Tall but tight on the ground, St Laurence is thought to be one of England’s oldest Saxon churches. It possibly dates to as early as around AD700, but may have been rebuilt at the end of the first millennium. It was rediscovered as a church in the mid-19th century, having spent several centuries being used […]
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: Dale Abbey
An amazing semi-d church: tiny and attached to a farmhouse. It was clearly too small for purpose in the 17th/18th century, when box pews were added in any available space and galleries squeezed into the loft – only accessed via a separate entrance up an exterior staircase. It’s an absolute jumble of carpentry throughout. The […]
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: Little Missenden
A charming church that straddles the ages in an attractive village that does much the same. The atmosphere inside the church is very special, with light falling across the rough walls and picking out the medieval wall-paintings and later monuments. Architecturally, it’s a mix of Norman, Early English and Perpendicular, with perhaps traces of Saxon […]
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: Redland Chapel, Bristol
Built as a private chapel, Redland is a fine Georgian church: neat and well-ordered. Wood panelling covers all the walls, interspersed with these cherub corbels.
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol
A phenomenal church in the quality of its execution and the dramatic visual impact it offers when confronted by the view looking down the nave towards the chancel and altar. The careful delineation of the columns and vaulting above overwhelm the human scale; and, rather than soaring up from ground level, the slender columns appear […]
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: Brentor, Dartmoor
Unsurprisingly this is a church that is all about location. From round about, it is a pinpoint on the horizon, an extra peak on the ridge at the western edge of Dartmoor; from the church itself, attention swiftly shifts to the 360-degree views of sheep-grazed uplands and arable lowlands, woodlands, village clusters and roadways between. […]
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: Boxgrove, Sussex
What remains here is a substantial relic of a Benedictine Priory. Parts date from the 12th and 13th centuries, while the painting on the nave ceiling is later, dating to the 1520s. Depicting family crests enwrapped by vegetation, it is the work of one Lambert Barnard, a local artist, and was commissioned by Thomas de […]
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: Blythburgh, Suffolk
An exceptional church in every respect: far-off setting on heathland a couple of miles in from the sea, glorious array of Perpendicular windows and a wonderfully relaxed interior that’s spacious and light-filled. Above is a sublime angel roof, much battered during the Civil War and studiously repaired since – the dusty medieval paintwork remaining on […]
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: Avington
At their best, 18th-century churches achieved a kind of perfection, and this is true of St Mary’s. With its red-brick simplicity and modest square tower, it is clearly less spectacular than its Gothic predecessors, but its mix of Classicism and the vernacular is deeply pleasing. The sense of order, proportion and close allegiance to symmetry […]
Betjeman’s Best British Churches: Axbridge
With plenty of clear glass, St John’s has a light, spacious interior. The afternoon light fell softly on this 17th-century monument in the Lady Chapel. The paintwork that picks out the figures was a later addition which works rather well.