St. Mary, Meesden
Tiles amongst the trees
It took three attempts to find this little church: it is some way from the village and having no tower is hidden away from the road by trees; the arrival of g.p.s. maps on mobile phones has made life much easier when seeking such out of the way places, but technology is notoriously unreliable, and can still leave you lost in the woods with no signal. However, perseverance paid off one icy day after the car had slithered for what seemed many miles down a snow bound road that no one else had been foolish enough to drive down in days. The little church is up a gated track, and very picturesque in the pristine whiteness of the woods it was, like a toy on a tablecloth. A timber turret built as a bellcot by the Victorians pokes out of the roof, and there are two shallow transepts restored at that time. The big surprise as you round the west end is the Tudor brick porch with buttresses, battlements, pinnacles, niche and trefoilled corbelling, with two light windows and much moulded doorway, big enough for a far bigger church, and overpowering on this tiny unaisled box. Truly a tail that wags the dog. Inside is the original Norman doorway, as simple as can be, set in a short nave.
Tiles amongst the trees
It took three attempts to find this little church: it is some way from the village and having no tower is hidden away from the road by trees; the arrival of g.p.s. maps on mobile phones has made life much easier when seeking such out of the way places, but technology is notoriously unreliable, and can still leave you lost in the woods with no signal. However, perseverance paid off one icy day after the car had slithered for what seemed many miles down a snow bound road that no one else had been foolish enough to drive down in days. The little church is up a gated track, and very picturesque in the pristine whiteness of the woods it was, like a toy on a tablecloth. A timber turret built as a bellcot by the Victorians pokes out of the roof, and there are two shallow transepts restored at that time. The big surprise as you round the west end is the Tudor brick porch with buttresses, battlements, pinnacles, niche and trefoilled corbelling, with two light windows and much moulded doorway, big enough for a far bigger church, and overpowering on this tiny unaisled box. Truly a tail that wags the dog. Inside is the original Norman doorway, as simple as can be, set in a short nave.
The simple font stands besides the ladder to the bells, and there is only space for a single window in each wall before the diminutive arcades open up to the transepts with two low arches on a solid little pier on each side. There was only just room for an altar and priest in these small compartments, and now they serve as vestries. Victorian restoration gave the chunky roof and screen, through which is the chancel of 1300 with its east window and its trefoil headed piscina and single sedile. Here is a rare sight indeed: the sanctuary is paved with a pseudo-mosaic of tiles of the early fourteenth century. Originally glazed black and yellow but now eroded in places, this is an early example of an expensive technique, normally found in the largest of abbeys not the tiniest of churches, known to the Romans as opus sectile. Such pavements of tiles were difficult to make and to lay, requiring a precise fit between all sorts of shapes with little tolerance; some of the tiles are stamped with double headed eagles, many with flowers, and others are line engraved to look as if made of several pieces. One carries a shield with the Monchensey arms, presumably the donor’s, set in the border around the concentric central rose window that forms much of the pattern. From up on the wall a rustic Jacobean bust looks down, painted naturalistically with the addition of gilding, surrounded by apposite biblical quotes for the good of our souls. It seems Robert Yonge already considered his saved.
Pevsner may have thought this church no way out of the ordinary, but here the best of things come in the smallest of packages; apart from the outstanding tiles and porch, this is one of those buildings in which the space itself just seems right, somewhere that raises the spirit and leaves you with a smile on your face. What more can you want?
Church open, if you can find it, and obviously locally loved. 500 yards to the east of the village, a road leads north from Mill Lane towards Langley; 300 yards from the junction is a gate on the right, walk into the woods and you’ll find this gem.
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Church open, if you can find it, and obviously locally loved. 500 yards to the east of the village, a road leads north from Mill Lane towards Langley; 300 yards from the junction is a gate on the right, walk into the woods and you’ll find this gem.
All rights reserved for this entire site. Copyright reserved to stiffleaf for all text and images, which may not be reproduced without my permission.