Tuesday 25 April 2017

Broughton

I very nearly made a serious mistake by not  seeking out a keyholder - there are three or four listed - for All Saints, thinking it was unlikely to contain much of interest. How wrong I was.

The exterior must be impossible to photograph from late spring until the end of Autumn, surrounded as it is surrounded by trees; it was hard enough in mid April.

The interior is very stripped back in a pleasing way and contains a quality font, a fantastic west millennium window by Benjamin Finn, six roof angels and a Doom wallpainting along with the expulsion and Adam & Eve delving and spinning.

All in all a definite mistake avoided.

ALL SAINTS. Stone W tower with broach spire. Two tiers of lucarnes. Mostly Perp. Contributions to the building are mentioned in 1528. Exceptions are the E.E. chancel (see the remains of the low-side S lancet and the DOUBLE PISCINA), the nave S doorways of c.1300, and the Dec four-bay arcades of standard elements, but the arches starting with breaches. - FONT. Square, Norman, with blank arcading. - BENCHES. Perp and plain. - COMMUNION RAIL. C18. - PAINTING. Doom; above the chancel arch; C15. The rising of the dead is most clearly visible. - Also, round the S corner, Expulsion, and Adam delving and Eve spinning. - PLATE. Cup of 1597; Paten inscribed 1620. - BRASS. Laurence Marton and wife, c.1490. Only his head, the lower part of his body, and a shield with rebus are preserved. The figures were 33 in. long.

W Benjamin Finn millenial window (4)

Doom painting (1)

When Adam delved & Eve span (1)

BROUGHTON. It has two old friends in a sleepy green hollow, the Elizabethan rectory with the garden where a rector tended his flowers over 60 years, and a church in which he preached thousands of sermons. He was Robert Hudson, and a tablet tells us he was greatly loved for his long ministry, which covered so much of the 18th century. In his garden there is still an ancient stone coffin complete with lid.

The church has a tower and spire of about 1500, and a 14th century chancel between two walls built by Normans. They gave the font its fine arcading about the year 1100. Two notable pieces of 15th century art the church possesses, the work of carvers and painters who may have fought at Bosworth Field. In the roof of the nave is an angelic orchestra with a striking figure of St Andrew among the choir, and over the chancel arch is a series of paintings finely preserved, probably by artists of the same generation. One painting shows a Resurrection scene, another the Day of Judgment, and there are quaint pictures showing Adam and Eve before and after they were driven from the garden.

There are two birds keeping watch on a Jacobean chair, a few 16th century pews, fragments of 16th century glass, and a brass of which everything is gone save the head and the legs of Lawrence Martin. Behind the pulpit is the old turret stairway to the roodloft.

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