C O N T E X T 9 3 : M A R C H 2 0 0 6 23 chapels. At present we have two. Guy Dawber’s chapel of St John the Baptist, a subdued, rich treasure house of the arts and crafts movement with plasterwork by Bankert and stained glass by Louis Davies, sits in picturesque semi-isolation over a holy well halfway up a cliff at Matlock Bath. It was built in 1897 for a woman for whom the term ‘redoubtable’ must have been invented. Mrs Harris, who lived in a nearby neoclassical villa, had a row with the local vicar and did what you could do in those days. She retreated into a purpose-built private place of worship open to those who shared her churchmanship. By the 1990s, however, the trust, with only two trustees, was finding it very difficult to keep going. A 75 per cent English Heritage grant in the declining years of the Town Scheme saved the day, but then a user was required. We stepped in, carried on the programme of repairs, and the building is now saved (although I fear that is a relative term, for there was a severe vandal attack in the late summer which we are still undoing). We would dearly love to broaden the use of the building but the geography is substantially against us. Not only is it a steep climb to the chapel but entrance into St John’s Road, off the A6, is marked by a stern no-entry sign. The road ends in a farm at the top of the hill and goes no further. Any ideas would be very welcome. The second non-parochial vesting could hardly be more different. The old chapel of the 15th century at Ayshford, near Tiverton in Devon, is a rather unimaginative four-square rectangle outside. But inside we find a remarkable recreation of Victorian ideas of the medieval. Much of the fabric is genuine to the 15th century, but in 1848 a substantial and largely sympathetic reconstruction was carried out by the family that built it, the Sanfords. This incorporated an extraordinary scheme of windows, originally thought to be the work of Thomas Willement but now identified as the creation of the local stained glass artist, Sams. Strong diagonals of ribbons give an almost art deco flavour. The chapel also retains two substantial family monuments to the Ayshford family, who built and preceded that of the Sanfords. By the 1990s the chapel looked miserable, with holes in the roof and the many breaks in the windows held together with adhesive tape. We accepted the family’s suggestion that we take the building into ownership. It remains one of our golden principles that we never buy. We can not afford it, and in any case we would much prefer to devote slender resources towards repair and maintenance. At Ayshford, and in a number of other cases in which we are immensely grateful, English Heritage has supported our work with a 70 per cent grant. The second way in which we differ from the CCT is that we cover Wales. Of our 38 current vestings, half are Welsh. Conscious that Wales did not have an equivalent to the Churches Conservation Trust, and that where an outstanding Anglican church was declared redundant it could only be demolished (which would be unthinkable) or converted (which may be at the best impractical and was very often in practice degrading), an equivalent of the CCT across the border was clearly needed. Ivor Bulmer-Thomas began negotiations but it was not until 1999, six years after his death, that the so-called ‘new mechanism’ came into full force. With a budget of £100,000 a year, 70 per cent from the state through Cadw and 30 per cent from the Church in Wales, we have agreed to take churches that are irreversibly shut and for which there is no feasible benign use (and which are almost invariably listed Grade II* or Grade I). The budget has not risen since 1999 and is becoming increasingly tight. Under it we have been able to take 14 churches into care alongside the fourWelsh examples we owned before 1999. The budget also allows the part-time employment of Christopher Dalton, who used to work for the Churches Conservation Trust as a field officer. The average Welsh church tends to be a ground hugger set in a sea of slate monuments, with a modest exterior very often belying an interior rich with fittings and monuments of beauty and significance. Some of the vestings, like Llanelieu in the Black Mountains, have a magical quality that comes from their being unrestored. Others betray the mark of architectural genius. St Mary’s, Llanfair Kilgeddin in Monmouthshire, a simple work by JD Sedding, is made nationally significant by the sgraffito panels inside, created in the mornings of a long hot summer by Heywood Sumner in 1889. We are just about to embark on a further programme of consolidation to the plaster surfaces with grants from Cadw and the Pilgrim Trust, the latter in memory of Roy (Lord) Jenkins. One of the restored sgraffiti panels of 1889 by Heywood Sumner at the redundant church of St Mary’s, Llanfair Kilgeddin, Monmouthshire.This simple medieval church was rebuilt in 1875–6 by the architect John Dando Sedding, who carefully reused some of the original fabric.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=