Friday evening.
I drove to a village in the east of the county, in an area comprised of low wooded hills.
A main road runs through the village then plunges down a hillside. There is no place to park along this road so I had to leave my car at a pub and walk. Half-way down the steepish road a track led off to the right and climbed to the top of a hill where the village church was located.
This church set on a hilltop is a local landmark for miles around. Driving in that part of the county I have often noticed the tower rising above the trees and wondered what the building would look like close-to. In a county newspaper recently I noticed that the church was the venue for a concert, and decided to go along – thus my presence there on Friday evening.
I couldn’t remember whether the concert was due to start at six-thirty or seven-thirty, and so I arrived an hour too early. The church was locked. I looked at the exterior of the building – Perpendicular in style, and constructed on a grand scale in the latter fourteenth-century.
Above: the church from the south – the tower is a local landmark.A cold wind was blowing and the light was beginning to fade. There were no houses in the vicinity, and so darkness when it came would be total. I began to wonder whether there was still time to get back to my car, which was about a mile away, or whether it would be better to wait in the darkness since someone must turn up soon.
There was a grinding noise of car wheels on rough ground, and I saw an old estate car laboriously appear over the ridge of the hill and park near the south porch (this practice of parking in church graveyards is a growing phenomenon, and not one I agree with). Out of the car got a large elderly lady, her asthmatic breathing matching the wheezing arrival of her car. With her was a priest of about forty in black clerical clothes and white collar, longish black curly hair, nervous disposition.
I introduced myself. The priest was a curate in the parish group. The lady was one of the churchwardens (“…but I’m too outspoken” she told me).
We went into the church and the lights were switched on. The place was enormous, smelling of damp, still with that untouched High Victorian feel you sometimes come across (no trendy vicar had been here chucking stuff out and creating spaces for “liturgical dance”). Our voices echoed as we talked to each other.
The churchwarden showed me around. All the time she complained that the concert artistes (which she pronounced exaggeratedly as “arteests”) had not arrived. Several times she told me she was too outspoken.
Despite signs of decay in the fabric and the overpowering musty smell of damp the church was well cared for, the resplendence of Victorian days still maintained. Brass vessels gleamed on the High Altar, loaded with Michaelmas daisies. Instructional and improving pictures hung on the walls at the west end. Over the nave was an angel roof from 1846 (put in after a hurricane tore off the old roof). Autumnal cold filled the building, despite the heating being on. The light outside faded away to darkness behind the Victorian stained glass.
Above: in a corner at the back was a row of little chairs where the Sunday school is held, and on the wall was this sepia engraving of Christ as a child holding a palm leave, surrounded by the animals of the Peaceable Kingdom (based on the Isaiah prophecy: The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them). 
Above: this is an unusual pictorial representation of the Lord’s Prayer. 
Above: normally I am not very good at photographing stained glass, but this one has come out quite well (for some reason it looks still light outside, although at the time it was twilight – possibly the camera has compensated for this). 
Above: this screen of 1911 in the north aisle lists all the churchwardens (as well as incumbents and parish clerks). “Your name isn’t on there” I said to the churchwarden. “No” she said, “I can’t get anyone to do the carving and gilding.”Eventually the “arteests” arrived – an organist and a tenor soloist. An audience of about thirty had by this time gathered. We took our seats and the organist and tenor stood on the overlarge stage while the priest welcomed everyone.
The priest withdrew to a seat in the chancel. The organist went to his place behind the organ screen. The soloist was left on the stage surrounded by the immensity of the Perpendicular gothic gloom.
I was sat near the front, on the left side of the nave. A feature of the church was a series of magnificent medieval “poppy ends” to the pews. Sat by one of these poppies I was screened from view and thought I could have a doze if the concert got too boring. I looked at the tenor soloist on the stage. He was an undistinguished-looking man in late middle age, conservatively dressed, like someone who had spent a lifetime in a minor managerial post in local government. He said a few words in an apologetic mumble, so that I began to think the concert would be a dud.
Above: the tenor soloist on the stage… an undistinguished-looking man in late middle age, conservatively dressed.The concert began, and was of astonishingly high quality. The soloist had an amazing voice - rich, powerful and expressive. The programme lasted an hour and a half, and included pieces written for a swelling organ (ie an organ with a swell box) and a march by Ogden that reminded me of Susan Spain-Dunk.
Above: the programme.
Afterwards the priest thanked the “arteests”. He told a story of a vicar interviewed for a remote parish in the county who had walked out saying the place was too far from Covent Garden opera house. “Tonight” the priest said, “in a way Covent Garden has come to us.”
Teas were served at the back, with sandwiches and cakes.
Above: the Anglican church keeps alive a musical tradition that dates back centuries, but we seem to be seeing this effort beginning to falter. Will it be extinguished in our lifetime? Or will new investment see a revival of Anglican-led village choirs and organ music (the buildings and instruments already exist and are in reasonably good condition – it would not take much money to train choir leaders and endow organ scholarships).
