ALL SAINTS. The church has a splendid late C13 W steeple. Set-back buttresses, a doorway with three orders of columns and a handsome moulded arch, a sexfoiled, cusped rose-window, bell-openings of two lights with Y-tracery, and to their l. and r. one blank cinquefoiled arch. In the heads of these arches are carvings of three radially placed heads and foliated cusps. The spire has high broaches with three tiers of lucarnes. The first tier is very high, transomed and with Y-tracery. Quadruple-chamfered arch towards the nave. The S arcade is late C13 too. Three bays, round piers, double-chamfered arches. The N arcade with octagonal piers is a little later. The N doorway goes with it. Whether the chancel is still C13 or just after the turn of the century must remain open. It has to the S intersecting tracery in one window and a corresponding priest’s doorway. The vestry doorway from the chancel is obviously Dec (ogee arch). So are the N aisle W window (reticulated tracery) and the S doorway. Perp S aisle windows and clerestory windows. Perp nave roof with large bosses. But the nave E angles are the oldest thing in the church. They are Norman. - PLATE. Cover Paten of 1671-2.
BUCKWORTH. It was once a hunting centre, and still has two big woods in which the bucks were hunted, but its population has fallen and today its church is too big for its people. Long before we come to it we see its impressive tower, rich with 14th century arcading and crowned by a spire with 12 gabled windows. The tower and aisle have old sundials on two buttresses and there is an astonishing collection of gargoyles, perhaps one of the ugliest crowds looking down anywhere on a charming churchyard. A very curious and unusual thing we noticed, the trefoiled head of a tower window with three stone faces in it, a scowling man, a man showing his teeth, and a queer grotesque. The tower arch is carved with queer faces.
We passed through a door which has been swinging on its hinges since the bells rang for the crowning of Queen Elizabeth. It brings us into a clerestoried nave with two aisles, the work of all our great building centuries. The oldest work in the church goes back to the 11th century, and the list of rectors to 1225. The vestry cupboard in which the rector keeps his robes was the case of the old barrel organ which used to play two or three tunes at every service. In the 14th century chancel is a bracket with a figure holding a book.
Perhaps the thing that will impress the traveller most in this small place is the tribute to a father and his sons. He was Walter Yeatherd, who fell fighting for his country at the relief of Ladysmith and left two boys behind who fell fighting for their country in France.
We passed through a door which has been swinging on its hinges since the bells rang for the crowning of Queen Elizabeth. It brings us into a clerestoried nave with two aisles, the work of all our great building centuries. The oldest work in the church goes back to the 11th century, and the list of rectors to 1225. The vestry cupboard in which the rector keeps his robes was the case of the old barrel organ which used to play two or three tunes at every service. In the 14th century chancel is a bracket with a figure holding a book.
Perhaps the thing that will impress the traveller most in this small place is the tribute to a father and his sons. He was Walter Yeatherd, who fell fighting for his country at the relief of Ladysmith and left two boys behind who fell fighting for their country in France.
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