lazy indifferentism, or be used as an excuse for regarding the parish church as a local museum illustrative of byegone times, to be carefully dusted and nothing more. Where much new work, or any considerable extent of refitting, seem absolutely necessary, it is best to hasten slowly, and to do a little well rather than to aim at a speedy general effect. Thus, if one of our old grey churches requires fresh seating, how much better to fill a single aisle or one bay of the nave with sound and effectively carved oak, and only repair the remainder, rather than to accomplish the whole in sticky pine. The best material and the best art should surely be used in God’s service, and not reserved to feed our pride or minister to our comfort in private dwellings. It has often been noticed how far better the work of redeeming the interior of our churches from that state of dirt and neglect that had degraded some at least below the level of the very barns upon the glebe, has been carried out where money has come in slowly, and at intervals, rather than where some munificent patron has readily found the funds to enter upon a big contract.
