Category Archives: Churches

Medieval faces from St. Ippolyts

Datchworth Willian

My thanks to the creator of the Hertfordshire Churches website for encouraging me to re-visit Clothall church in the hills above Baldock. I’d poked around it once before and entirely missed its treasure. Behind the altar are three late medieval stained glass windows containing dozens of beautifully rendered birds, some of familiar species, some ofContinue reading “Churches #13”

Graffiti This series of posts has already included some examples of graffiti carved into the fabric of local churches: the sword at St. Paul’s Walden and the three-weddings engraving at the same church, the evocative plague memorial and rendering of the old St. Paul’s cathedral at Ashwell, for example. Below are some more instances. TheContinue reading “Churches #11”

The church at Bygrave has been closed every time I have walked through. Parts of it date from the 12th century but there was a Saxon church there before and Romano-British pottery has been found around the site. It is tiny, unusual in its simplicity, and rather beautiful for that. The bell is located inContinue reading “Churches #10”

More photographs than usual for this post. It’s one of my favourite churches – St. Mary’s at Ashwell, a beautiful village where two rivers rise. The graffiti in the church is touching, sobering, an emotive bridge to distant forbears. In this year 2020, it is particularly redolent, an obvious link between past and present andContinue reading “Churches #7”

Standon