St. Mary, Clothall.
A flight of imagination.
Surrounded by hillsides corrugated by the strip-lynchets left by mediaeval ploughs, the church perches alone on high, looked up to by the grand Georgian rectory in the copse below. The parish is large, the population tiny, so the church has grown but slowly in an asymmetrical almost organic way with no grand plan. Before the Perpendicular period each element tended to be designed alone, taking no thought of what had either gone before or was yet to come, necessity rather than design placing each feature. The tiny tower doubles as a porch set to the south west of the nave, with a Decorated chapel to its east lit by irregular windows; everything very ad hoc and looking as if each donor has gone his own way. Each roof line is different; the nave gabled with lead, the chancel has battlements, the chapel lean-to slates, and the tower wears a humble pyramid cap of tiles. It is all lovably lopsided, and seems bigger on the inside. There’s a splendid fourteenth century door within the porch under the tower, complete with crescent hinges having central ironwork straps that spread to form elegant leaves; on the back signed in later black letter[18], perhaps denoting repair. As so often, the Norman font is the oldest item extant, a battered Purbeck marble table font on five legs with a very homemade Jacobean cover on top. The west window has a colourful nativity in glass of 1867, a period when purples and greens were not feared; it’s a shame that the firing of work of that time often fails, and detail is lost from the faces.
A flight of imagination.
Surrounded by hillsides corrugated by the strip-lynchets left by mediaeval ploughs, the church perches alone on high, looked up to by the grand Georgian rectory in the copse below. The parish is large, the population tiny, so the church has grown but slowly in an asymmetrical almost organic way with no grand plan. Before the Perpendicular period each element tended to be designed alone, taking no thought of what had either gone before or was yet to come, necessity rather than design placing each feature. The tiny tower doubles as a porch set to the south west of the nave, with a Decorated chapel to its east lit by irregular windows; everything very ad hoc and looking as if each donor has gone his own way. Each roof line is different; the nave gabled with lead, the chancel has battlements, the chapel lean-to slates, and the tower wears a humble pyramid cap of tiles. It is all lovably lopsided, and seems bigger on the inside. There’s a splendid fourteenth century door within the porch under the tower, complete with crescent hinges having central ironwork straps that spread to form elegant leaves; on the back signed in later black letter[18], perhaps denoting repair. As so often, the Norman font is the oldest item extant, a battered Purbeck marble table font on five legs with a very homemade Jacobean cover on top. The west window has a colourful nativity in glass of 1867, a period when purples and greens were not feared; it’s a shame that the firing of work of that time often fails, and detail is lost from the faces.
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 Early C14th chapel
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 Mid C19th angel.
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A single wide arch leads to the chapel, which has three unmatched windows somewhat randomly placed. The foot pace of the altar is built up with fourteenth century coffin lids still bearing Lombardic lettering around the edges, and the piscina has two heads on the hood mould, one of which is that of a monkey, the other his hooded African master. There’s just a tiny bit of heraldic glass here, but over the chancel the east window is full of diamond shaped quarries from the later middle ages, each one containing a single bird. This wonderful flock - strutting and fluttering, dancing and preening, rising and falling - storms the stage. Every possible species seems to be present with every marking, from sparrow and crane to ostrich and parrot with spots and stripes in scintillating flight. The roundel with the head of St. Mary is old glass, as are the canopies over each light, but it is the bouncing birds that are everything here, an absolute joy to behold, full of life and invention. There are cathedrals happy to have just one such quarry to use as a logo, and here is the unexpected delight of an entire sky-full congregating within a tiny church, a gleeful gathering on a reredos roost.
This lovable little church is generally open; or phone the local warden on 01462 790594.
This lovable little church is generally open; or phone the local warden on 01462 790594.
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 C14th birds in the east window.
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[18] Black letter is what most people think of as gothic lettering, later and spikier than Lombardic or uncial.
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