St. Nicholas,Husthwaite- Interior.

[poliphilo]

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I like this place; pleasing lines.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a very typical, very plain, English country church. 12th century. Lovely!

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I really appreciate being able to see all of these places through your eyes.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

I LOVE old churches. I drug my Pagan friends all over England looking at them when I was there!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Churches contain the history of a place- in some cases a thousand years or more. Hexham abbey is extraordinary- it has Roman altars, a Saxon crypt, late medieval paintings- the whole history of Britain is there.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I REALLY like that chapel.

The doors on the pews make me giggle though... like the worshipers might need to be locked in some time!

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

Some American churches have pews like that (I know at least one in Connecticut).

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I don't THINK I have ever seen any, but, unfortunately, I also have never been to Connecticut.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

You only see them in the oldest churches, and even then, if the church is being used, the pew doors are the first things to go.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In early Victorian times posh churches used to employ women to act as pew openers. Their job was to see people into their pews and close the doors after them. Rich people paid rent on pews and I suppose part of the pew opener's job was to make sure nobody sat in a pew they weren't entitled to.

In the later Victorian era there was a revulsion against this kind of class distinction- and a lot of radical clergymen insisted on getting rid of the old box pews. I remember reading about one man whose first act on moving into his new parish was to set about the pews with an axe- followed by a bonfire in the churchyard. It's therefore quite rare to find well-preserved sets like this. I particularly like the shiny little knobs.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That's really interesting. I don't think I had ever seen box pews.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In some places the pews were so high-sided that you couldn't see your fellow worshippers- only the preacher in his pulpit. Worship, in these circumstances, became an essentially private, family affair.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

I've been in many churches in Connecticut and Western Massachusetts that have box pews. There are also still a few churches in Estonia that have box-pews although most have been removed. They were a hold-over from the German Rittenshaft period.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Medieval churches didn't have seats- except in the choir for the clergy. According to Wikipedia, pews were largely an innovation of the Protestant Reformation. You couldn't really expect people to sit through enormously long sermons without offering them somewhere to sit.

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. My Grandfather's New England family were Congregationalists and the Reformation took hold here in Estonia with a vengeance.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I've never seen before a stone archway separating the chancel from the nave! How walled off and other it makes the chancel and sanctuary appear.

I really like it! It's amazingly cozy, like a house, like the chancel is the--oh, the dining room.

So to speak.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Looking again, it's clearer that the chancel isn't behind the wall.

What a cool church! I'd go there every Evensong. It's just lovely.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a very homely little church- no fuss, nothing special- and around 900 years old.