In The Interests Of Accuracy...

[poliphilo]

...And in case anyone goes looking for them and is disappointed the Royal Arms I talked about yesterday aren't in St Mary, Kenardington, but belong to the neighbouring chuch of St Matthew, Warehorne. This kind of mix-up can happen when you visit three churches  in the course of a single day.

St Matthew's looks like this...



It's a large roomy building. Here's the chancel.



According to a website I browsed there's a secret tunnel leading from the church to the Woolpack Inn across the road. Who dug it? Smugglers, of course. Russell Thorndike- who wrote the Dr Syn books- wasn't diverging too far from the known facts when he posited a clergyman as the leader of a  Romney Marsh smuggling gang.

Comments

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

What a beautiful chancel! I love how sparsely it's furnished.

Of course there would be smugglers at the Woolpack Inn... I should imagine you can conceal all sorts of things in a woolpack.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sparseness is a quality you find in most of the churches in and around Romney Marsh. This was a poor area and the Victorians mostly left it alone. A lot of the interiors still look very much as they would have done in the 18th century.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I love the open timber work.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And it's a bit wonky too- which adds to the charm.