Author Archives: Andie

Loving the autumn butterflies and bees

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A red admiral, strikingly posed on a dahlia

Working in the garden on an unexpectedly sunny October weekend, I found myself surrounded by bees and butterflies, and perfectly delightful it was too.  All of the photos in this post were taken this weekend.  Last year my flower planting strategy had failed to produce a sufficiently colourful and insect-supporting display during autumn, so right at the beginning of spring, with a lot on my plate at the time, I used every small gap in my days to plant autumn-flowering species.  The great dollops of colour and the endless flow of butterflies and bees, assisted by a mild October, feel like a very generous reward for lugging around bags of compost and for feeding them my dad’s “magic mix” of three parts bonemeal to one part Q4 mycorrhizal.  Now, when the summer species and particularly the buddleias have gone over, there is plenty to keep the flying insects fully sustained.

The autumn-flowering aster (also known as Michaelmass) daisies and Purpletop vervain (Verbena bonariensis) have been the real successes, growing fast and densely, bright domes of colour all over the garden, attracting huge numbers of bees and butterflies.  The multi-coloured dahlias, yellow-petalled rudebeckias, purple-blue tradescantias and tall, elegant pink windflowers (Japanese anemones) are all still doing well.  Ivy flowers, clusters of pale yellow pom-poms, are also popular with butterflies, bees and ladybirds.  This cheerful floral mix is supplemented by lingering lupins, phlox and roses, which have done their fair share too.  The succulent-leaved Hylotelephium, which we used to call ice plants when I was a child, are still in flower, but although they were smothered with butterflies and bees only a couple of weeks ago, they are now being ignored.
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Comma on Verbena bonariensis

I spotted two bright commas (Polygonia c-album), with their deeply indented lace-edged wings, a few fluttering large whites (Pieris brassicae, also known as cabbage whites), a small white (Pieris rapae) , and a  luminous yellow brimstone (Gonepteryx rhamni, which has been quite rare in the garden this year), and a single painted lady, but otherwise the butterfly scene was dominated by an astonishing number of red admirals (Vanessa atalanta) and small tortoisehells (Aglais urticae).  Apart from the red admiral, the above-mentioned are native species.  The red admirals were clustered mainly on the aster daisies, whilst the tortoiseshells were staying mainly on the Purpletop vervain (Verbena bonerensis).

Large white on Verbena bonariensis

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Brimstone, cunningly disguised as a yellow leaf, on a very late surviving phlox

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Red admiral on aster daisy

The red admiral (Vanessa atalanta) is one of a number of butterfly species that breed twice in a year.  They are visitors to the British Isles, arriving in spring and throughout the summer.  They breed here in the summer.  They lay their eggs on young stinging nettles, the leaves of which provide sustenance for the caterpillar before it becomes a chrysalis and emerges, with damp wings that need spreading to dry, into a British summer.  The caterpillar emerges from the egg on the upper side of the leaf, and binds its edges together with silk, consuming it from the inside out, before moving on to a fresh leaf.  The butterfly can emerge at any time from May to October. I lost control of part of the garden earlier this year, under a bramley right at the back, and had a patch of stinging nettles that were taller than me, which is also shared with an unusual type of aster plant with stems that are also taller than me.  I took up the nettles some weeks ago, but this is where the red admirals are clustering right now.  Although I didn’t see any red admirals on fallen apples, these are usually very popular with the species, so it is a good idea to leave some if you have red admirals in your garden.

Small tortoiseshell on a barely visible Verbena bonariensis

The tortoiseshell is a native hibernating species that is also known from all over and further afield.  Like the red admiral, the caterpillar is happy on stinging nettles, where the eggs are laid on the underside of leaves.  They breed twice a year, emerging as early as March and again in August.  They can usually be seen until October.  This weekend Verbena bonarensis was the only plant in which they were showing any interest.  It is not everyone’s idea of a good garden plant because a small purple head grows on a very tall stem, but I love it.  It is easy to grow, and spreads itself like crazy, so you never really know where it is going to turn up next, although shaking a seed head in a general area usually works.  Fortunately, they pull out very easily if they turn up where you don’t want them, and don’t mind being replanted elsewhere if you do it immediately and provide lots of water.

The bees, less discriminating than the butterflies, were taking advantage of any flower that showed its face, but were particularly in love with the aster daisies.  I have never got to grips with the different types of bees, but there was an impressive mixture of the streamlined and the furry.  The many hardy fuchsias, the Himalayan honeysuckle and the delicate salvia “hot-lips” are doing a great job providing colour and supporting the bees, but do not provide an accessible platform for the butterflies.  Fuchsias, from south and central America were traditionally pollinated by hummingbirds, and we are a bit short of those around here, but the bees do a great job.  There were a small handful of hover flies but the only wasp I saw was the submarine-sized monster trying to find somewhere to over-winter in my living room.

Bee upside down on Himalayan honeysuckle

Bumble bee on an aster daisy

As I was tidying up the patio plants, I noticed that there was an army of caterpillars eating their way through my nasturtium leaves (just a little annoying, because apart from ruining the aesthetics, I use the leaves in salad).  They turn out to be from the Large White butterfly, and are apparently notorious for targetting nasturtium leaves, as well as cabbages.  A tough time of year for them to be starting new lives.  They spend the winter in chrysalis form, ready to emerge in the spring.  Large whites are native, but their numbers can be supplemented by migrants from Europe.

October always has the feeling of impending doom about it, with the run-up to the clocks going back, the garden flowers dying off, and the arrival of dark mornings, dark evenings and cold, wet, windy winters with damp leaves rotting underfoot.  I was truly not designed for a British winter.  It has therefore been particularly uplifting to see the life still fizzing in the garden so late in the year, like a reprieve, with butterflies and bees adding movement and sound to complement the late season colour.

Red admiral on a tradescantia bloom

In this era of global warming, a British summer is a moveable feast and it will be interesting to see how butterfly species adapt either by tolerating new conditions or moving to new areas.  The Butterfly Conservation organization has a number of programmes dedicated to the collection of such data from the general public in the hope of tracking some of these responses to environmental change.  Red admirals, like other migrant species die in the winter.  Traditionally Britain has simply been too cold for them to survive the winter frosts, but that may change, and we may see some news species heading northwards, but let’s hope that we don’t suffer too many losses.

For planting for flying insects, and extending seasons for their use at the beginning and end of the year, see Seabrook’s The Insect Garden (see Sources below for full details).

Red admiral, comma and ladybirds, all sharing the spoils of ivy flowers

Painted lady


Sources:

Books and papers

Carter, D. 1982. Butterflies and Moths in Britain and Europe. Pan Books in association with the British Museum

Holden, P. and Abbott, G. 2017 (2nd edition).  RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife. Bloomsbury Publishing

Mansell, E. and Newman, L.H. 1968. The Complete British Butterflies in Colour.  Ebury Press and Michael Joseph

Seabrook, M.J. 2020. The Insect Garden. The Best Plants for Bees and Bumblebees, Butterflies, Hoverflies and Other Insects.  Northern Bee Books


Websites

Butterfly Conservation
https://butterfly-conservation.org/

UK Butterflies
https://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/index.php

 

The splendid Grade-1 listed Llangar Church, Cynwyd, near Corwen

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The small Llangar Church is exceptional.  It is Grade-1 listed and a Scheduled Monument located in the Dee valley not far from Corwen. From its lovely lime-washed white walls and its small but well-filled churchyard to its painted interior and box pews, all set in the middle of a field, there is so much that is unexpected in Llangar Church. It has been subjected to detailed historical and archaeological research, and is accordingly much better understood than many other churches in north Wales.  This work, looking at over 500 years of use, means that there is far too much information to include here.  We were shown round by visitor guide Heather on the day, who was excellent, but there is not always a tour available, so the official Cadw guide book is certainly one way go to if you want a more informative account, with 18 pages dedicated to Llangar Church.  The survey and excavation report published in Archaeologia Cambrensis in 1981 (pages 64-132)  is the most detailed report available, and can be accessed online.  See Sources at the end of this post for both.

Visiting details and a map are at the end, but do note that this can be combined with a visit to the brightly painted 17th century Rhug Chapel, which is a 5-10 minute drive away, also on the map at the end (and about which I have posted here).

The meaning of the church’s name remains uncertain.  One interpretation suggests that it it can be translated as “Church of the White Deer,” whilst another suggestion is that it might refer to the name of a neighbouring Iron Age hillfort.  The Coflein website refers to it as “All Saints.”

Whatever the meaning of its name, the first documented evidence of it dates to 1291 and the church was probably founded earlier in the 13th century, serving local farms and the services that supported them.  It escaped the destructive attentions of the Reformation, and was used until 1856, when it was replaced by a new church in Cynwyd that was both bigger and far more conveniently located.  Although abandonment of the church, combined with its relatively inconvenient location, led to neglect, decay and damage, it fortunately escaped being plundered for building materials, and avoided the indignities of Victorian restoration work that usually augmented and remodelled what was found rather than merely preserving an architectural legacy.

It was not until the 1970s that conservation work accompanied by survey and research projects began to rescue the site and uncover some of its complex architectural and social history.  The church was not a time capsule of a single particular period, but a palimpsest of multiple periods.  This was a living, breathing community resource for over the 500 years, and as people and ideas changed, so did the church.  The Cadw analysis of the architectural development of the church identifies five main phases:  Medieval, Early 17th century, Mid to Late 17th century, early 18th century and later 18th and 19th centuries.  The scatter of painted and engraved dates through the church from the 17th century suggest that that this was a period when the church underwent a number of repairs and modifications.

The churchyard

The entrance to the churchyard is marked by an attractive and remarkably solid 18th century stone lych gate, with double wooden doors.  Like all lych gates it provided a shelter for coffin bearers and a place to rest the coffin bier until the service began, and also served as a formal entrance to the churchyard.  The slate roof has two tiers of decorative pointed tiles on the churchyard side.

The churchyard is on a slope.  To provide a flat surface on which to build the church, material was removed from the east and transferred to the west end.  The dangers of this scheme, leaving one end much more consolidated and compressed than the other, resulted in later structural problems on the north side (opposite the porch side) and at the west end.  Over the the decades, many of the headstones have started tilting downhill.

The cemetery has a particular charm all of its own, which is difficult to define but has something to do with the simplicity of the grave monuments, and the general absence of ostentation. The earliest of the monuments in the churchyard date to around 1600.  Chest tombs of the 17th and earlier 18th centuries cluster close to the church itself, whilst those further away were later.  These later graves were both chest tombs and graves marked by a headstone and footstone.  The cemetery went out of use in the 1870s, when the church was abandoned.  The church and churchyard, built into the side of a hill, are rather exposed and some of the inscriptions are very worn.  Interestingly, most of those graves before 1825 were inscribed in English, whereas later ones were largely in Welsh.

18th century

1821

1841

There is also a sundial base just beyond the church porch.

Llangar Church and churchyard showing the northwest corner, by the Dee, completely free of graves. Aerial view. Source: RCAHMW Coflein

In general the north side of a churchyard was the last to receive graves, either because it had previously been in use for community activities or because, being darker and colder, it was less attractive for visiting.  In the case of Llangar the northwest corner remained entirely free of burials right up to the moment of its abandonment, but this is probably because of problems with subsidence, a theory supported by various changes made to the church’s architecture to counter structural difficulties.

The church exterior

The guide book has a step by step tour of the exterior as revealed by the survey work.  It is a fascinating detective story over two pages, perfect for anyone doing a self-guided tour on a dry day.  The short version is that the south wall (porch side) dates to the Middle Ages, and the north wall was medieval but was modified over the centuries, with some windows blocked and others added. The north wall is now propped up by a modern retaining wall added during the renovation, but it is worth looking out for a top-to-bottom jagged line like a crack at the west end, which shows where structural work was carried out in the second half of the 17th century.  The west wall was rebuilt in the early 18th century.  The porch was added in the early 17th century, re-roofed in 1702, and the big ornamental window in the Perpendicular gothic style probably dates to around the same time.   

The interior

Visitors enter the church via the porch with two stone benches, probably dating to the early 17th century.  There is paintwork and various pieces of graffiti carved into wood and stone. Take note too of the noticeboard showing some of the restoration work.

As you walk in to the church, you are confronted with a fabulous red-painted life-sized skeleton representing Death, at gallery level on the opposite wall.  As a reminder that a church is the interface between the living and the dead, and that life is only a temporary condition before interment and Judgement Day, this can scarcely be beaten.  There are more details about this image below.

The ground floor is a single space with a floor covered in stone slabs and a small overhead gallery at the west end, which was probably used for the musicians.  There are no aisles or other architectural divisions.  The space beneath the gallery was clearly reserved for parts of the congregation that had the lowest status, at the furthest distance from the sacred east end, and was very dark and cramped beneath the low ceiling.

The earliest parts of the wooden beamed ceiling are thought to date to the 15th century, although timbers were replaced and repaired in subsequent centuries, and today most of them are modern, from the 1970s restoration.  The east end, traditionally the sacred end of a church, is marked by a “canopy of honour” dating to the late 15th or early 16th century, a barrel-shaped ceiling that would have shown sacred themes in paintings that have now been lost.  It is thought that they may have looked like those at St Benedict’s Church at Gyffin near Conwy showing the twelve apostles (its website is here, complete with a virtual tour).  

The only feature that would have furnished the church of the Middle Ages to survive is the simple font set into a niche, which has been moved from its original position, probably in the 18th century.  Most of the surviving fittings date to the early part of the 18th century.

From the 18th century, the public sat in the surviving box pews along the north wall and on backless bench pews on the south wall.  Four of the elegant box are dated 1711 (belonging to the Hughes family of Gwerclas, 1759, 1768 and 1841.  One preserves the initialse of one of its occupants.


Another pew, at the south side of the 18th century altar and dated 1841, was used by the rector’s family.  Opposite, on the other side of the altar, is a painted 18th century cupboard topped with a winged angel.  It is set into the north wall dating to the 18th century, with three keyholes, requiring three keyholders.    The altar itself dates to the 18th century but was built of 17th century wood.  The window above the altar is flanked by two panels, which between them show the Ten Commandments, in Welsh.  Originally the east end would also have housed a pulpit, but this was moved to part way along the south wall.  It is  a three-tiered pulpit, which was probably moved from the east end sometime after 1732 to allow the altar rail to be employed for the giving of the sacrament.

Like nearby 17th century Rhug, Llangar’s interior wall paintings escaped the whitewashing vigour of the Reformation, but unlike Rhug, the paintings represent different time periods, from the 14th to late 18th centuries. Some images were overpainted with new ones, and many are very faint.  One of the paintings has been removed to preserve it and is now in the exhibition area at Rhug Chapel.  The Cadw guide contains a full description of all of the paintings, by A.J. Parkinson, but here are some highlights.

 

North wall

Most of the images were intended to provide visual material to support sermons, which Parkinson refers to as “teaching aids.”  The fabulous skeleton is brandishing time’s arrow in one bony hand and a winged hour-glass in the other.  Between his legs are a shovel and pickaxe, tools of the gravedigger. He is dated tentatively to 1748, the death of rector Edward Samuel, who was a notable Welsh scholar and poet.  Looking to his left, on the front of the gallery, are some elegant yellow frames with floral motifs, containing texts that are now too faint to read, but may by Biblical.  

 

To the right of the skeleton, over the window, is the name of the rector in 1730, and to the right of this was the Royal Arms of the same period, now in the Rhug Chapel visitor centre.

The rest of the north wall above the box pulpits contains overlapping images, the earliest of which, possibly 14th century, is a bishop (very difficult to make out) in the doorway of a substantial and rather exotic church, the towers of which can be easily seen.

The red frame possibly dates to the 15th century and probably contained a narrative, such as the life of Christ, or scenes from the lives of saints.  Other decorations along the wall were painted over in the 18th century.

On the south wall are a series of morality-themed panels outlined in red, probably dating to the 15th century.  All are very faint.  Some of them show representations of the Seven Deadly Sins, in which each sin is personified and is shown riding an appropriate animal.  These are very difficult to make out, but are almost unique.  Jane Durrant’s reconstruction below shows what they may have looked like in the late medieval period (scanned from the Cadw guide book).

Cutaway reconstruction showing teh south wall panels as they may have looked in the 15th century. By Jane Durrant. Source: Cadw guide book by W. Nigel Yates (full details at end, p.28).

On the left is a stag, representing lechery, and on the right is a wild boar representing gluttony, two of the Seven Deadly Sins

The gallery with benches, at the west end, is reached by a flight of stone stairs. It probably housing the musicians and singers, retains a very unusual four-sided music stand.

Abandonment of the church

Llangar church with a temporary roof. Source: RCAHMW https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/93771/images

From the Middle Ages to the 19th Century populations changed, and parish boundaries often ceased to be representative of where people were concentrated and wanted to worship.  In the middle 19th century Llangar and Gwyddelwern were neighbouring parishes, but Llangar’s population did not exceed 251 people dotted around the parish, whereas Gwyddelwern’s population had reached 1,118, of which nearly half lived in Cynwyd, near to Llangar.  In 1853 the decision was made to redraw the parish boundaries so that Cynwyd was in the parish of Llangar, but at the same time it was also decided that a new church should be built at Cynwyd to replace the inconveniently located Llangar Church.  Llangar Church had gone out of use by the mid 1870s except for occasional burials.  Some abandoned buildings are robbed for their materials, but Llangar survived intact, although as its roof deteriorated, so the rest of it came under threat.

Restoration

Noticeboard in the church porch

The importance of Llangar was recognized in the 1960s, and it was taken into care by the Welsh Office in 1967.  Restoration work began in 1974.  There is a noticeboard in the porch of the church showing some of the restoration work, as well as on the Coflein website.  Amongst many other restoration activities, one of the big structural changes accomplished during the restoration was the addition of a retaining wall on the outside of the original wall on the eastern end of the north side.  This should continue to stabilize the church to secure its future.  The roof was largely rebuilt, and most of the interior required conservation work.  Survey work, involving a number of different specialists, began to reveal the history of the church and churchyard.

Final Comments

More than any other church that I have visited in recent years, Llangar provides a sense of a place of social congregation.  This was off the beaten track, even for rural people who came from their farms and forges to attend the Sunday service.  Many of them will have met at market, but a sense of real community probably only developed on the back of the weekly congregation, which was a social as well as a religious activity, attended by entire families.   The paintings on the walls, changing over time to suit different needs, helped to involve the congregation in the Christian narrative, surrounding them with key messages and providing them with a sense of context.  The painting here was not merely decorative, like Rhug, but invested with shared articles of faith.  It is a small place, but it has a real impact.

Visiting

Source: Google Maps (with my annotations).  Llangar Church is at the bottom of the map, Rhug at the top.

Before setting out, it is vital to check the website, because the church is open only on certain days of the month in the spring and summer, and is closed during autumn and winter.  Do note that opening times are timed to coincide with those of nearby Rhug Chapel, so you can do both at the same time. https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/llangar-old-parish-church

Llangar Church and its churchyard are located in the Dee valley in a field just off the B4401, a well-used tourist route to the eastern side of Lake Tegid (sometimes referred to as Lake Bala).

Map sourced from the Coflein website with my annotations

There is a large lay-by opposite the farm track that gives access to the church.  The church is sign-posted, but when I was there the sign was hidden by tree branches.  There is a small post box on a pole next to the farm track that leads to the church, and a sign on the open gate for Station Cottage.  The track leads downhill for a minute or two, past farm buildings on the left. The road goes hard right and then hard left.  At the left turning, there is a gate on the right hand side (with a sign to its left saying Guide Dogs Only) that takes the visitor across a field, complete with mud and cow-pats, through a small gate on to a grassy footpath flanked by upright slates.  This leads to the lych gate and the churchyard beyond.

For those taking unwilling legs into account, although it is only about 5-10 minutes from car to lych gate this is very slippery underfoot after rainfall, meaning that this would almost certainly be better approached during a dry period.  Part of the graveyard is on a steep slope, which would make exploring it challenging, and there are steps up to the gallery within the church, but otherwise there should be no difficulties.

If you want to get the most out of the visit, the guide book is very helpful (see Sources below), covering both Llangar Church and Rhug Chapel as well as Gwydir Uchaf Church near Betws-y-Coed, which I have not yet visited, but looks fabulous.  The guide book is particularly strong on Llangar Church.  It can be purchased at Rhug Chapel, or ordered online from the usual sources.

If you plan to include a walk in your visit, the farm track from the road leads to a public footpath that runs along the disused railway track, which a couple who had arrived early recommended.  There are many good walks in the Corwen area, some of which are detailed in an excellent leaflet, which can be downloaded here as a PDF.

Sources:

Books and papers

Parkinson, A.J. 1993. The Wall Paintings. In Yates, N.W. Rug Chapel, Llangar Church, Gwydir Uchaf Chapel. Cadw, p.37-39.

Yates, N.W. 1993. Rug Chapel, Llangar Church, Gwydir Uchaf Chapel. Cadw

Additional reading:

Shoesmith, Ron 1981.
Llangar Church. Archaeologia Cambrensis vol.129, January 1981, p.64-69
https://journals.library.wales/view/4718179/4748029/87#?xywh=-163%2C-2%2C2584%2C3638
Llangar Church. The Graveyard Survey
Archaeologia Cambrensis vol.129, January 1981, p.70-132
https://journals.library.wales/view/4718179/4748029/93#?xywh=-169%2C-8%2C2584%2C3638

Although I haven’t yet managed to get hold of it Heather, the Cadw visitor guide, also recommended R. Suggett’s Painted Temples: Wallpaintings and Rood-screens in Welsh Churches, 1200–1800. RCAHMW 2021.

Another book that I haven’t yet seen, to which Peter Carrington alerted me, is Archaeologies and Antiquaries: Essays by Dai Morgan Evans edited by Howard Williams, Kara Critchell and Sheena Evans. Archaeopress 2022, which has four chapters dedicated to Llangar.
https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803271583

Websites

Coflein
All Saints Church, Llangar
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/93771/
All Saints Church, Llangar, Images
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/93771/images

National Churches Trust
St John the Evangelist, Cynwyd
https://www.nationalchurchestrust.org/church/st-john-evangelist-cynwyd

The colourful and uplifting Grade-1 listed 17th-18th century Rhug Chapel, near Corwen

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Having visited Grade-1 listed Rhug (pronounced “rig”) Chapel around 20 years ago, I had always meant to return because I found it such a joyous place.  A small building, it is a jack-in-a-box full of surprises.  Although fairly plain on the exterior, it escaped Reformation erasure as well as any major Victorian remodelling.  The interior retains all of its 17th Century charm, an extravaganza of bright paintwork, wonderful patterns and motifs, and lively carvings.  It is a celebration of colour, very unusual in most of Britain’s attractive but sombre post-Reformation Anglican buildings.

The chapel is in a rural setting, just to the west of Corwen in the Dee valley, with plenty of footpaths in the immediate area.  You might consider visiting the nearby and remarkable little Llangar Church at the same time (which I have posted about on this blog here).  Both are open only a few times a month for a part of the year, closed for the rest of the year, but their opening times are co-ordinated so that they can be visited on the same days.  Visiting details for both are at the end of the post.

Many thanks to Cadw guide Heather for a great introductory talk, and for pointing out many details that we might otherwise have missed, and there was plenty of time to ask questions and wander around afterwards. There is not always a guided talk available.  I’ve written up some of the top level details of the visit below, but I recommend buying the Cadw guide book, which is stuffed full of information and great photos.  It also has the details of Llangar Church and Gwydir Uchaf Chapel.  I haven’t yet visited Gwydir Uchaf near Betws-y-Coed but it is one on my list.

Apologies for the poor quality of the interior photographs, which are very grainy and occasionally a bit blurred, due to the low lighting that helps to preserve the paintwork.  Hopefully they will still suggest that the chapel is very much worth a visit.

Background

Cross at Rhug, brought by William Salusbury from Denbigh

Rhug Chapel, properly the Chapel of Holy Trinity, was built as a private chapel by Colonel William Salusbury (1580-1660), set apart from Rhug Manor.  The land in which Rhug sits belonged to descendants of Prince of Powys Madog ap Merdudd (who died in 1160) until it passed to a daughter, who married into the Salesbury family.  Sir Robert Salusbury, the son of this marriage, added the lordship of Glyndyfrdwy to the family’s property, once in the ownership of the rebel Owain Glyndwr.  Robert died in 1599, and his only son, who had no children of his own, died only nine years later in 1608.  The estate passed to Sir Robert’s brother instead, Captain John Salusbury.  He too died without children, only three years later, in 1611 and was in turn succeeded by his brother, William Salusbury.

William Salusbury was once a privateer (a type of state-authorized pirate) in the East Indies, and most importantly a royalist governor of Denbigh Castle, who was known in old age as “Hen Hosanau Gleision,” which translates as “Old Blue Stockings.”  He is best known for his defence of Denbigh Castle for the royalist cause during the Civil War. Denbigh fell to the parliamentarians but not until  after six months under siege when he was ordered by the king to surrender.  

Denbigh Castle. Source: Cadw via Wikipedia

Inheriting the Rhug estate in 1611, William Salusbury found himself saddled with heavily encumbered estates, mortgaged to the hilt, and spent the next 30 years turning this situation around.  The chapel was built for his family’s private worship.  His religious preferences leaned towards the Anglican “high church” of Charles I, which accounts for the bright colours and the sense of celebration.  The services were carried out in Welsh, and many of the texts within the chapel are in Welsh as well as Latin.

On his death at the age of 80, having lived long enough to see the restoration of the monarchy, William left a deed of endowment dated 3rd January 1641 so that services should be maintained, and continue to be delivered in Welsh.  He also required that the curate was dedicated to the chapel and was not employed elsewhere as well.  The endowment was provided with portions of land that would provide the chapel with an income, managed by trustees.  The original requirements were ignored some time after William’s death, and the vicars of Corwen or Llangar usually took Rhug into their existing domains and delivered the service in English.  In the mid 19th Century an additional sum was bequeathed to the bishopric of St Asaph in order to reinforce the original stipend to the chaplain.

The Exterior

Approaching the church we paused at a tall cross, around 6ft (1.8m) tall, on a plinth and three steps.  This is not contemporary with the construction of the church, but predates it, having been brought by William Salusbury from Denbigh Castle.  Both the east window and the western door are accessorized with sculptural features.  At the east end these are two heads, one with a crown and one with a mitre; at the west end they are carved into a loosely floral or leafy motif. The tracery in the windows was a 19th century addition, as was the small belfry.

In the churchyard there is a circular fenced area with three large headstones, and two secondary ones.  These are headstones from the 1860s belonging to the Wynn family.  The central one features a lighthouse on top and a horseshoe at bottom left, belonging to a daughter who died after falling from her horse.  The lighthouse, of unusual four-sided construction, represents the one on Bardsey Island, once the property of the estate.

The church is surrounded by a lovely Potentilla hedged walkway.  Some of the Potentilla, yellow and white, was in flower.  I have never seen it used as hedging before, and it works beautifully.

The Interior

Open the door, and you will find yourself given the option of climbing a staircase to the gallery on the left, or opening interior doors to proceed in to the nave (main seating area) and the chancel beyond (the sacred east end) on your right.  The lighting is very low, so it is worth sitting in one of the many pews for a minute or two to let your eyes adjust, particularly if it is a bright day outside.  Upstairs, the gallery was probably used by musicians.  It provides a superb view of the ceiling and beam decoration.

The beams and trusses of the hammerbeam ceiling are painted with flowers, grapes and foliage in bright colours. One of the cross-beams shows the date of construction, 1637.  The 16 and 37 are either side of the abbreviation IHS, which stands for the first three letters of the name of  Jesus in Latin and is frequently sees on gravestones in the area.  The same IHS motif is found elsewhere in the church.  The beams themselves are painted with flowers and grapes vines that spread vigorously towards the painted sky. Ceiling bosses, wooden features that traditionally sit over the meeting of beams, are also beautifully painted with a variety of motifs.

 

Between the beams, the ceiling is also painted.  Over the nave the sinuous shapes emulate wispy clouds.  Over the chancel a “canopy of honour” is provided by a wonderful heavenly scene of angels and stars on a blue background.

Angels are a recurring theme in the small chapel, with four wooden sculpted angels suspended at the base of roof trusses and others decorating the fabulous wooden, candle-holding chandelier hanging from the centre of the church. 

The optimism of angels with their promise of heavenly mercy is balanced by the grim reality of impending death.  The skull and skeleton are accompanied by candles burning down, an hourglass with the sands draining, and a dial, both signifying the passing of time.  At the base of the dial the words “hora fugit” (the hour flies).  In the centre of the hourglass and dial is the phrase “ut hora sic vita” meaning “as with the hour, so with life.”  The welsh inscriptions below this are translated, courtesy of the Cadw guide book , as follows:

  • “as the flame gradually consumes the tallow of the lighted candle, so life on the orbit (earth) perishes daily” (from a 16th century carol)
  • “lifetime, however long its stay, will come to an end by night and by day” (from the Englynion y Misoedd, Stanzas of the Months)
  • “my nose and my face are perished, very dumb am I, no-one knows me” (from a poem attributed to Ieuan ap Rhydderch)
  • “every strong one is weak in the end” (a 16th century proverb)

One of the most celebrated features of the chapel is the frieze that runs at the top of both north and south walls, consisting of a series of rectangular pieces, highly coloured and very ornate, each showing a small creature at its centre, some identifiable as either from nature or myth, and one which is completely unidentifiable.

In the chancel, flanking the altar, are two unusual canopied benches looking rather like four-poster beds.  The role of these has been much-discussed and although it is not known exactly how they were used, a plausible suggestion is that at least one was a family pew.  The other might also have been a family pew but in the absence of a pulpit may have served as a place from which the service could be delivered.

The pews themselves were plain benches when the church was first built, but back rests were added a little later.  On each side, from front to back, each of the pews was connected with a single piece of wood, with scallop-shaped openings carved out to provide access to the pews.  Facing into the aisle, the sections between these access points are carved with images, quite difficult to see in the low light without a torch, depicting birds, animals and imaginary creatures.  The carvings were fairly difficult to make out in the light conditions on the day so I tortured the photos below both in the camera’s settings and in Photoshop.  Even so, they are still fuzzy.

The frieze along the top of the wall and the carvings on the side of the pews seem somewhat reminiscent of misericords.  Misericords at Chester Cathedral (from its monastery days), and both Gresford and Malpas parish churches are part of a Medieval tradition that includes the grotesque, the humorous, and the fabled in the holiest sanctuaries of their Christian homes.  Although the images at Rhug are at least two hundred years later than those at Chester Cathedral, they do echo this earlier medieval Catholic tradition of combining Christian icons and motifs with wild, mythological and completely invented imagery.  The world of the “other,” neither sublime heaven nor the realm of pedestrian human reality, is where demons, the unexplained and the unknown reside.  Positioning them alongside Christian images, like the pelican plucking her breast to feed her young (immediately above, a Christian symbol representing the sacrifice of Christ for humanity) emphasizes how humans negotiate a world of conflicting experiences and demands, opportunities and pitfalls, both natural and supernatural.  This glorious little chapel balances the beauty of nature, the strangeness of the unknown, the fear of impending death, and the promise of angelic eternity.

Additions and restoration work

Inevitably, some restoration work was required and there were a number of tweaks to William’s original vision.  In 1854-55 the bell turret was added by Sir Robert Vaughan, some floor tiles were laid in the nave and chancel, and a mock-Jacobean chancel screen incorporating a lectern were added (compensating for the lack of pulpit in the original church).  The windows were remodelled.  Originally, according to a visitor in 1849, the windows had mullions (vertical divisions), but no gothic style ornamental tracery.  All the windows now have tracery.  As in many small churches, a lean-to vestry was added to the north side.

The font, at the rear of the south side, was added in 1864. The altar itself, and the stained glass windows, belong to the later 19th century.  The window on the north side (right as you look down from the entrance) has a particularly Pre-Raphaelite look to it.

William’s architectural legacy has only been altered very slightly.  Rhug Chapel is now under the care of Cadw who have done a lot of work to make the chapel and its surrounding site a pleasure to visit.
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Visiting Rhug Chapel (and Llangar Church)

First, you need to check the opening times, as the Rhug Chapel and Llangar Church are only open on certain days, and are closed entirely over the winter period.

For Rhug the opening times and other details are available on the Cadw website: https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/rug-chapel. The chapel lies just off an A-road and has its own car park.   There are toilets and a picnic area, as well as a gift shop and a small exhibition area that is well worth visiting, which contains information about Rhug, Llangar and Gwydir Uchaf.  For those with unwilling legs there are no problems here.  From the car park to the church is all on the flat. You may not want to go upstairs to the gallery, because the steps are quite steep, but this will not spoil your visit.  There are no steps to access the gift shop or the small exhibit. For disabled access, see the Facilities section on the Rhug web page.

Llangar Church

If you want to visit Llangar Church at the same time, around a 10 minute drive away, its Cadw web page is at: https://cadw.gov.wales/visit/places-to-visit/llangar-old-parish-church.  At the time of writing there is no information about facilities or disabled access on the above web page, but although I haven’t yet posted about Llangar Church following my visit (working on it) there is reasonable parking in a large layby opposite.  I would not recommend it for unwilling legs after rainfall, which was when I visited, because the entire approach (slippery farm track, muddy section after the farm track, and slippery gravestones laid as pathways) was causing people to slide and slip more than somewhat as they walked.  Like Rhug it is fine once inside, except for the stairs up to the gallery.  I would give it a flat negative for wheelchair access.

 

Caer Drewyn. Source: Peoples Collection

As you are leaving and are pulling out of the car park, pause before turning on to the road and take a moment to look up at the hill in front of you.  Towards the peak you can make out the fortifications of an Iron Age hillfort, the well-preserved Caer Drewyn.  The stone rubble perimeter that defines it is particularly clear in bright sunshine or under snow, but even in bland light you can still make it out.  The hillfort is open to the public and can be reached by a number of footpaths.  I’ve written about it on another post here.
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Sources

Books and papers

Yates, W.N. 1993. Rug Chapel, Llangar Church, Gwydir Uchaf Chapel.  Cadw

Although I haven’t yet managed to get hold of it Heather, the Cadw guide, also recommended R. Suggett’s Painted Temples: Wallpaintings and Rood-screens in Welsh Churches, 1200–1800. RCAHMW 2021

Websites

BasedInChurton
The splendid Grade-1 listed Llangar Church, Cynwyd, near Corwen
https://basedinchurton.co.uk/2023/09/30/the-splendid-grade-1-listed-llangar-church-cynwyd-near-corwen/

Coflein
Rug Chapel
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/43855/

Dictionary of Welsh Biography
SALUSBURY, SALESBURY family, of Rug and Bachymbyd
https://biography.wales/article/s-SALU-RUG-1525

The magnificent aqueduct and viaduct at Chirk, and a very, very dark tunnel

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Chirk aqueduct and viaduct on an old postcard. Source: History Points

Having engaged in a two-bridge extravaganza with a visit to the Cefn viaduct and the Pontcysyllte aqueduct via the footpaths in the Tŷ Mawr Country Park recently, I decided to complete the local big-bridge experience with the beautiful Chirk viaduct and aqueduct.  The aqueduct (lower) and viaduct (higher) run parallel within a few feet of one another, high above the floodplain of the river Ceiriog.  A towpath accompanies the LLlangollen Canal across the aqueduct, doubling as a footpath, giving great views over the viaduct and the valley below.  Even better, the aqueduct and towpath vanish into a 1381ft / 420m tunnel under the hill.  The railway, running alongside over the taller and slightly longer viaduct, does not vanish underground and carries on over the top of the hill, where there is a station.  This was a short walk because I had an appointment elsewhere, although it didn’t have to be because once you are on the canal towpath you can simply keep walking in either direction until you feel that it’s time to get back to wherever you have abandoned your car.

Cleaning the Chirk aqueduct in 1954 showing the cast iron plates. Source: History Points

The aqueduct and viaduct, at different heights, seem like such a good pairing but they were not built at the same time, and nor were they designed by the same civil engineer or built by the same contractor.

The aqueduct was built to carry the Llangollen Canal, which was part of a complex plan, only partially realized, to connect north Wales to the large national canal network, about which I have already talked in detail on my post about the building of Pontcysyllte.

As typical with the Jessop and Telford partnership, the  aqueduct had an innovative design.   (https://www.pontcysyllte-aqueduct.co.uk)

As part of this immense canal project the  Chirk aqueduct was built in 1801, four years earlier than the better known Pontcysyllte aqueduct. The aqueduct was a collaboration between William Jessop and the younger Thomas Telford, who had been hired to assist Jessop, but had proved himself an innovator in his own right, even though he had lacked canal experience when taken on.  It is unsurprising, therefore, that the the aqueduct was an innovative design. The weight of the water and its traffic were carried on 10 masonry arches with hollow sections, and a water channel provided with a flat bed of iron plates, its brick sides sealed with hydraulic mortar.  The successful deployment of iron plates inspired the construction of the even more innovative Pontcysyllte aqueduct.  The canal travels under the hill via a tunnel to maintain its level, from where it parts company with the railway, which travels at a higher level than the aqueduct.

The railways came later than the canals, eventually replacing them as the primary form of transport, and the Chirk viaduct came 47 years after the aqueduct as part of this vast expansion and eventual domination of rail.  The viaduct, designed by Henry Robertson who also designed the nearby Cefn viaduct, was built by Thomas Brassey for the Shrewsbury to Chester Railway in1848 (to whom a chapel is dedicated in Chester Cathedral).  It was 710ft (220m) long and 70ft (20m) above the valley floor, with a total of 16 arches.  Look out for the nice decorative niches at either end, the sort of flourish that demonstrated the pride with which such massive civil engineering enterprises were regarded.  It must have felt as though they were changing the world, which they were.

The view from the aqueduct is mainly of the river Ceiriog floodplain, a vast grassy area.  The Ceiriog runs to one side, like something of an afterthought.  The vast expanse of green, although lacking any ooh-ah factor gives a real sense of how much land is being traversed by the arches, and how far above the ground level it is.  And it’s a long way down!  The peace seems so complete that a train suddenly rumbling so closely to the towpath is just a little disconcerting.

 

If you are planning to walk through the tunnel  you absolutely must take a torch, but do note that you do not have to go through the tunnel to continue along the tow-path.

If you want to avoid the tunnel but proceed to the other side of towpath, stop at the information sign near the tunnel entrance.  There’s a ramp up to the road, and you can walk the length of the tunnel over-ground (a couple of minutes along a quiet road) and rejoin the towpath on the other side.  More about this over-ground route, and other visiting details, are below.


There’s a great view of the aqueduct from a viewing platform at the end of Station Road, if you walk back that way, and you can also reach it from the aqueduct side by going up the slope.

Visiting Details

There are various options for parking, depending on how close to the bridges you want to be, and which side of the tunnel. You could park in Chirk itself or at the Chirk marina, for example, and head south towards the tunnel (the bridges are on the other side of the tunnel, north to south).  Or you could park west of the bridges and head north, which means that you reach the bridges before the tunnel.  I followed the latter strategy and parked in the small car park (10 cars max, no charge) actually on the towpath opposite Canal View, just before a very pretty canal bridge.  Canal Way itself is on the towpath, but has homes along it and is strictly private parking.  The photo of the information board above is fairly dismal due to the light and shade, but if you click it to enlarge it you should be able to make out the main parking areas, plus other features.

If you park where I parked opposite Canal View, walk from the car park along the towpath, with your back to the road.  If you park up and then cross the road on to the towpath opposite, you are going in the wrong direction.  It’s a nice, stretch of metalled canal towpath through woods on either side, passing a couple of houses on the right.  You will suddenly find yourself on the aqueduct over the Dee floodplain, with the viaduct running parallel a very short distance to your left.  The tunnel is at the end of the aqueduct.

The towpath over the aqueduct has a nice safe railing with tightly woven wirework, preventing any chance of falling into the valley.  Like Pontcysyllte, however, the canal trough has nothing on the other side.  Those travelling by narrow-boat, kayak or canoe have a far more interesting time of it.

Signage on the towpath

I have mentioned that you do not have to walk through the tunnel to walk the full length of the canal towpath.  When you reach the tunnel entrance (at both ends) there is a pathway up to a road that runs parallel, and another that runs back down to the towpath, so if you don’t fancy the pitch dark (no lighting unless you bring a torch), there is a perfectly viable alternative.  I came from the Chirk Bank direction on the sign right, and vanished into the tunnel just after the You Are Here label and emerged with he blue arrow.  I took the slope up from the towpath to the road, turned left across the railway and then right down Station Road, as far as the roundabout.  Crossing the road at the roundabout, there is an excellent viewing point for the aqueduct (and a seat to sit on). Just to the left of the viewing point is the slope down to the aqueduct.

When you enter the tunnel, switch on your torch, and be prepared for drips from above even during fine weather.  The towpath in the tunnel will let two people pass, and there is a handrail along the water’s edge.  If you have small children you will probably want to go up to the road level instead, and rejoin the towpath on the other side of the tunnel because although there is a handrail to prevent adults falling into the canal, it is not a fence or barrier, just a handrail on posts.  Dogs should be on a lead.

This is suitable for unwilling legs if you stick to the towpath because it is level all the way.  If you want to avoid the tunnel and are up for some gentle slopes, the two ramps up from the towpath to the road should be okay and the roads themselves are on the flat.

Sunshine and great views at Caer Drewyn Iron Age hillfort at Corwen

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Caer Drewyn aerial photograph. The entrance at the top is at the northeast. Source: Cadw

Caer Drewyn is an Iron Age hillfort located a mile north of Corwen, with remarkable stone-built defences all around its perimeter, and terrific views in all directions.  Every fortnight for two years I drove past Caer Drewyn on my way to my father’s in Rossett, and again on my way back to Aberdovey.  It was so obviously a late prehistoric hillfort that I didn’t investigate what might be known about it for some time, but every time I passed I reminded myself that I really must find out if it was accessible to the general public.  It is.

This post begins with a brief description of Caer Drewyn the Iron Age archaeological site (it is worth reading either this or another description before you visit, as there is no information signage at the site), and finishes with the the walk and views, from the car park via the farm track to the top, and back partly via the track, but also using a different, steep footpath that shortens the route.

If you use the What3Words app, which is invaluable for both locating a site and, most importantly, for giving an exact location to emergency services in the event of an accident at a site, you can find the hillfort at ///kitchen.quaking.segments.

Caer Drewyn

Willoughby Gardner’s 1922 sketch of the position of Caer Derwyn on the slope rather than around the peak of the spur.

Caer Drewyn is the most southerly of the well-known Clwydian range hillforts, The site is located on a spur projecting south and west into the Vale of Ederinion in the upper valley of the river Dee, some 800-985ft above sea level and, at its south, 500ft (152m) above the Dee floodplain.  The aerial photo shown at the top of the post gives some idea of the way in which the site dips fairly steeply from east to west over two loosely defined natural terraces. 

What differentiates Caer Drewyn from its Clwydian range peers is that instead of banks and ditches, it is defended by vast stone defences, spreading to beyond 15ft wide in places.  The Caer Drewyn stone defences are remarkable in that they do not merely defend a particular weak point; they enclose the entire perimeter – and there is an awful lot of perimeter to defend (3 hectares / nearly 7.5 acres, measuring c.629ft / c.192m north-south by 705ft / 215m east-west).  This sort of stone defence is not unique.  There are a number of examples in Ceredigion and in south Merioneth (e.g. Craig yr Aderyn, and Castell y Gaer) both on or near the mid-west Wales coast, with which the area may have had contact via the route that follows a geological fault-line. Other similar examples are further afield in northwest Wales including the famous Tre’r Ceiri on the coast of the north Llyn Peninsula, which has a complete stone perimeter and includes very clearly visible hut circles within.

Although parts of the stone walls were cleared of bracken and other vegetation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Caer Derwyn hillfort has not been excavated, so all knowledge is based on observation of the extant features.  According to the Coflein website, the hillfort was probably developed over at least three phases.  

The earliest phase is thought to have consisted of a smaller curvilinear earthwork at the northeast of the hillfort that stands today, and survives in part as an earthwork outside and to the east of Caer Drewyn.  This can be seen on the aerial photograph at the very top of this post.

The next phase is the vast rubble-walled site that dominates the hill today.  This later hillfort was defined by the stone rampart, which Willoughby Gardner describes  in his 1922 paper as  consisting “of a core of rubble stones, faced on either side with a wall of dry masonry.”  These surviving patches of stone facing may suggest that the rampart may have been equipped with an inner wall-walk.

Instead of sitting around the peak of the spur, the hillfort actually sits on the slope, meaning that the interior can be seen from below.  Like many hillforts, it is ideally located for visibility over the landscape, in this case with views over the surrounding area, including the valleys of the rivers Dee and Alwen, which meet just to the east, the Berwyns to the south and the north and east across to the rest of the Clwydian range.  These views are wonderful on a clear, bright day.  Toby Driver points out that in spite of the defences, the above-mentioned fact that the interior of the hillfort can be viewed from below somewhat undermines its strategic value.

Willoughby Gardner’s 1922 plan of the northeast entrance of the hillfort

The hillfort could be approached from the west and the northeast, where the two entrances were in-turned, a typical feature of many hillforts that helps to control access to the interior.  Willoughby Gardner says that there was a spring a short way down from the west entrance.  The entrance in the northeast corner where the cairn is located, which is the highest point of the site and shown clearly bottom right of the aerial photo below, may have featured a guard chamber, another characteristic feature, suggested by the complex jumble of stone that implies at least one additional feature at the entrance.  Willoughby Gardner estimates a 12ft diameter. So-called guard chambers are recesses in the entrance passages hillforts, mainly in north Wales and the Welsh Marches, but the name does not mean that the function of these recesses is actually understood, and they may have been used for some sort of religious or alternative function.

You can see circular dips dotted here and there in the walls.  These may or may not be relatively modern features.  They were there in 1887 when the Reverend Hugh Pritchard was investigating.  One interpretation is that they could have been grouse butts (small enclosures used as grouse-shooting positions), but this is unsubstantiated.  You can see some of them most clearly in the aerial image below.

Caer Drewyn showing northeast entrance, annex, and circular depressions in walls. Source: Peoples Collection Wales

The interior surface has been examined by Willoughby Gardner in 1922 and by the Engineering Archaeological Services (EAS) in 2006.  Willoughby Gardner comments that there are circular structures within the hillfort.  He casts doubt on them being original because in his experience wattle-and-daub or wood was the favoured material for hut circle construction.  The EAS, acting on behalf of the Heather and Hillforts Landscape Partnership Scheme (Denbighshire County Council) carried out a topographical survey which identified eight possible hut platforms within the walls.  Apparently aerial photographs taken in low winter light confirm hut-like shapes in the central and eastern parts of the enclosure.  I had a poke around for anything resembling them on the ground, but could find nothing amongst the bracken.  Winter, when the vegetation has died down a bit, would be a better time for that sort of optimistic activity.  

To the south and southwest there are views over Corwen, the Berwyns and into the far distance.  There is excellent line of sight from Caer Drewyn to other hilltops, some of which housed contemporary hillforts.  I walked all the publicly accessible hillforts in the southern Merioneth area in mid west Wales a couple of years ago my write-ups here), and each of them had a clear line of sight to one or more neighbouring hillforts, which would make sense both for mutual support and maintaining lines of communication amongst friendly neighbours, and for keeping an eye on any hostile neighbours.

Caer Drewyn. Photograph by Llywelyn2000, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: Mapcarta

A third phase apparently added a small  trapezoidal annex to the north-east of the fort, which employs the earliest earthwork of the hillfort.  In the aerial photograph above and to the right you can see one very clearly on the left, but there are others visible on some photographs, much fainter, which may also be hut circles.  There is nothing to indicate a date, but Coflein suggests that it may have been added after the hillfort had gone out of use in the Romano-British period, presumably because of the  possible hut circles, but it could equally have been much later.

Without excavation it is impossible to know how the interior of either earlier or later hillfort forms, or the annex were used, or to know for sure the period over which they were used. 

The term “hillfort,” combined with defensive structures such as banks, ditches, stone walls, defended entrances give the impression that these were built primarily for exclusively military purposes, but it is by no means certain that this was there only purpose or even, in some cases, their primary purpose.  Secondary uses could include storage of agricultural output, protection for livestock, and a visible territorial marker in the landscape. There is no room here to enter into a discussion on the subject, but if you are interested have a look at Toby Driver’s 2018 online paper on the subject (free to access): New Perspectives on the Architecture and Function of Welsh Hillforts and Defended Settlements.  Whatever their primary and secondary purposes, the sheer amount of work that goes into an enterprise like this, or a banked-and-ditch hillfort is considerable, and there was certainly a very desirable outcome in mind when a hillfort was embarked upon.

The site continues to be used for grazing sheep, and it is recorded that it was used as a hafod (seasonal grazing) in around 1600.  It is reputed to have been used as temporary bases for Owain Gwynedd in the 12th century during his conflict with Henry II, and by Owain Glyndwr during his rebellion in 1400.  There is no actual data to support either theory.
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Visiting details: parking, the walk and the views

I was advised that it was acceptable to park at the Corwen Leisure Centre, just to the north of Corwen (via Green Lane from the A5, postcode LL21 9RW).  When I arrived, there were only three other cars there, and no signage to indicate that parking was restricted.  By the time I returned to the car a couple of hours later mine was the only car in the car park, so I didn’t feel that I was intruding.

Walking up to the road from the car park, turn left (east).  There is no pavement, just a narrow grass verge, but you are going a very short distance, just a few metres, before a wide farm track is clearly signposted to Caer Drewyn on your left.

Follow the attractive track for a few minutes, past a couple of farm buildings on your right.  You will reach a gate.

 

On the other side of the gate is another signpost that gives a few options.

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The red box shows part of the farm track taking the easy route up the side of the hill towards the highest part of the hillfort and the northeast entrance (pink arrow). The blue arrow shows the steep footpath that cuts off a corner of the easier route. The yellow arrow shows the lowest point of the hillfort, which is also an access/exit point. Click image to enlarge. Copyright CPAT. Source: Britnell and Sylvester 2018

For Caer Drewyn you can either turn left and follow the farm track, or go straight ahead on a very small footpath straight uphill, which intersects with the farm track at a much higher level. Looking at the aerial photo to the left, it should be possible, although I didn’t realize at the time, to cross over the farm track (or, if you are on the farm track turn left at the point where it intersects with the footpath) to go up to the very lowest point of the hillfort defences and the western entrance.  I wouldn’t, myself, because I really enjoyed the views from the farm track.  It would make a shorter and easier walk for anyone who follows the track to the northeast entrance but doesn’t want to do a full circuit of the hillfort, to follow one set of walls down to the bottom of the hillfort and exit back to the farm track or footpath via the lower entrance.

The farm track is the easy option, so I decided to follow this and, on my return journey, take the footpath down.  I would strongly advise that you take the farm track either on your ascent or descent, because the views are so terrific, and you will miss some of them if you confine yourself to the footpath.

The farm track heads west for a short distance on the level, and then you will reach another signpost that points you right, uphill through a gate that has a walk-around on its right.  Take the uphill option that takes you relatively gently across the side of the hill towards the northeast entrance.  This is uphill all the way and although not particularly steep on the seethingly hot day on which I walked it, it was noticeable.

 

As you climb towards the top of the hill, you will suddenly see some stone rubble on the left, like a massive fallen drystone wall.  This is the hillfort perimeter.  Continue to follow the farm track, running parallel to the walls.  You will eventually reach a gate, which is the end of the line.  Ahead of you is a superb view to the east, and on your left, just a few metres behind you, is a mass of stonework including a roughly conical pile of stone which is a useful point to orient yourself.  This is the northeast corner and marks the following in-turned entrance and possible guard house.  From the cairn you can see for miles and miles around.  The landscape is truly stunning.  You can also see the stone defences heading out in both directions, plunging away to your right down the slope and following the ridge left before then, too, plunging downhill.

It is easy to walk the entire perimeter because all you have to do is follow the stone boundaries, but do take into account when you are heading downhill towards the far eastern extent, that you will have to walk all the way back up again if you want to do the full perimeter back to the cairn!  Alternatively, head out of the well-worn exit at the bottom end of the hillfort to rejoin the farm track.

View over the enclosure towards the west

Looking back up the hill along the northern rampart

The interior showing the topographical tilt to the west

Although there are tracks inside the hillfort, many of them created by sheep, there are no formal pathways and if you leave the trackways, it is very uneven underfoot, with the danger of turning an ankle.  I was wearing tried and tested breathable but very solid hiking trainers that are fabulous on hot days, but it would have been better to have worn summer-weight hiking boots with good ankle support.

Well worn access to and exit from the hillfort at the bottom

Puff ball

There is not a lot in the way of wildlife, but there is plenty of bright yellow gorse in flower at the moment.  I found a perfect white puff-ball (mushroom) which I later cooked in garlic butter, and some other unidentifiable mushrooms.  There were some very occasional and very pretty wild flowers, including some wonderful harebells dotted around, but there was little else to see at this time of year.  Bird song was all around, but the singers were well hidden.  Judging from the endless rabbit droppings, this is bunny nirvana.  If you are interested in lichen, there seemed to my inexperienced eye to be many different types on the stone defences and the interior rocks and boulders and later that day I read on the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB website that over 60 species of lichen were identified in a 1993-1994 study.

 

On the way down I kept a close eye out for a signpost for the footpath down, which chops off the corner that the farm track takes (the blue arrow on the above annotated photo).  There is no full-sized signpost, just a little way-marker on the left/south that you need to look out for.  There is a big boulder opposite, which is a useful landmark.  The first part of the footpath, from the top, consists of some quite deep steps reinforced with wood.  It then becomes a fairly steep narrow track – much steeper than it looks in my photographs below.  I suspect that the whole thing becomes a muddy stream during wetter weather, as there are plenty of signs that water courses have made their way down.  The footpath drops you at the gate back down to the road and the car park.

It only took me about half an hour to get up to the hillfort, with lots of stops to enjoy the spectacular scenery, take photos and top up with water.  Once up there, you can spend as long as you like, of course, and it is a great place for a picnic.  I had it to myself, even on a sunny Saturday.

Hopefully the photos will speak for themselves, but I recommend this as a far from strenuous walk, mixing fascinating late prehistoric heritage with terrific views.  If you time your visit to coincide with stunning Rhug Chapel’s opening times (the chapel’s website is here), that would make a great second visit, just a ten minute drive away.

UPDATE:

After I posted about this walk, I found an official leaflet that includes a longer walk incorporating the hillfort, which looks really great.  The relevant page is shown below, but you can download the entire leaflet, with some other really excellent-looking walks too at https://tinyurl.com/2fecwr8c.

 

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Sources

Books and papers

Bowden, M. 2006.  ‘Guard Chambers’: An Unquestioned Assumption in British Iron Age Studies. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 72, p.423-436 [NOT free to view]
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-prehistoric-society/article/abs/guard-chambers-an-unquestioned-assumption-in-british-iron-age-studies/E6D627EE54566C400B07C0F42CB5F18C

Britnell W.J. and Silvester, R.J. 2018. Hillforts and Defended Enclosures of the Welsh Borderland. Intarch Issue 48 (2018). Iron Age Settlement in Wales. https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue48/7/index.html

Driver, Toby 2018. New Perspectives on the Architecture and Function of Welsh Hillforts and Defended Settlements. Intarch Issue 48 (2018). Iron Age Settlement in Wales. https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue48/9/toc.html

Gardner, Willoughby. (1922). The Ancient Hill Fort known as Caer Drewyn, Merionethshire. Archaeologia Cambrensis – The Journal of the Cambrian Archaeological Association. Vol. 77. Seventh Series. 2. Vol 77, p.108-125

Savory, H.N. 1958.  Caer Drewyn. Archaeologia Cambrensis – The Journal of the Cambrian Archaeological Association. Vol 107, p.135-6

Websites

Clwydian Range and Dee Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
Hillfort: Caer Drewyn
https://www.clwydianrangeanddeevalleyaonb.org.uk/projects/hillfort-caer-drewyn/

Coflein
Caer Drewyn; Caer Drewen – Details
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/95431
Caer Drewyn; Caer Drewen – Images
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/95431/images
Tre’r Ceiri
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/95292

People’s Collection Wales
Caer Drewyn
https://www.peoplescollection.wales/items/5482

Aberdovey Londoner
Iron Age hillforts in South Merioneth
https://aberdoveylondoner.com/category/iron-age-hillforts-in-south-merioneth/

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The puff ball as a delicious minimalist starter. Divine.

Tŷ Mawr Country Park, including the Cefn viaduct, the Pontcysyllte aqueduct and some lovely walks

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The Tŷ Mawr Country Park, just ten minutes south of Ruabon (LL14 3PE / What3Words ///disprove.dart.isolated) in the Vale of Llangollen, consists of walks through fenced fields, woodland tracks and views over the river Dee and the surrounding countryside.  Most spectacularly, its starting point lies almost underneath the monumental stone-built Cefn railway viaduct, from where a circular walk begins, whilst a less formal there-and-back branch off a circular walk takes in the iron-built Pontcysyllte aqueduct.

Map on the outside of the visitor centre showing all the route options (click to enlarge). At far left is the Cefn viaduct and at far right is the Pontcysyllte aqueduct.

The circular walk begins and ends at the Tŷ Mawr car park (pay and display, but only £1.00 for the day at time of writing, and with two power points for electric cars), visitor centre and café (both closed when I visited yesterday, Wednesday 6th September), and toilets (which were open).

Behind the visitor centre there is a picnic area with excellent views over the countryside and the Cefn viaduct.   There is also a small children’s farm with chickens, goats and other farmyard animals, and a children’s play area.  The circular walk is a metalled pathway through small fields and woodland, which takes in the river Dee, with a small picnic area near a tiny “beach” and has a number of picnic areas. I haven’t found an online PDF of the map above, but you can download my photograph of it as a PDF here (sorry that the text is not particularly clear).

You can go either way around the walk, but the recommended route on the map fixed to the outside of the visitor centre is anticlockwise, which finishes at the Cefn viaduct and the memorial dovecot.  Although there are some inclines, I would suggest that it is entirely suitable for those with unwilling legs.  It was certainly okay for a group of women with pushchairs.  It probably takes no more than half an hour to 40 minutes to walk, with stops to admire the river and the viaduct.  There are occasional benches, a picnic area by the Dee and further picnic areas with lovely views at the top of the walk behind the visitor centre.

The real star of the circular walk, missing off the leg to Pontcysyllte, is the Grade II listed Cefn viaduct, which can be seen around much of the circular walk.  The walk goes right up to and along the base of the viaduct, which really is an awesome sight as you approach it and begin to get a sense of its scale.  The Cefn viaduct was designed by civil engineer Henry Robertson, who had purchased the Brymbo Ironworks, and was built in yellow Cefn sandstone and red brick by contractor Thomas Brassey (to whom there is a chapel dedicated in Chester Cathedral). It was built surprisingly quickly over a two year period to carry the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway over the Dee valley.  It opened in 1848, 43 years after the opening of Pontcysyllte, at a cost of £72,346.  It has twenty one arches, nineteen of which are 60ft (18m) wide, and two of which, one at either end, are 30ft (9m) wide.  If you approach the country park from the Ruabon direction, you will pass under one of the two narrow ones.  The arches span 1508ft (466m) and at their most dizzying tower 147ft (45m) above the level of the river. 

The additional leg of the walk to the Pontcysyllte aqueduct along the path of the Dee is not suitable for anyone who cannot handle steps, as there is a flight down from the circular walk to near the level of the river, with no handrail.  There is a signpost and small Pontcysyllte-themed bench indicating where you have to turn off the path down the stairs to a more informal section towards the aqueduct.

 

I enjoyed this more informal section, which after a wending track following the path of the Dee through woodland and open field leads to steps at the other end that take the walker to the level of the aqueduct and the Trevor Basin, with fully open visitor centre and other facilities (including boat trips across the aqueduct).  The section along the river to Pontcysyllte will be highly seasonal, with different vegetation allowing or blocking views to the river, offering seasonally variable wildlife.  Yesterday it was very attractive, with glimpses of the river through the tall plant life, and occasional tracks through the vegetation to get down to admire the river itself, much-used by dog walkers whose canine friends were doing a lot of swimming.  The dominant floral element was Himalayan balsam, with orchid-like flowers in pinks and pinkish whites, which is terminally invasive, a complete monster which, given half a chance, takes over its entire environment, but is endlessly pretty and no bother at all in the massive acreage of the park.

 

 

Viewing point for the Pontcysyllte aqueduct

The narrow track follow a well sign-posted route, although there are only a few places where choices are required.  When you reach the aqueduct viewing-point that is marked by a metal sculpture of a camera (which acts as a frame for taking photographs of Pontcysyllte) there is a choice to go straight on to the main steps, or turn right to approach the aqueduct from a different angle.  If you are not interested in going up to the canal and aqueduct level but are happy to enjoy some terrific views of the remarkable structure from below, by the side of the river, go straight on.  You can still change your mind and walk up to canal aqueduct level, but be warned that it’s a fairly long and steep flight.  You can always drive back via the Trevor Basin, at the beginning of the aqueduct, where you can park up at the level of the aqueduct.  A better option when you reach the “camera” is to turn right to go up a much shorter and less strenuous flight of steps, which brings you out onto a wooded path that both includes a viewing point and  then delivers you to the canal, Trevor Basin and the aqueduct. You can then then return to Tŷ Mawr via the steeper staircase which is a lot easier going down than up, turning this final section into a circular walk.

The glorious aqueduct, built by Thomas Telford and opened in 1805, is always a joy.  I have written up a summary of Pontcysyllte’s history and visitor information on a previous post.  It is worth going on a bright, cloud-free day, because the views from the aqueduct down to the Dee valley are enhanced by the sun glinting off the water, and by the brightness of the green fields and trees that flank the river.  The towpath along the aqueduct trough is quite narrow, but wide enough for people to pass one another.  The iron railings are high to prevent accidental falls, but not so high that you cannot see over them.  This really is one of the highlights of the area for visitors.

Once done with the aqueduct and Trevor Basin and the visitor centre, going down the longer set of steps to return back to Tŷ Mawr is a great option, walking down the side of the aqueduct and getting a real sense of its scale.  The Dee is particularly delectable here too, bubbling over shallows and glistening in the sun.  A great place to plonk down on the river bank and enjoy an ice cream.

Having retraced your steps, and once back on the more formal circular walk, the star of the show is the Cefn viaduct that looms every close.  There is an option to stop at a picnic area where a small beach is a great spot for admiring the river.  There are tracks that let you walk just a little bit further along the river before heading back to the circular walk, or you can simply pause on the path, admire the view, and keep going up the slope towards the base of the viaduct.  The viaduct is amazing.  You can see it for most of the circular walk.  At first just a few arches appear, and then gradually the entire 19-arch run of the stunning structure is revealed until you arrive at the top of the slope and at the foot of one of its enormous columns.  Look up.  Wow!  At the very top of the arch at the top of the yellow stone-faced columns, the underside of the arches are formed of red brick-built, providing a contrast with the yellow Cefn sandstone.

There is a bench where you reach the viaduct, and a signpost.  The left option continues the circular walk along the foot of the viaduct, which you will have to do anyway to return to the car park.  The right option requires you to cross a stile, and allows you to walk just a few metres in order to see down to the feet of some of the arches in the river, albeit through the vegetation, and to stand right under one of the arches and get up close and personal with the stone work.

When you return to the last stretch of the circular walk, following the viaduct along its base, you eventually reach the attractive dovecot.  This looks much older older than it is, rather like the 18th century example at Erddig, but it is modern, built in 1993 as a memorial.

It’s a short and largely undemanding but seriously enjoyable walk.  Including the walk to Pontcysyllte, the walk only took about two hours to and from Tŷ Mawr car park, with lots of stops for photos and 10 minutes sitting overlooking the river at the foot of the aqueduct with a much-appreciated ice cream.  Apart from the steps, it’s an easy walk, and there is much to see.  I arrived at Tŷ Mawr at 11 and left shortly after 1pm, so it’s not a day-eater.  A great place for a stroll, rather than a hike.  Up-to-date visitor information is available on the Wrexham County Borough Council website.

The name Tŷ Mawr translates as “big house” or “great house.”  There’s no sign of a house, and no mention of one on any of the websites that talk about the country park.  Many old houses have been lost, but I can find no mention of one associated with the country park.  Does anyone know if there was once a property associated with the site?

 

Gresford All Saints’ Church – exterior gargoyles and grotesques

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A previous post took a quick chronological hike through All Saints’ church in Gresford, which dates mainly from the 15th century but includes features dating back to the 13th century.  As with many gothic churches, the exterior may be architecturally consistent with what is going on inside, but often has a rather different character that seems scarcely in keeping with the sacred, the holy and the peaceful ideas associated with a monument to the divine.  The photographs on this page are a small selection from All Saints’ Church, dating to the 1400s or later, shown at random.  If you want to visit the church, maps and visiting details are on the previous post.

There is a lot of writing about gargoyles and grotesques, much of it descriptive, and there are some terrific books of photographs to show what these creatures looked like, but there are no definitive answers about what these external features were actually doing there.  So far, a job description remains elusive.

Gargoyles and grotesques each has a slightly different definition.  Both are usually made of stone, and are high up on on or under the rooflines of church, cathedral and abbey, or clustered around windows and door openings.  Some may be highly sculptural and elaborate, and others are less complex, but all make up a landscape of the unknown.  They are all carved into fantastic forms, some fearsome, some weird, occasionally crude, and every now and again borderline pornographic.  Gargoyles are usually grotesques, but not all grotesques are gargoyles.  A gargoyle is a carving that draws water away from the building, spewing rainwater out through its mouth or rather more unusually its rear end via a water spout.  A grotesque is any ecclesiastical carving that merits the term, something from another world, a creature from an alternative reality or a reality just out of sight, something of nightmares and fears.  Some may be monsters of the imagination, some grotesquely distorted human faces, some composites of recognizably human and animal features, others simply odd.

Grotesques and gargoyles occupy liminal spaces, between heaven and earth at the top of buildings, and at boundaries between interior and exterior at windows and doors.  Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is famous for its gargoyles and grotesques, and vividly demonstrates how in the bigger ecclesiastical constructions, many of these features are invisible from ground level and always would have been.  This may imply that some of these creatures were intended not only for human audiences, but for supernatural observers too.

One evocative piece of contemporary writing on the subject survives.  The vigorous Cistercian  monk, abbot and mystic Bernard of Clairvaux was unimpressed by gargoyles in the following oft-quoted 12th century piece, but what is interesting is that he seems to have been just as ignorant of their actual symbolic purpose as researchers today:

What are these fantastic monsters doing in the cloisters under the very eyes of the brothers as they read? What is the meaning of these unclean monkeys, strange savage lions and monsters? To what purpose are here placed these creatures, half beast, half man? I see several bodies with one head and several heads with one body. Here is a quadruped with a serpent’s head, there a fish with a quadruped’s head, then again an animal half horse, half goat … Surely if we do not blush for such absurdities we should at least regret what we have spent on them.

Although different types have been identified and named, creating a terminology to enable discussion of the different forms that appear, this is a matter of categorization rather than comprehension.  Identification of recurring themes such as hunky punks, chimeras, and sheela na gigs help to navigate the landscape of the grotesques, but do not explain what they are doing there.  A number of explanatory approaches have been attempted, but these simply serve to underscore that there is no consensus on the role of grotesques and how they should be understood.  Here are a few examples, in no particular order:

  • Depictions of demons or heretics as a warning against sin and depravity , and as an aid to church teachings, to reinforce the campaign against sin
  • Demons vanquished and expelled by the Church
  • Illustrations of specific Christian texts
  • A vivid contrast to the divine and the angelic: “The gargoyle is all body and no soul – a pure projector of filth, the opposite of the angel whose body is weightless and orifice-less” (Michael Camille).
  • Representations of paganism
  • Warnings to intruders not to violate the holy space within
  • Figments of the imagination
  • Critiques of human monstrosity, reflections of imperfections in humanity and the individual
  • Devices to reinforce religious hierarchy:  “These glimpses of the impossible, in their absurdity, work to safeguard the established order and whatever is promoted as normal and morally right” (Alex Woodcock)
  • Copies of earlier forms that have lost their meaning over time

Alex Woodcock comments:  “If there is no definitive answer to the question fo why they are there, then it is because the carvings themselves are too full of possible meanings, and paradoxical ones at that, to be comfortably explained – and perhaps that is the point.  In his book Medieval Religion and Its Anxieties, which looks at “the other Middle Ages”, Thomas Fudgé suggests, apart from St Bernard, we have no real way of reaching what people in the Middle Ages saw and thought they looked on grotesques: “It seems clear that viewing medieval art through modern yes is fatal and that creating artificial categories with the use of terms such as marginal, official, high, low, and so on when referring to art is a form of hegemony by posterity on the past.”

Yet although they may not be marginal, in the pejorative sense of the word, the grotesque and the peculiar often do occupy the margins, not only in architecture, where they occupy distant spaces and boundaries, but also in illuminated manuscripts, rather like subversive or thought-provoking comments on the main message.  This idea of the strange and inexplicable occupying the margins is explored by Michael Camille, in his book Image on the Edge.  Here the margins are an active component of the core text, be that text an illuminated manuscript or an architectural narrative, or indeed a social situation.

Fudgé traces a chronological trend within grotesques, describing 13th century gargoyles as terrifying, whilst in the 14th century “they took on comedic dimensions that by the fifteenth century gave way to amusement.”  As Camille says, “The medieval image-world was, like medieval life itself, rigidly structured and hierarchical.  For this reason, resisting, ridiculing, overturning and inverting it was not only possible.  It was limitless.”  During the process, fear was replaced by fun, and monstrous elements of human nature and activity became the targets of satire.  Grotesques disappear during the Renaissance, when their role was apparently no longer relevant.

The gargoyles and grotesques on the exterior at All Saints’ in Gresford are carved a mix of forms and sizes, and date to when the church was re-designed and given two new side aisles in the 1400s.  Some of the grotesques look down from the roof and tower, a lot are arranged in a line above a string course just beneath the roof of the side aisles, whilst others sit on finial bases or above window corbels, much nearer to the observer, and perhaps most threatening, although as the photo to the left shows, not all of the carvings were fearsome monsters; some were unalarming representations of human faces.  I have photographed all those that can be seen from ground level, some rather more successfully than others, and as a corpus it is quite a remarkable collection of images.  Only a small selection are shown here.  They are delightful to the modern eye, perhaps rather less so to the late Medieval church-goer.
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There are more photographs, high quality images taken at the level of the gargoyles and grotesques, on the Images tab of the All Saints’s page on the Coflein website, together with images of statues amongst the pinnacles.  See  more too on the Archives page. Some of them provide an excellent overview of the imagery that exists at roof level.

Sources:

Camille, Michael 2019 (2nd edition).  Image on the Edge. The Margins of Medieval Art.  Reaktion Books.

Fudgé, Thomas, 2016.  Medieval Religion and its Anxieties.  History and Mystery in the Other Middle Ages.  Palgrave Macmillan

Woodcock, Alex, 2011.  Gargoyles and Grotesques.  Shire Publications

Big and bold: All Saints’ Church in the small village of Gresford

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All Saints’ Church in Gresford is such a short hop from my parents’ home in Rossett that I should have visited years ago, but somehow never got around to it.  I tried a couple of times earlier this summer, but the church was busy in its role as a community resource, which was good to see.  The church is big.  Although it is difficult to imagine when driving along the Chester-Wrexham road, Gresford was originally a small village, noted in the Domesday survey as part of Duddestan in the Cheshire Hundred.  A sense of village life still remains in the buildings that surround the churchyard, together with the charming village pond just down the road, complete with lazy ducks sunbathing on warm summer days.  All Saints’, reaching most of its present extent in the 15th century, was an imposing presence, and must have been a source of considerable local pride.

The location of the Church of All Saints in Gresford. Source: streetmap.co.uk

For a detailed account of the church’s history, see the history page on the Gresford All Saints’ website.  This post provides a short overview of some of the key features, with photographs.  First, a note on the name.  Most churches in the area are named after particular saints, but All Saints refers, as it name suggests, to all Christian saints.  The saints represented by “all,” however, include not only those who are known but those who remain unrecognized.  All Saints’ Day is celebrated in Catholic and some Protestant churches on 1st November annually.  The owner of the Church of England Saint Dedications web page calculates that it is the second most popular church dedication in England, after St Mary.  Although Gresford is in Wales, just over the border, it switched hands between England and Wales throughout its earlier history.

The Grade 1 listed All Saints’ is unexpectedly impressive for its understated setting.  Much bigger for example, than Worthenbury’s St Deiniol’s, with which it shares a sense both of ambition and commitment.  Today both are clearly much-loved by their communities, and both vie for the title of the finest parish church in north Wales.  The significant difference between the two is that whereas St Deiniol’s was built between 1736-9 by Richard Trubshaw with real Georgian panache, All Saints’ is thought to have been founded in the 13th century and was in almost continuous use from at least the 14th century.  The 11th century Domesday survey mentions a church and priest, but this church was apparently replaced by the establishment of the Gresford church, either in the same or slightly different location.  All surviving walls are made of local high-quality Cefn yellow sandstone, which is used for many of the municipal buildings in Wrexham.  A separate post about the exterior gargoyles and grotesques has been posted on the blog here.

The late 13th and 14th centuries were a period of energetic church building in England and Wales.  It is thought that the remarkable gothic architectural projects carried out at two notable sites created a tidal wave of enthusiasm for architectural projects in religious establishments. One was the new and remarkable shrine created for Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, murdered on 29th December 1170, who was canonized only three years later and therefore required a shrine worthy of his status, into which his remains were transferred (translated) in 1220.  The other was the ambitious shrine built by Henry III for St Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, completed in 1269.

When All Saints’ Church was built in the 13th century, prestigious contemporary religious buildings included, for example, St John the Baptist Church in Chester founded in 1075, St Werburgh’s Abbey, founded in 1093 and Basingwerk Abbey founded 1132.

Subsequently All Saints’ underwent many alterations and embellishments in the centuries that followed, including the 14th century addition of the tower to a lower level than today, together with a south aisle.  There was an almost total rebuild in the 15th century and the upward extension of the tower in the 16th century.  The dominant style, following the 15th century rebuild, is known as Late Gothic Perpendicular, a peculiarly English style that emphasized the tall and thin aspects of the Gothic, mainly exhibited in the stone tracery of the stained glass windows, which make up an enormous part of the interface between interior and exterior.

The only clue to the original appearance of the church lies in a 16th century document that claims that it had been “strangely and beautifully made erect,” which is intriguing but not particularly helpful.  The church is rectangular in plan with a tower protruding at the west end and two porches.

All Saints’ sits within a churchyard.  The earliest grave marker dates to 1696, and there are some from the 18th century.  Most date to the 19th century.  There is a good mixture of chest tombs and gravestones of different designs and styles of engraving. The churchyard’s oldest occupant is in fact a lovely yew tree (Taxus baccata), estimated to be 1600 years old.  The other yew trees were planted in 1726.  Often associated with churchyards, yews have a mixed reputation, seen both as symbols of immortality and indicators of impending disaster, the latter association perhaps because of its toxicity.  In this context, it seems clear that the yews are intended to represent life everlasting.

The exterior features of the church include crenulations, and follows the gothic tradition of adding gargoyles, which draw water away from the roof, and decorative sculptural elements, including small beasts, real and imaginary, and tortured faces, usually referred to as grotesques, as well as floral themes. Some of these sit on the stringcourse, a few of which are positioned under hood-moulds (projecting reliefs to protect the underlying features from rainwater).  They are worth a post in their own right, if only to capture some of them with a telephoto lens so that they can bee seen much more easily than with the eye, which I will do in the next month or so.

Internally, the church is divided into traditional sections. The nave (the main body of the church where the public sit in pews) is flanked by two side aisles at ground floor level, marked by two 7-bay arcades.  A clerestory (row of windows above the level of the aisle) provides the nave with much more light than the stained glass alone.  A screen, erected in the 15th century, divides the nave from the sacred end of the church, the chancel with the choir and high altar.  The chancel is flanked by two chapels, which can be reached from the aisles.  The north aisle, shown above, used to run directly into one of the two chapels that flank the choir and altar, but is now partially interrupted by a 19th century organ.

The church has seen continuous use since the 13th century.  The main surviving feature of the 13th century is the crypt, closed to the public but accessed via the north chapel. The 14th century is represented by a number of key internal features. In the south aisle, the effigy of Madog ap Llywelyn ap Griffith, who died in 1330, lies in a niche, shown in full armour with a lion rampant on his shield.  The inscription reads HIC IACET (here lies) MADOC AP LLYWELYN AP GRIFFI

Almost opposite, and dating to the same period, is another niche, this time showing the beautifully engraved gravestone of Goronwy ap Iowerth.

The inscription, with thanks to  the ArchaeoDeath blog of Professor Howard Williams (where you can find more 14th century engravings from the church) reads:

HIC:IACET:GRONW:F’:IORWERTH:F’:dd’.CVI’:AIE:DS’:/ABSO/LWAT
Here lies Goronwy son of Iorwerth son of David, whose soul may God absolve.

The raised 14th century sanctuary with the high altar, approached via a flight of steps, sits over the 13th century crypt.

From the 15th century are the fabulous misericords (carved scenes on the undersides of seating in the choir) and one of the church’s real treasures, the  gorgeous wainscoted screens (the central panel of which was vaulted, photograph further down the page), and a very fine stained-glass window behind the high altar donated by Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby and step-father of Henry VII.  The font, at the west end, with its eight panels that include depictions of the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus, the lion of St Mark, and possibly St Leonard, also dates to the 15th century.

Don’t forget to look up. The ceiling is a particularly fine camberbeam structure, crossed with rafters, with painted panels and bosses.  At the ends of the rafters are carved wooden angels.

So why was the medieval church so popular that it could afford a new tower in the 14th century and a major rebuild to include new aisles and new features in the 15th century?  In her booklet about All Saints’, Bethan Jones suggests that the gifts showered on the church, including furnishings, might suggest that it had acquired a relic and had become a pilgrim destination.  Relics generated considerable incomes for cathedral, monastery and church alike.  In Chester, the Rood of St John’s Church was a popular pilgrim destination, and in the 14th century the shrine of St Werburgh in the Chester abbey had become popular.  To the west, the shrine of St Winefrede at Holywell and the church at St Asaph were also on the pilgrim circuit.  No record survives of such a relic at Gresford, but it is difficult to account for the size of the church in any other way, other than a major investment by a donor who wished to make his mark on the church during the period of the Reformation, but neither is there any record, documentary or material, of such a benefactor.

16th century features include the fine stained glass windows in east and north walls of the Lady Chapel, reached via the north aisle. In the Trevor Chapel there is a superb painted 1589 memorial to John Trevor (Sion Trefor), lying as though still alive, with his head propped thoughtfully on one hand.  His coat of arms is above and a winged skull beneath.  An inscription conceals the central portion of his body.

The church continued to be well used throughout its history.  Dating to the 17th century, the Trevor Chapel a charming memorial to John Trevor’s daughter-in-law with her daughters dates to 1602, and another, rather more monumental piece, shows her with her husband (shown further down this post) and dates to 1638.  Other memorials in the church also date to the 1600s.

 

In the 18th century, a number of additions were made.  The two chandeliers in the nave date to the mid and late 18th century.  The south porch (the main entrance to the church today) had stained glass panels added in the 18th century to commemorate local deaths during the First World War.  The first mention of the bells is in 1775, when three of the bells were mentioned I the parish register having been returned after being recast at Gloucester, meaning that there were at least three bells in the tower at that date, the tenor, third and treble bells, although in 1873 six bells are listed so it is possible that there were six bells in 1775.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries a number of alterations and additions were made, mostly sympathetic to the original structure. The 15th century east window was restored during the 19th century, using additional glass, but has remained true to the original.  In St Catherine’s Chapel, better known as the Trevor Chapel, there are two hatchments for George Boscawen (who died in 1833) and Thomas Griffith (who died in 1856), both shown immediately below.  The Hill and Son organ was installed in 1912. The addition of the north porch in 1921 to serve as a war memorial included old fragments of glass.  A painting in the Trevor Chapel commemorates the Gresford Colliery Disaster of 1934 and serves as a memorial to the 266 men who died.  This is shown at the very end of the post, following the list of sources.

An intriguing object in the church is a short square column, made of stone and carved with a figure holding a pair of shears.  It may date to the Roman occupation, and it is possible that one face represents Atropos, one of the three Moirai or Fates, responsible for cutting the “thread of life” (the metaphor for a human lifespan).  It was found during excavations at the east end of the church.

Final Comments

There is too much to say about Gresford All Saints’ on a single post, and I will revisit the church on future posts to look specifically at the choir and misericords, the gargoyles and grotesques that accessorize the exterior of the church, and the churchyard itself.  Apologies for the highly granular photographs of the interior, including some which are slightly blurred around the edges, both of which were caused by having to photograph in very low light.  I hope that the images are good enough to give a sense of the magnificence of the church and some of its features.

Here are a few more photos, in completely random order, and please see Visitor Information below them.

 


Visitor Information

The church is open daily, but is a living church and may not always be available for visitors.  It has services on a Sunday and on Thursday mornings, marriages and funerals during the week and on Saturdays, and may be used as a community resource for events such as the annual craft fair.  Check the church website for it’s opening times and events.  It took me three attempts to find it free of activities, which is great news for the church and its future, and no bother for me as I live locally, but check the website for information, and it may be worth emailing the contact address on the website if you are coming from further away.

There are plenty of information boards throughout to explain the key features, but not so many or so big that they intrude on the atmosphere of the church.  If you are interested in the history, the colour booklet by Bethan Jones provides a tour of all of the key features.  It can be purchased (cash only) at the church, where there are a number of leaflets and postcards available on the shelves to the right as you enter, including one devoted to the bells.

The Trevor Chapel on the south of the church (right as you look towards the altar) is used for private prayer, but is accessible to visitors when it is not in use. The crypt, with an entrance from the Lady Chapel, is closed to the public.

For those with unwilling legs, it’s an easy to access church, with no steps needed to negotiate the entrance via the porch on the north side.  The nave, the choir and the chapels can all be accessed without using steps.  Being an active church, there are plenty of pews in the nave on which to sit down and absorb the atmosphere.

Sources

Books and booklets

Bethan Jones, 1997.  All Saints Church Gresford. ‘The Finest Parish Church in Wales’.  The Friends of the Parish Church of All Saints Gresford.

Hubbard, E. 1986. The Buildings of Wales: Clwyd (Denbighshire and Flintshire). Penguin Books

Roberts, F.H. 2013.  All Saints’ Gresford. Tower and Bells. All Saints Church, Gresford

Wooding, J.M. and Yates, N. (eds.) 2011.  A Guide to the Churches and Chapels of Wales. University of Wales Press

Websites

All Saints Church Gresford
Home Page
https://www.allsaintschurchgresford.org.uk/
History Page
https://www.allsaintschurchgresford.org.uk/about-us/our-history/

ArchaeoDeath blog by Professor Howard Williams
Gresford’s Medieval Monuments
https://howardwilliamsblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/04/gresfords-medieval-monuments/

Clwyd and Powys Archaeological Trust
Church of All Saints, Gresford
https://cpat.org.uk/Archive/churches/wrexham/16785.htm

Church of England Saint Dedications
https://blanchflower.org/cgi-bin/qsaint.pl

Imaging the Bible in Wales Database
Church of All Saints, Gresford, Wrexham
http://imagingthebible.llgc.org.uk//site/188

The 1991 discovery of an important Roman inscription in Holt

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By Andie Byrnes and Helen Anderson, August 4th 2023

The discovery in 1991

The Holt inscribed fragment, now in the Grosvenor Museum. Photograph by Dr Roger Tomlin, University of Oxford, with many thanks for allowing Helen to use it.

In 1991 artist and archaeology enthusiast Helen Anderson was driving over the Farndon-Holt bridge, about 11 miles (c.18km) south of Chester, when she noticed some activity and bare soil surfaces in the normally grassy nearby field associated with the Roman tile-works and its ancillary buildings overlooking the Dee.   She had recently started to focus on Roman archaeology and to visit Roman sites, and although she had spent her childhood locally in Churton, she had only recently been reading about the Holt tileworks site for the first time.  She had been intending to go and look at the site but hadn’t yet done so, and thought this might be an interesting opportunity to go and see it. She received permission from the landowner to walk over the newly-stripped surface of the field.

On the  recently exposed soil surface that day, as well as sundry fragments of imbrex and tegula (roofing tiles), two of which were marked with cat and dog paw-prints and one with a finger print, she found the wonderful piece of inscribed brick shown in the photograph above right. Here is Helen talking about discovering the piece:

As I was walking through the field, which had been stripped for turf that was still being rolled and loaded, I saw a large piece of orange tile lying on the muddy surface, picked it up, turned it over and found what appeared to be writing on the underside.  I could hardly believe my eyes – it was an extraordinary and quite eerie moment!  My immediate thought was who I should tell about it.  Later, gently cleaning it in the kitchen sink, the excitement of the incised letters appearing clearly as the soil washed out of them was something I will never forget. It felt a bit like time travel.

Aerial view of the farmland at Holt next to the River Dee where the tile-works were located

The piece was clearly broken, with a bit of the inscription missing.  Helen returned to Holt a few days later, to show it the to the farmer and to see if the rest of the fragment was lying about in the field, but by then it had all been rotovated – if she hadn’t picked up the brick it probably would have been further damaged. She reckons the gods must have been with her that day!

This was six years before the establishment of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, so after after showing the find to the landowner, who gave Helen permission to keep the object, Helen sent photographs to the British Museum.  The resulting correspondence offers a terrific insight into how an understanding of the significance of the object was reached. It emerged that the fragment of Helen’s brick on which the inscription was made was re-used as a form of notepad to make a quick record.  At first it was thought that the fragment was a tile, but it is more likely to be a piece of lydion or sesquipedalis; these look rather like tiles because they are very thin compared with modern brickwork.  Some of the letters have been sliced off at the far right, but what we are looking at is part of a coherent piece of text, a list with signatures.  It was a small-sized record, containing only a few details.  It measures 32cms, by 30cms, and is around 6mm thick.

Helen hard at work at the Rossett Roman Villa excavation in 2021. Photograph courtesy of Dr Caroline Pudney, University of Chester

The inscription is now recorded in various books and papers contributing to knowledge about Roman activities and everyday life in the Chester area.  Although Holt is just over the Welsh border, the tiles and bricks were created for the Roman occupation in Chester.

Following very fine lunches at Pant Yr Ochain near Gresford and the White Horse in Churton, where we pored over both the artefacts and documents that Helen has assembled, including her original correspondence with Catherine John and Roger Tomlin, we decided to write a post about the inscribed fragment.  Helen has now been investigating the Romans in the Chester area for three decades, and as her knowledge has grown she has excavated as a volunteer at Chester amphitheatre, the Heronbridge Roman settlement, and most recently the Rossett villa.  All the documentation cited here has been provided by Helen.

First, a quick look at the Holt tile-works, which produced the inscribed brick.

The early 20th century discovery of the Holt Tile-works

The Holt brick and tile works site was recognized in the early 1600s when landowner Thomas Crue of Holt Hill suffered repeated damage to his plough and was forced to investigate.  He discovered that his plough was encountering a series of fifty 2ft-tall posts, and his finding found its way into the book Roman Cheshire by W. Thompson Watkins (1886).  This was noted by retired chemist and keen amateur historian Alfred Neobard Palmer who, in 1905, decided to hunt for the remains that Crue had found, accompanied by local vicar Jenkyn Jones, having sought permission from the landowner.  A series of field-walking expeditions followed, uncovering plentiful fragments of Roman brick, roof tile and pottery over an area of some 20 acres.

Fold-out plan of the kilns at Holt, published by Grimes in 1930. (Scanned from my copy of “Holt, Denbighshire”)

Palmer was not an archaeologist, and the task of excavating the site was taken on by Wrexham solicitor and amateur archaeologist Arthur Acton.  Work began in 1907 and continued until 1915.  Although he delivered numerous lectures about the site, Acton never published his work.  Fortunately a portion of his records survived, and he sold the excavation finds to the National Museum of Wales, where William F. Grimes used the data to compile a comprehensive report, complete with site plans, photographs and object illustrations.  Work did not stop there, and during the 1970s Geoffrey Bevan conducted both field walking activities and an excavation, finding Roman material that filled dozens of boxes, which were donated, this time, to the Grosvenor Museum in Chester.  Helen’s field-walking in 1991 added the inscription to the list of important finds, and in 2018 Holt Local History Society commissioned Archaeological Survey West to carry out a geophysical survey of the site, to fix the positions of the known buildings and, with luck, to identify any unexcavated and previously unknown structures.  This demonstrated that the Holt complex was even bigger and more complex than Grimes, via Acton, had been able to determine.  There is, of course, the potential for future field research, and recent work in Farndon, summarized on local historian Mike Royden’s website is beginning to expand the story over to the other side of the Dee.

What was the Holt tile-works like?

Site plan of the Roman tile and pottery work displayed in the Hidden Holt exhibition. Also in the excellent booklet accompanying the exhibition, full details in Sources below. The features shown in blue are unrecorded / unexcavated.  Those in dark brown are the building locations fixed in 2018, and those in paler brown those estimated by Grimes based on Acton’s work.  Click to see a bigger version with fully legible text.  Source: Wrexham Heritage Service, 2021

The 20th Legion, Valeria Victrix, of the Roman army, was stationed at Chester, Roman Deva, from AD87, and the Holt works appears to have been established shortly afterwards to supply the fort and settlement at the legionary fortress.  Holt’s industrial activities reaching their peak output at around AD135, and began falling out of use in the mid 3rd Century.  The site was clearly a fully integrated operation combining industrial, public and domestic components.

A senior manager had his own house, complete with hypocaust (under-floor central heating), there was a public bath house, a series of kilns for the manufacture of tiles, bricks and pottery, and a barracks that may have housed workers, or alternatively a detachment of the Roman army based at Chester at this time.

The hypocaust below the drying shed. Source: National Museum of Wales

The main kiln plant at Holt, published by William Grimes in 1930.

The kilns formed two main units, a larger (139ft / 52m long, consisting of a row of six kilns) and smaller twin-kiln built on the natural bed-rock.  Each kiln was rectangular and tile-lined with an arched stoke-hole for access.  A round pottery kiln was also located on the edge of the main kiln complex.  The oven floor consisted of a raised floor of tiles plastered with clay that were pierced with holes that acted as vents.  The drying shed was provided with a hypocaust, of the same sort used in villas and bath houses.  These, like the kilns, were stoked and kept hot to ensure that the tiles, pottery and bricks were dried through after firing.

Map marked by Helen to show the approximate findspot of the inscribed fragment

All of the output manufactured at the works was sent by boat downriver to Chester on the river Dee.  It provided direct access to Chester, 12 miles / 19km away, passing the civic settlement at Heronbridge.  The generally flat environment meant that building of roads, where needed, was not exceptionally laborious.
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Corresponding about the tile in 1991

The imposing facade of the British Museum. Source: Wikimedia Commons by Paasikivi

Helen wrote to the British Museum in April 1991 describing how she had found the fragment, and enclosing a high resolution photo in which the inscription could be seen clearly.  The first person to reply to Helen’s letter to the British Museum was Catherine Johns F.S.A., at the time Curator of Roman Britain in the Department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities in the British Museum in London.  In a letter dated 18th June 1991, Catherine Johns begins “Thank you for your letter and the excellent photographs and drawing of the inscribed tile from Holt in your possession.  This is an interesting and important find.”  She goes on to explain that the inscription is in cursive Latin, “that it is to say, it is handwriting rather than formal lettering.”  She was unable to translate the text, which is a specialist task, and sent it to Dr Roger Tomlin of Wolfson College, University of Oxford.  She warned Helen that the fragmentary nature of the text might impede translation.  She finished by suggesting that Helen might consider presenting the piece to the National Museum of Wales, where most of the Holt material excavated in the early 20th century is held.

Helen then received a letter dated 25th June 1991, only a week after the letter written by Catherine Johns, from Dr Roger Tomlin.  Dr Tomlin explained that it was by no means straightforward to decipher and transcribe the fragment, partly because of the several examples of handwriting inscribed, and the fact that it was clearly incomplete.  He suggested that this was a record of expenses, with the star symbol indicating the unit of payment in denarii, and that several individuals were involved. He referred to the inscribed brick as “a welcome addition” to the corpus of Roman inscriptions in Britain. In a later letter, dated 1st July 1991, he thanked Helen for offering to take the the object to him in Oxford, for translation, whilst on a family break, and expressed the hope to meet up with Helen to discuss it.  He suggested that the fragment was probably part of a lydion (or sesquipedalis), rather than a tile, a brick used for bonding-courses.  When Helen met Dr Tomlin for coffee, he departed on his bicycle, in typical Oxford style, with the inscription propped up in the bicycle’s basket.  ———

The inscription

The same photo of the inscribed tile found by Helen Anderson in Holt in 1996 as above, shown again so that you can review the cursive text Copyright Helen Anderson

The brick was inscribed in the still-soft surface of the wet clay before firing.  The translation of the inscription by Dr Tomlin is a great example of the sort of scholarship and academic detective work that go into understanding a single object.  The inscription was abbreviated, typical for this sort of note, where space was limited and standardized abbreviations were recognizable to all.  As already noted, the slab was broken, possibly by ploughing, so parts of the inscription are missing, but this apparently presented few problems for Dr Roger Tomlin.

Just by looking at it, you can see that there is more than one person’s handwriting, and that’s because each person wrote his own signature.  All three were men, named  1) Junius, 2) Maternus and 3) Bellettus.  The final s is missing in each case due to the break.  In the official transcription below, Tomlin has completed words where he knows them.  The slab is a record of expenses they had incurred, but does not say how they were incurred.  Junius was paid at least 4 denarii, probably more, but the break carried the other details away.

Notes about the inscription on the left, on the back of the photo above, followed ultimately by the publication of the inscription in Tomlin 2018, p.290

Front cover of Tomlin’s 2018 “Britannia Romana. Roman Inscriptions and Roman Britain.” Oxbow Books (see Sources below)

Dr Tomlin wrote about the inscription in the journal Britannia, vol.26, 1995, p.387, where it is numbered no.28 (and Helen’s role in the discovery is referenced in the footnotes).  It was later included in Tomlin’s comprehensive Britannia Romana, published in 2018, which lists over 400 epigraphic inscriptions from Roman Britain.  The inscription is listed on page 290 as number 11.14.  Dr Tomlin observed that the three men listed were probably legionaries (although he does not rule out in the 1995 publication that they may have been auxiliaries).  He says that two of the three names were commonplace Roman names, and the third, Bellettus, may have been a variant on the name Bellicus, which he describes as “popular in Celtic-speaking provinces.”  All three signed their own names, meaning that they were literate.

Tomlin is particularly interested in the word sumtuaria, which is missing its p, and is the plural of the noun sumptuarium.  The word is very rare, with the only example known by Tomlin appearing on a legionary pay-sheet in Masada, Israel, where it refers to food expenses.  Tomlin speculates that this was a record of expenses that were to be reimbursed by headquarters at a later date, but he does question how this was supposed to work when the record took the form of a brick (which, after all, could not be divided between the three men!)

Roman soldier’s payslip from Masada, Israel. Source: Arkeonews.net

This find, recording something of the lives of three men who lived in Roman Holt, has something of the air of the Vindolanda tablets.  The thin leaves of wood used at Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall recorded many aspects of everyday life, also written in cursive.  A selection of them are on display in London’s British Museum.  One of them had a similar content to the Holt example, showing a list of people who owe money.  Although it is incomplete and undated, it was possible to identify Vitalis the balniator or bath house keeper and Tagomas, one of a number of cavalrymen from northern Spain who appear on the list (also mentioning the latter’s contubernalis, or unofficial wife).

Text from vindolanda showing a list of people who owe money. Source: Vindolanda.com

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Publications mentioning the brick

The inscription became something of an emblem of local Roman social history, being referred to not only in academic publication, but also heritage newsletters and leaflets in Chester.  Dr Tomlin suggested that it be included on the Roman Inscriptions of Britain website, and it has very recently been added to the site here, where it has been given the identifier Brit.26.28.

Here are two examples of publications aimed at the general public, collected by Helen, that mention the find and give a good idea of how it was regarded:

Source: Revealing Cheshire’s Past series: From Farms to Fortress leaflet, page 6 Industrial Activity. Cheshire County Council

Connecting with the past

The inscribed brick in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Copyright Helen Anderson

You can see the inscribed fragment today in the Grosvenor Museum in Chester, where it is on display in the ground floor Newstead Roman gallery, thanks to Helen requesting that it be displayed locally rather than in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.  Not only would it have been difficult for local people to visit it easily in Cardiff, but the tile-works were directly connected with the legionary fortress in Chester, so this seemed like the perfect home for the inscription.  Generations of local schoolchildren can have their imaginations fired by seeing the handwriting of several different Romans who lived here nearly 2000 years ago.

Helen explains that her own children were so excited and proud of her discovery of this piece of heritage that they somehow persuaded her that it should be on loan to the museum rather than donated, but she has since donated it outright, rightly deciding that it’s a piece of history that belongs to everyone.

If anyone wants to chat with Helen about the find, you can contact her via Twitter: @Helenus_.  You can also contact Andie on the Contacts Page, via Twitter @BasedInChurton, or leave a comment (the Leave a Reply link is immediately under the title of the post).

Other posts on this blog about Roman Chester and Holt can be found here.
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Final Comments

The object that Helen found in a field in Holt, during a short window between when turf was removed and new grass sown, has multiple identities.  Archaeologically and historically, it is one of a number of records of Roman Britain that together provide insights into Roman settlement and industry and particularly contribute to the narrative about the Holt tile-works.  At another level it is both a clue about record keeping in Roman Holt, and an ephemeral glimpse into the everyday life of three literate Roman men who were working at the tile-works and were claiming expenses.  Today, as well being a significant part of the Roman display in the Grosvenor Museum in Chester, it has made a claim for a position in Helen’s own family history.  Not a bad set of achievements for one inscribed object found lost in a field.  One wonders if the three soldiers ever did receive their expenses?———————

Sources:

Letters (in the private archive of Helen Anderson)

From Catherine Johns, Curator, Department of Prehistoric and Romano-British Antiquities, British Museum. To Helen Anderson, dated 18th June 1991

From Dr Roger Tomlin, Wolfson College, University of Oxford.  To Helen Anderson, dated 25th June 1991

From Dr Roger Tomlin, Wolfson College, University of Oxford.  To Helen Anderson, dated 10th July 1991

Books and papers:

Grimes, W.F. 1930.  Holt, Denbighshire:  Twentieth Legion at Castle Lyons.  Y Cymmrodor.  Society of Cymmrodorion.

Tomlin, R.S.O. 1995. 11.14 Holt (? Bovium), in (eds.) B. C. Burnham, L. J. F. Keppie, A. S. Esmonde Cleary, M. W. C. Hassall, and R. S. O. Tomlin Roman Britain in 1994. Britannia, Vol. 26 (1995), p. 325-390

Tomlin, R.S.O. 2018.  Britannia Romana. Roman Inscriptions and Roman Britain. Oxbow Books (Chapter 11, no.14, p.290-1)

Leaflets and newsletters:

The Past Uncovered, Autumn 1996
http://www.cheshirearchaeology.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/The-Past-Uncovered-Autumn-1996.pdf

Revealing Cheshire’s Past series: From Farms to Fortress leaflet, page 6 Industrial Activity.  Cheshire County Council

Holt: Legacy of the Legions, available from the museum, or can be downloaded.
http://old.wrexham.gov.uk/assets/pdfs/heritage/holt_castle/holt_legacy.pdf

Websites:

Coflein
Holt Roman Site NPRN 307201
https://coflein.gov.uk/en/site/307201?term=holt&pg=2

National Museum of Wales
Request for Information – Freedom of Information Request Relating to Collections – Reference 17-002, 14th February 2017
amgueddfa.cymru/media/41203/response-web-17-002.pdf

Roman Inscriptions of Britain Online
https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/
The Holt inscribed brick now has its own page at:
https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/Brit.26.28

Vindolanda Charitable Trust
Writing Tablets
https://www.vindolanda.com/blog/fact-file-writing-tablets

Vindolanda Tablets Online
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/

 

A roof boss in Chester Cathedral: the murder of Thomas Becket

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The Thomas Becket ceiling boss in the Lady Chapel, Chester Cathedral. Photograph by Andie Byrnes

  • Introduction
  • Who was Thomas Becket?
  • The Becket Boss in the Lady Chapel of St Werburgh’s Abbey
  • Final Comments
  • Sources

Introduction

Chester Cathedral plan (annotated). Source: Wikipedia

In the 13th century, Abbot Simon de Whitchurch (1265-1291) began the construction of Lady Chapel in St Werburgh’s Abbey (which is today Chester Cathedral, and about which I have posted here, with visiting information including accessibility).  It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In the ceiling, where the vaulting ribs meet, three round ceiling bosses high above the floor show religious themes.  One shows the Holy Trinity and the second shows the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus.  The third, shown above, shows shows the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, by four knights loyal to Henry II on 29th December 1170 in Christ Church Cathedral in Canterbury.  It is one of only two Becket ceiling bosses known to survive in Britain; the other is at Exeter Cathedral (shown below left).

Exeter Cathedral’s Thomas Becket ceiling boss. Source: Feasts, Fasts, Saints and the Medieval Church blog

What these two busy little scenes in Chester and Exeter depict was a brutal and savage act of great violence.  The murder of Becket was a violation one of England’s holiest precincts, a modern martyrdom, and an affront not only to the ecclesiastical hierarchy in England but to the papacy itself.  All eyes turned towards Henry II.  This was not the sort of attention that Henry wanted, and he spent the rest of his reign attempting to distance himself from the event.

The news of the murder spread swiftly and was deeply shocking to 12th century English and European society.  The terrible events were captured by eye witness accounts, not least that of the clerk Edward Grim who attempted to intervene and protect Becket. Almost immediately miracles were attributed to Becket, and only three years later he was canonized by the pope, becoming St Thomas.  His story was told in biographies of the saint, and his scenes of his life, martyrdom and miracles were rendered in wood, stone and paint, whilst relics were assiduously collected and displayed. In a world where martyrs and their deeds were factual events but remote, the real-time martyrdom of the head of the English church by representatives of the king was religious persecution in action, fresh and alarming in a way that past events might not be.  It was unthinkable.

Document dating to around 1180, around a decade after the event, showing the murder of Becket, from an eye-witness account by John of Salisbury (Cotton MS Claudius BII f.341r). Source: British Library.

From the moment of his murder, people were attracted to Christ Church cathedral to commemorate Becket.  His canonization made Christ Church Cathedral a formal and very desirable pilgrim destination.  The shrine itself, completed 50 years after Becket’s death, became one of Europe’s top pilgrim sites.

The saint was still attracting pilgrims in the 16th century when Henry VIII, identifying the cult of Becket as a challenge to his absolute control over religious as well as secular matters, ordered that every image of the martyr should be destroyed.  The systematic annihilation of Becket shrines and images contributed to the demise of Becket’s legacy, which was reinforced by further systematic defacements of Catholic artistic and architectural themes during the Reformation, including various monuments in Chester Cathedral, including the St Werburgh shrine.

Who was Thomas Becket?

Becket’s early career

Map of Medieval Cheapside, Medieval London in the 1560s. Source: Medieval London, Fordham University

Thomas Becket was the son of a Norman merchant who moved from Normandy (northwest France) to take up opportunities in London following the invasion of William I in 1066.  Gilbert and his wife Matilda lived in commercial area of London called Cheapside.  Gilbert rose to the position of sheriff, climbing several rungs on the social and political ladder.  It is thought that Thomas Becket was born around 1118-1120.

Becket was was born into the period of civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda (mother of Henry II).  He received a good formal education, first at Merton Priory (now in southwest London), and later at a school in London.  In his late teenage years he went to Paris to study, in a Parisian heyday of scholarship and artistic endeavour.  His studies included some of the most popular scholastic topics, including grammar, rhetoric and canon (church) law, which were essential tools for anyone wanting to make their mark on the world, but did not include any formal religious education.  He returned to England in the early 1140s under the reign of Henry II, who was crowned as monarch on the death of Stephen in December 1154.

Seals of Archbishop Theobald and of Christ Church, Canterbury. Source: “Theobald. Archbishop of Canterbury” by Avrom Saltman via the Internet Archive

In the mid 1140s Becket was recommended to the Archbishop of Canterbury Theobold of Bec (c.1090-1116) and obtained a role as a clerk in the cathedral, a mainly administrative position which, however, offered opportunities for advancement. A cathedral is both the principal church of the diocese and the seat of the bishop and, as at Christ Church, often included a monastic establishment.  Becket’s Paris education was probably attractive to Theobold, who had a number of similarly educated young men in his employ.  Like most incumbents of the Canterbury archbishopric, Theobold was both a cleric and a diplomat, closely involved in crown matters, but had twice been exiled by King Stephen due to his intervention in political matters.  He sent Becket to Auxerre in France and Bologna in Italy to study law.  Law, divided into Church (canon) law and state law, was rapidly becoming an important topic in Medieval England.

Becket’s rise to power

The 12th-century Topographica Hiberniae (Topology of Ireland) by Gerald of Wales shows a rare contemporary image of the king. Source: Wikipedia

In 1154 Becket was promoted to the role of Archdeacon of Canterbury. As well as the financial rewards that enabled him to satisfy his love of luxury, his new position was sufficiently prestigious for Theobold to recommend Becket to the 21-year old Henry II as the new royal chancellor.  Henry’s coronation at Westminster Abbey, following the death of Stephen, had taken place in the same year.  Their professional relationship evolved into a friendship over a period of eight years as Becket flourished in a position of enormous responsibility.  It was a mark of Becket’s success in this role that on the death of Theobold in 1161 Henry moved to appoint him Archbishop of Canterbury, to hold both positions simultaneously.  Becket had no religious ambitions, had received no clerical training and consequently had never been ordained into the priesthood.  In spite of these drawbacks, Becket was elected to the role by the monks of Canterbury and the bishops of southern England.  Ordination was rushed through, and Becket was consecrated as Archbishop on 3rd June 1162.  His appointment was confirmed by Pope, who sent him a pallium, a vestment that symbolized his new office and status.

Needless to say, the appointment was not universally celebrated.  Quite apart from the fact that Becket had made enemies on his rise to power, decisions such as the appointment of an archbishop was one of the areas of conflict between Crown and Church.  The Church thought that it should have complete autonomy over its own affairs, answerable only to the papacy and  to God; but the Crown, conscious of the power and wealth wielded by the ecclesiastical institutions, wanted to exercise its own authority over the activities of the most important institutions, including Canterbury.  The right to appoint the most senior ecclesiastical personnel, was only one bone of contention.  The right of the Church to operate under its own canon law was another.

King Henry II and Thomas Becket arguing. Peter of Langtoft’s Chronicle, Royal 20 A II, f.7v. Source: British Library

There was no reason to think that Thomas Becket would not continue to remain completely committed and loyal to the Crown.  It was therefore a very unpleasant surprise to Henry II when Becket began to take his new role seriously, resigning his position as chancellor to focus on promoting the rights of the Church and representing the authority of the papacy.  From this point forward, Becket and Henry had opposing interests.  Becket’s training in law put him in an excellent position for arguing that the Church, rather than the Crown, should be in charge of ecclesiastical justice, in which Church clerics who committed even violent crime would be judged not by secular courts but by the far more lenient ecclesiastical courts.  There were many other disputes between the two, when Becket took a stand not only where ecclesiastical interests were involved, but in matters of state as well.  Henry attempted to resolve the situation by imposing a set of “customs,” or rules adhered to in the era of Henry I, Henry II’s grandfather, assembled in the Constitutions of Clarendon to which he commanded that Becket and all the bishops defer.  Although Becket at first refused to ratify the document, he and the bishops eventually submitted to pressure and signed.  However, Henry was seriously annoyed and began to investigate Becket, finding grounds for ordering him to court to address a number of charges.  When Becket refused first to accept the charges against him and then to reject the resulting sentence, he made the decision to flee to France.

The Abbey Church of the monastery of Pontigny. Photo by Mediocrity. Source: Wikipedia

Becket lived in exile at the Cistercian monastery of Pontigny in France from November 1164 until 1170.  In exile he attempted to drum up support, but alienated Henry still further by excommunicating a number of his advisers. Pope Alexander sent papal legates to try to resolve the dispute instructing Becket to refrain from taking any more actions against the king and his court, but in April 1169 Becket excommunicated another ten royal officials.  In 1170 Henry’s son Henry was crowned as the Young King, in a secondary role to Henry II order to settle any potential succession disputes.  The coronation was presided over by the Archbishop of York, Roger de Pont L’Évêque.  It was the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury to preside over coronations, and Becket responded to this insult by laying an interdict on England, with the pope’s permission.  This forced Henry back to the negotiating table, and he came to terms with Becket on 22nd July 1170.  Becket returned to England in the December of that year. One might have thought that Becket would count his blessings, but before he arrived he could not resist excommunicating the three individuals most closely associated with the coronation of the Young King, one of whom was the Archbishop of York.  The three appealed to the king, who was in his Normandy territory, and it was at this point that Henry, in a rage, expressed his frustrations about Becket’s latest act of rebellion.  What Henry II actually said is not recorded, but it spurred four of his knights to set off for Canterbury from Normandy.
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Murder in the cathedral

One of the earliest known representations of the murder of Becket (c.1175–1225). British Library Harley MS 5102, f.32. Source: Wikipedia

The knights rode from London to Canterbury.  They left their armour and weapons outside the cathedral precinct, intending to arrest Becket and return him to London for trial.  Becket was having none of it.  Eye-witness accounts state unambiguously that Becket’s behaviour was that of a very angry man under serious threat, confronting the knights on the steps of the cathedral.  Goaded by Becket’s verbal retaliation and refusal to back down, they retreated to put on their armour and retrieve their weapons, returning to slaughter the unarmed archbishop in rage.  Blows of the sword to his head killed him relatively swiftly, producing an alarming amount of gore that spilled onto the floor around him.  One of the swords struck him so powerfully that the sheer momentum carried it to the ground, snapping the end off the blade.  Edward Grim, who attempted to intervene, was badly injured.

His murderers were Reginald FitzUrse, William de Tracy, Richard Brito (or le Breton) and Hugh de Morville.  FitzUrse, whose name means “son of bear,” is often marked out on images of the murder with the image of a bear’s head on his shield.  He is shown on both the Chester and Exeter bosses.   Having committed the crime, the knights headed for Yorkshire where they remained for a year.  Curiously, Henry made no move against them, but in 1171 Pope Alexander III excommunicated them, and 1172 they headed for Rome to seek absolution from the pope.  It is thought that they were probably sent on crusade, and either died on their way, or in battle, although there are a number of unsubstantiated traditions about their ultimate fates.

The Christ Church was closed for nearly a year so that Pope Alexander III could be consulted on how to proceed so that the cathedral could be re-consecrated and returned to normal use, rejuvenated as a destination for pilgrims.

Miracles and legacy

Detail of the Canterbury Christ Church Cathedral miracle window, which shows some of Becket’s miracles. Source: Reverend Mark R Collins blog

Until his death, Becket had been a political creature, and a representative of ecclesiastical interests.  He did not position himself as a man of the people, but as a newly inspired champion of the rights of the Church.  This did not prevent the place of his death becoming a destination for pilgrims of all social scales, even before he was officially canonized.  Curiously, Becket was not merely an emblem of devotion to the Church and a promoter of its rights in the face of opposition from the Crown, but a saint who produced miracles for the everyday person, becoming an unlikely saint to act on behalf of the general populace.

A reconstruction of the Thomas Becket shrine in Canterbury Cathedral. Source: Smithsonian Magazine

The first miracles reported following the death of Becket took place at his tomb.  Hundreds of others soon followed, 703 being reported within the first 10 years, many recorded by Benedict of Peterborough.  Within twenty years of the murder, no less than twenty biographies had been written about the saint including contemporary accounts including, for example, those by John of Salisbury, Edward Grim and Benedict of Peterborough, the latter listing many of his miracles.  Images of him in various media appeared all over Europe, and his relics spread just as far.  As the Oxford History of Saints comments laconically, “His faults were forgotten and he was hailed as a martyr for the cause of Christ and the liberty of the Church.”  In short, Becket and the miracles associated with him went viral.

Thomas Becket pilgrim badge. Source: Museum of London

Fifty years after his death, a new shrine was opened with great ceremony, and St Thomas was moved into a new tomb within the shrine.  It was a spectacle of gold and precious gems, and was surrounded by stained glass windows telling the story of his life and miraculous works. At the height of its popularity, it attracted over 100,000 pilgrims a year. In the Jubilee year of 1420 the shrine earned £360 for Canterbury Cathedral, which equates today to around £231,483, which could have purchased 83 horses or 620 cows (data from the National Archive’s Currency Convertor) or could have been used to build a new section of cathedral.  Images and symbols of St Thomas were moulded into ampullae and badges for the hundreds of pilgrims who visited his Canterbury shrine.  The shrine no longer survives; it was destroyed in 1538  under the orders of Henry VIII.
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The Becket boss at St Werburgh’s Abbey

The Lady Chapel

The Lady Chapel, Chester Cathedral

St Werburgh’s Abbey featured many architectural-sculptural elements which embellish the core structure of the building, providing focal points, colour and a hint of glamour.   The Lady Chapel was built under Abbot Simon de Whitchurch (1265-1291).  In Burne’s words, “He was evidently an outstanding character and under him the abbey flourished exceedingly.”  It was a period of great prosperity for the abbey, with an income derived from, amongst other things, church pensions (a sort of tax), appropriated church tithes, gifts of houses and lands, and possibly pilgrimage to the reliquary-shrine of St Werburgh, although the new shrine  to the saint was not built until the 14th century, and it is unclear how important it was as a pilgrim destination before then.

Although the earliest known Lady Chapel predates the Norman invasion, the Lady Chapel became particularly important in the 13th century when the Virgin Mary was undergoing a resurgence of devotion.  The elegant, vaulted Lady Chapel St Werburgh’s was built in the 13th century.  Like most Lady Chapels it was built to the east of the High Altar, projecting from the main building.  Here clerics performed daily services to the Virgin Mary. It is easy to forget that most architectural elements would have been brightly painted, but the Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral, restored to a typical colour scheme of green, blue, red and gold in the 1960s, provides an excellent example of how these components would have looked.  The lancet windows at the end of the chapel date to 1869, when Gilbert Scott removed the later Perpendicular window to be more faithful to the 13th century vision.

The Holy Trinity, with God holding the arms of the crucifix in his hands

Some Lady Chapels are large and ornate, but in some cases they form smaller, more private and tranquil spaces than other chapels within a monastery or cathedral.  The Chester example is delectable, its small footprint and relative height giving a sense of both intimacy and space.  The reconstructed shrine of St Werburgh, a victim of the Reformation’s hostility to reliquaries and idolatry, is located at its east end, but according to Jessica Hodge was probably originally at the east end of the quire.

The ceiling bosses form a row across the centre of the chapel, from east to west.  The east end was symbolically the most sacred, and it is at the east end of the chapel that the ceiling boss showing the Holy Trinity is located.  In the centre is, the Virgin Mary is depicted, and at the west end is the Becket boss.  The chapel was created during a period of great religious significance during the reign of Henry III, who had been crowned for the second time in 1220, the same year in which Becket’s remains were moved to a custom-built shrine on July 7th 1220, reinvigorating the already vibrant cult. The spectacular event was used by both the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and the king to help to heal the ongoing rift between the Church and the king.  In 1225 Henry ratified the Magna Carta, granting the freedom of the Church.  This was a momentous decade in the Church’s history and religious houses throughout Medieval England rode the crest of this remarkable period during the rest of the century with new architectural projects, rebuilding, expanding and celebrating.  By 1260-1280 when the Chester Lady Chapel was built, it was the centenary of Becket’s death.  It is possible that the Becket boss was installed to commemorate this event following an ecclesiastically bright start to the century.

The St Thomas ceiling boss

Ceiling bosses are both architectural and sculptural elements, usually circular or sub-circular, positioned in the ceiling where the vaulting ribs that form arches meets, either to hide the join, or acting as keystones to add structural integrity to the complex set of tensions and stresses. There can be much more to them than first glance suggests, and behind the decorated end, an undecorated portion of the boss may be inserted into the join.  Examples on the floor of the cloisters provide a good idea of this, showing the decorated section that would face down, and the plain stump that would be inserted into the join.

Three relatively large stone vaulting bosses were provided at the point where seven or eight stone ribs of the slender vaulting meets, each carved and painted with a different aspect of Christian iconography.  Smaller bosses were also added to at vault joins, where three or four ribs meet, sculpted into beautiful foliage, and gilded.  Corbels, where the vaulting ribs begin, are also decorated with foliage.  These carved stone features would all have been carved and painted prior to installation.  The white painted ceiling and walls between the brightly coloured features are the perfect foil for them, providing them with reflected light and emphasizing the  rich colours.

The Becket scene offers a sanitized version of the traumatic event on 29th December 1170, recycling a scene that bears only a passing resemblance to the terrible violence of reality, one version of a standardized formula for representing this event, an overstuffed and static little scene that looks rather like a posed portrait, with all of the protagonists shown full face, as though looking towards a camera. The composition is curious.  Three knights dominate the scene.  Sir Reginald FitzUrse is identifiable, as he is in the Exeter ceiling boss of this scene, by the bear’s head on his shield.  One knight at the front strikes at Becket’s head.  At the back of the group is clerk Edward Grim holding a cross and appears to preside over the scene.  Becket is squashed into the lower right hand section of the scene, kneeling behind an altar, his hands held, palms outwards, in front of him.  Behind him, even more squashed and barely visible, is the fourth knight, striking at Becket’s head, his sword converging with the sword of the knight in the foreground.  In spite of all four swords, the most dynamic element of the scene is the way in which Becket’s hands are raised in front of him, either in prayer, supplication or in a gesture of surrender.

Exeter Cathedral ceiling boss. Source: Feasts, Fasts, Saints and the Medieval Church blog

By contrast, the Exeter ceiling boss, which Burne says is about a century later, makes rather more compositional sense, placing Becket at the centre of the scene, looking out at the viewer with his hands raised, whilst the knights crowd in on him, intent on their deadly purpose while Grim does his best to ward them off.  It has far more dramatic impact, and is easier to understand as a narrative.  Both bosses share the same formulaic approach to the event.

When the chapel was built between c.1260 and 1280, over a century had passed since the martyrdom of Becket, and the detail of the real event had become less important than its symbolism and the theological narrative built around it.  Becket shown praying in front of an altar conveyed the sense of Becket’s purity and holiness far more efficiently than the actual scene of anger, shouting and resistance that preceded the murder. Similarly, the Grim was not a cross-bearer clerk.  However, there is an obvious dramatic advantage to showing him holding the cross as he confronted the knights in support of Becket.  It remains a peculiarity of the scene that the knights and Grim are the central characters, whilst Becket is squeezed to the side.

Who was the intended audience?

Lady Chapel, Chester Cathedral

In the 13th century the eastern end of the abbey church was the exclusive domain of the abbey monks, and it is unlikely that the Lady Chapel was seen by anyone else.  By the 14th century, the pilgrim status of Chester, with the miraculous holy rood in St John’s, and nearby pilgrim destinations at Holywell and St Asaph, lead to a reinvigorated interest in the Anglo-Saxon St Werburgh.  A new shrine to St Werburgh was built in the 1300s and according to Jessica Hodge, was situated at the east end of the quire, presumably accessed via the nave and the north aisle.  Pilgrims to the shrine would therefore have been granted access to the usually private east end, and they may have been shown the neighbouring Lady Chapel and the Becket boss as part of their pilgrimage.  Some of them may have included a visit to the Nunnery of St Mary in their travels, which possessed a relic in the form of the girdle of Thomas Becket.

Lady Chapel corbel

When they were new, the monks would have been well aware of the subject matter of the ceiling bosses.  As time went by they may have been repainted and repaired, but there will have been periods when they receded into the background.  Even today, people don’t always look up, and even when they do, they are not always sure what they are looking at.  Even if access had been generally available, the ceiling bosses are so high up that it is difficult to see the detail without either a telephoto lens or a ladder.  When I was last there, I pointed the Becket boss out to a lady who asked what I was photographing, and the only way that she could make it out, even with her distance glasses on, was to see the enlarged image on the screen of my digital camera.  Similarly, I only really got to grips with the subject matter on the other two bosses by photographing them and bringing them up on my computer screen later.

If one factors in the available lighting in the Middle Ages, which was confined to any light that passed through the stained glass windows, supplemented by candles, it is unlikely that these bosses were generally very visible from the ground.  Compare them with those in the enclosed walkway (cloister), which are much closer to the ground and therefore much easier to appreciate.

Why were images of Becket purged during the 16th century?

The Becket boss prior to restoration. Source: Godfrey W. Matthews, The Becket Boss in the Lady Chapel, Chester Cathedral

Chester became a cathedral after the Benedictine monastery of St Werburgh was dissolved by Henry VIII.    In spite of this lucky escape, it is possible that the ceiling boss was deliberately defaced at this time. Godfrey W Matthews, writing in 1934, described it as follows:  “It is very badly worn, which is curious, as the two bosses to the east of it are in a good state of reservation.  It is possible that some attempt had been made to deface it, for the figures suggest chipping.” Henry VIII imposed a policy of extreme prejudice against Becket, ordering all images of him to be destroyed.  The tomb and pilgrim shrine in Canterbury were removed in 1538 and Becket’s mortal remains disposed of.  Images throughout the country were removed.

Chester Cathedral also came under fairly savage review during the Reformation, when various architectural features and monuments were maimed or destroyed to remove overtly Catholic themes.   Most of the survivors are in high places that were difficult to reach.

Are ceiling bosses works of art, or mere architectural flourishes?

Stonemason, artist and researcher Alex Woodcock, whose PhD focuses on Exeter stone sculptures, highlights how the bright colours and dark shadows at Exeter were contrasted to give reveal a sense of depth and to emphasise the three dimensional character of the bosses and corbels.  This can be seen at Chester as well, where the depth of the three dimensional aspect of the sculpted forms provides a sense of theatre and allows simple shapes to be very skilfully highlighted.  Woodcock points out that architectural sculpture “is often assumed to be secondary to free-standing sculpture, possibly because of its very architectural function” and that because the boss would have been there anyway, the images are seen less as art than mere decoration.  As he points out, however, “in terms of the hours needed to complete the carving using hand tools, their production would appear almost prohibitive in terms of expense today.”  Not all ceiling bosses and corbels are good art, but many of them are tremendous and well worth the time taken to appreciate them as stand-alone works.

Final Comments

The Lady Chapel in the 1870s. Source: Blomfield 1879

Most of us learned a version of the “turbulent priest” story at school.  This was a man who stirred up hornets’ nests in his role as Archbishop of Canterbury, both within the royal court and within the cathedral.  He divided opinion in his own lifetime, finding friends and making enemies.  His immediate legacy was to generate a healthy income for Canterbury Cathedral, as pilgrims flocked to share in the wonders of the miracle-worker.  Politically, he became an ongoing reminder of the conflict between royalty and the Church, a symbol not merely of spiritual martyrdom, but carried with him a morality tale about the dangers of the crown having absolute power over both the church and the people.

On a vaulting boss in Chester Cathedral, accompanied by the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity, Becket and his murderers look down on the visitor.  Representing a scene of appalling violence, Becket, Grim and the errant knights are a reminder that throughout the early Middle Ages, the Church and the King were equally powerful, and serious conflicts ran the risk of monstrous outcomes.

After nearly 400 years of popularity, Becket and his legacy were terminally undermined by Henry VIII and the Reformation, destroying his images in cathedral, church, monastery and private residence.  Queen Mary briefly restored both Catholicism and Becket’s status, but Elizabeth I followed her father’s lead.  Although Becket is remembered today, the split from the papacy and the tidal wave of the Reformation swept away his significance and his popularity in Britain.  Having said that, the lady I was chatting to in the Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral told me that in the congregation of her Liverpool Anglo-Catholic church they follow the missal, and continue to commemorate the date of Becket’s murder.  Although he survives mainly as a historical figure, Thomas Becket has not vanished from view.

Sources:

Books and papers

Bartlett, R. 2013. Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation.  Princeton University Press

de Beer, Lloyd, and Speakman, Naomi 2021. Thomas Becket,  Murder and the Making of a Saint.  The Trustees of the British Museum

Blomfield, Reverend Canon 1859. On the Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral. Courant Office. Digitized by Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61922/61922-h/61922-h.htm

Burne, R.V.H. 1962. The Monks of Chester. The History of St Werburgh’s Abbey. SPCK.

Crouch, D. 2017. Medieval Britain, c.1000-1500. Cambridge University Press

Farmer, D. 2011 (5th edition). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford University Press

Guy, J. 2013. Thomas Becket. Warrior, Priest, Rebel, Victim.  A 900-Year-Old Story Retold.  Penguin

de Hamel, C. 2020.  The Book in the Cathedral. The Last Relic of Thomas Becket. Allen Lane

Hamilton, B. 2003.  Religion in the Medieval West.  Arnold.

Hamilton, S. 2021. Responding to Violence: Liturgy, Authority and Sacred Places c.900-c.1150.  Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 2021, 31 (202), p.23-47.

Hodge, Jessica 2017.  Chester Cathedral. Scala Arts and Heritage

Jenkins, J. 2023. Who Put the ‘a’ in ‘Thomas a Becket? The History of a Name from the Angevins to the Victorians, Open Library of Humanities 9(1) https://olh.openlibhums.org/article/id/9353/

Luxford, Julian 2005. The Art and Architecture of English Benedictine Monasteries, 1300-1540.  A Patronage History. The Boydell Press p.21-27

Matthews, G.W. The Becket Boss in the Lady Chapel, Chester.  Historic Society of Lancaster and Cheshire 86, 1934, p.41-46

Orme, N. 2017. The History of England’s Cathedrals. Impress

Schmoelz, M. 2017. Pilgrimage in medieval East Anglia.  A regional survey of the shrines and pilgrimages of Norfolk, Suffolk, volume 1.  Unpublished PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, June 2017

Webster, P. 2016. Introduction. The Cult of St Thomas Becket: An Historiographical Pilgrimage.  In Gelin, M and Webster P. (eds.) The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c.1170-1220.  Boydell and Brewer.

Williams, Godfrey W. 1934.  The Becket Boss in the Lady Chapel, Chester.  Historic Society of Lancaster and Cheshire 86, 1934, p.41-46

Woodcock, A. 2018 (2nd edition). Of Sirens and Centaurs.  Medieval Sculpture at Exeter Cathedral. Impress Books

Websites

British Museum
A Timeline of Thomas Becket’s Life and Legacy
https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/thomas-becket-murder-and-making-saint/timeline-thomas-beckets-life-and-legacy
Who Killed Thomas Becket? (by curators Lloyd de Beer and Naomi Speakman)
https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/who-killed-thomas-becket

Museum of London
Thomas Becket: a life and death in badges. By Kirstin Barnard.  13th February 2020
https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/thomas-becket-life-and-death-badges#/

Smithsonian Magazine
Researchers Digitally Reconstruct Thomas Becket’s Razed Canterbury Cathedral Shrine. By Meilan Solly.  9th July 2020.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-digitally-reconstruct-thomas-beckets-lost-canterbury-cathedral-shrine-180975280/