Very occasionally the stiff heavy handle will turn...

There are perhaps fifty or so doors, spread throughout the county, that I routinely try just on the off-chance that one day they will be open. Whenever I am passing a particular building I want to get into (I have a list) I will stop the car and try the door. Almost always I am disappointed.

But very occasionally the stiff heavy handle will turn… and continue turning. The lock will click. The door (after some pushing) will slowly open…

Last Saturday I had just such an experience when driving through a small town on the uplands (not much more than a large village, although it has a weekly market). Everyone says the tombs in the church are worth seeing, but every time I have tried the door it has been locked. Occasionally I knock at the Rectory next door to ask for the key, but there is never any answer.
On Saturday however the church door opened.

Inside it was gloomy but very spacious. It was one of those buildings that look bigger on the inside than on the outside. I picked up a guide leaflet and walked round, noting the items of interest (wooden angels on the hammerbeam roof, some Victorian stained glass in lurid colours, monument to an explorer who claimed huge areas of Canadian perma-frost etc).

I knew the tombs were in a family chapel, and I was prepared for the chapel to be locked (often the case). But in the north-east corner of the building I found the chamber, separated by an arcade from the chancel, the door wide open. The tombs were incredible – lots of recumbent medieval effigies.



Above: There was this alabaster tomb of 1396. Note the railings which separate the chapel from the rest of the church. Seeing these railings reminded me of the moment in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (and also in Polanski’s Tess) when Tess looks through similar railings at the tombs of her ancestors and wishes she was dead among them, so burdensome had her life become.



Above: There was this stone tomb of 1348. The couple look as if they are lying in bed. You can just make out that the knight has his legs crossed which is supposed to mean that he had been on a crusade.



Above: The tomb filling the whole west arch of the chapel was the most magnificent. Supported by ionic columns and entablatured with Latin texts, the monument includes three lifesize figures of a monk and two woodwoses. The three figures are standing on the tomb chest itself, and between them are two stone busts of the deceased (looking as if they were rising out of the grave in some petrified act of resurrection). Seen through the dim light of the late afternoon, with the oblique sunlight making the stone glow gold, the effect was very impressive. Note the monumental brasses on the floor of the chapel, cordoned off with a rudimentary barrier of rope tied to four chairs. You may need to click on the photo (and then click in the corner to enlarge it again) so that you can see all the detail.