Tugford Church.
With the ivy wreathing tower and porch, and moss and lichens encrusting its old plastered walls, Tugford church looks thoroughly in keeping with its secluded sylvan situation. Low down outside the chancel walls are certain arched recesses of unknown origin. The small blocked doorway seen in our sketch has a semicircular tympanum, carved in low relief, of evident antiquity; and a Norman arch with excellent mouldings is found inside the ivied porch. Internally, two curious, grotesque little figures are perched aloft on either side of this door.
Across the west end, hiding a good pointed tower arch, extends the musicians' gallery, where, amidst dusty music scores and other disjecta membra, the old wormeaten band-stand may still be seen. From this same gallery might be heard, until comparatively lately, those mellifluous strains of flute, clarionet, melodion and all sorts of music, wherewith the 'rude forefathers of the hamlet' were wont to wake the slumbering echoes on a Sunday morning; indeed the present rector himself can still recall those 'piping' times.
The very parish bier at Tugford boasts a respectable antiquity, as witnesses the inscription 'Bartholomew Lutley, Anno Dom. 1617,' carved upon it.
From Tugford we climb by rambling footpaths to The Heath, a secluded, upland district, forming a sort of western buttress to the Brown Clee Hill.
The Heath Chapel.