Broadway Folly and the quiet village of Stanton

The 'Broadway Folly` was the brainchild of Capability Brown and designed by James Wyatt in 1794 in the form of a castle, and built for Barbara, Countess of Coventry in 1798–1799. The tower was built on a beacon hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered whether a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester — about 22 miles (35 km) away — and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. Indeed, the beacon could be seen clearly!

Nowadays the tower is a great tourist attraction for the area.

The view from the ground level near the tower. From the top it must be magnificent but having to book, and pay a small fortune, puts us off from going to the top. Mind you, the number of steps might have swayed us as well!

On to the small village of Stanton and a look at its church of course.

A view of the main street in Stanton and an individual house near the edge of the village. I just love these quaint and sleepy villages, this one being no exception.

This is the church of St Michael in Stanton.

Inside - and a startling view as there is a Rood in the position where virtually all churches had them until the Reformation. The religious frenzy that followed destroyed most of them, however, on examination I found out that this one is quite modern, having been erected as a World War memorial to the fallen soldiers. Great idea.

It seems possible that a Saxon church on the present site was served in early times by the monks of Winchcombe Benedictine Abbey, as the Manor, tithes and patronage of Stanton were bestowed on the Abbey by Kenulf, King of Mercia in 811 CE. Unfortunately, most records were destroyed in the disastrous fire at Winchcombe Benedictine Abbey in 1151 CE.

The reredos, by Sir Ninian Comper, also commemorates casualties of the First World War and dates from 1915 CE. The alabaster figures represent the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, St. Michael and St. Barnabas (Patron Saint of Snowshill). 

The Gothic pulpit (c. 1375 CE), now used as a lectern, is interesting, because it was unusual for the clergy to preach from a pulpit in church at that time, the village cross being used for that purpose. 

In the North transept is a passage squint - such passage squints are rare. This a small church tucked away but with a huge history just waiting to be discovered.

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Chipping Camden

Chipping Campden High Street is one of the most beautiful in the Cotswolds. With a wealth of history and architecture mostly built in Cotswold stone, the High Street is riddled with history, heritage, and intrigue. It was laid out in this format by Hugh De Gondeville, a close friend of King Henry II, so that is around mid 12C. De Gondeville quickly realised that the town needed a market to improve revenues for the King. So having been granted the Charter by the King, he set about laying out the street in the burgage style you see today. (A burgage was a town ("borough" or "burgh") rental property (to use modern terms), owned by a king or lord. The property usually, and distinctly, consisted of houses on a long and narrow plot of land)

The word “Chipping” is derived from the anglo-saxon word “Chepping” meaning “market”. Hence, we find Chipping Norton, Chipping Sodbury etc. This was also the derivation for “Cheapside” the big market in London.

Sir Baptist Hicks (1550/51-1629) was a very wealthy London merchant who gained a knighthood and other honours from James I, presumably because he loaned the king thousands of pounds when he came to the throne in 1603. He owned land and property all over England and acquired the Manor of Campden in 1612.

He made many benefactions to Campden including the Almshouses, the Market Hall and gifts to the Church which included the pulpit and the lectern.

From the church, you can see the ruins of Campden House, a large country mansion and formal gardens built by him in around 1612. Sir Baptist Hicks died in 1629 and bequeathed Campden House, Campden and all its contents to his elder daughter Juliana, who had married Lord Edward Noel in 1605.

Campden supported the Royalist cause but being so close to the crossing of two important routes – one used by Parliamentarians and the other by Royalists – things were rarely quiet. In January 1645 Colonel Henry Bard and his three hundred troops occupied Campden. Bard reported to Prince Rupert that he had arrived at ‘Cambden House, with my forces’ and they were ‘taking great pains, with spades, mattocks, and shovels’ to fortify the house. But in May that year, the garrison was withdrawn and marched westwards to Evesham where they joined the King’s army on its way towards Worcester. Before leaving, the house, built less than 40 years before, was set on fire and burned to the ground on the orders of Prince Rupert, it is thought.

It was in 1627 that Sir Baptist Hicks built a market hall on the High Street of this pretty north Cotswold town. The hall was intended to provide shelter from the elements for merchants and farmers selling goods like cheese, butter, and poultry (not, as you might think, wool). The side walls were open arches to allow light, and customers, access to the market stalls. 

The floor of the market hall was made of simple cobbles, now worn smooth by the passage of time and thousands of feet. The building is listed Grade I for its historic importance.

Some of the ruins of Campden House, as seen from the church.

The Grade II listed entrance gates to Old Campden House

Sir Baptist Hicks had the Almshouses built in 1612 at a cost of £1,000 to provide accommodation for six poor men and six poor women who were allowed a weekly allowance of 3s. 4d. and “a frieze gown and a ton of coals and a felt hat” annually.  They still provide homes for twelve elderly people and remain much as they were, apart from the addition of a modern kitchen and bathroom rather than the original “one up, one down” layout with a shared outside privy!

In the centre of the main block of the Almshouses is this carving of the coat of arms of Sir Baptist Hicks, with its Latin motto Nondum metam, which means something like – ‘I have not yet reached my goal’ or ‘I am not yet finished’.

At one point in the High Street, we found something I had never seen before. In fact, I had not heard of them either. It was a Cart Wash.

The cart wash is located opposite the Almshouses. It dates from the early 1800s and replaced a pond at the bottom of Church Street, originally used for the purpose of allowing a cart to wash its wheels and stand in water, so that wooden wheels could expand in dry weather and remove the mud in severe weather. If wheels were allowed to dry out the spokes loosened and the iron tyres on the wheels would fall off.

The Anglican Church of St James at Chipping Campden was built in the 15th century incorporating an earlier Norman church. It is a grade I listed building. The influence of Sir Baptist Hicks can be seen here.

This tomb of Sir Baptist Hicks and his wife is possible one of the largest I have ever seen in a church.

Sir Baptist Hicks gave money for the pulpit and lectern and gave £200 to re-roof the nave.

So, to finish, an image of a newer property, made to blend into the area.

Overall, a wonderful place to visit with all its history. Lunch was had in a pub/ cafe overlooking the High Street. A wonderful way to finish our visit.

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Sudeley Castle & Gardens

With royal connections spanning a thousand years, Sudeley Castle has played a significant role in the turbulent and changing times of England’s past. Today Sudeley Castle remains the only private castle in England to have a queen buried within the grounds - Queen Katherine Parr, the last and surviving wife of King Henry VIII – who lived and died in the castle.

Henry himself, Anne Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, Queen Elizabeth I and Richard III have all played a part in Sudeley’s story. King Charles I found refuge here during the Civil War, when his nephew Prince Rupert established headquarters at the Castle. Following its ‘slighting’ on Cromwell’s orders at the end of the Civil War, Sudeley lay neglected and derelict for nearly 200 years.

Then in 1837, Sudeley was rescued by the wealthy Worcester glove-makers, brothers John and William Dent, who began an ambitious restoration programme, which was continued by their nephew, John Coucher Dent, when he inherited the castle in 1855. His wife, Emma Brocklehurst, threw herself enthusiastically into Sudeley’s restoration, at the same time forging strong links with the nearby town of Winchcombe. It is the results of Emma’s dedication that are so evident in the gardens and exhibitions at Sudeley today.

Sudeley Castle & Gardens is now the home of Elizabeth, Lady Ashcombe, and her son, daughter, and their families. The family is committed to the continued preservation of the castle, its treasures and the ongoing restoration and regeneration of the gardens.

(Just in case you were wondering `Slighting` is the act of deliberately damaging a high-status building, especially a castle or fortification, which could include its contents and the surrounding area)

Two views of the Castle today

New for 2022 was the Sculpture Safari, a display of camels, crocodiles, elephants and at least one owl, but more apparently dotted around the garden. All made from wood and extremely life-like.

These two looked a bit hungry so needed feeding. 

The Pheasantry at Sudeley houses a collection of 16 rare and endangered species of birds from around the world as part of Sudeley’s programme of breeding and conservation. Wandering around these, some of them were recognizable, but there were some I had never seen, or indeed heard of before.

Fairly common I am sure, but I loved this colourful specimen.

Then, in common with many grand houses of this era, we came to the church. This has quite a history and one very surprising story. 

On the death of Henry VIII, Katherine and her new husband Thomas Seymour arrived at Sudeley Castle in June 1548; the dowager queen had her ladies at her side, along with Thomas’ young ward, Lady Jane Grey. Having been delivered of a girl, who the couple named, Mary, on 31 August, the dowager queen soon showed the deadly signs of the dreaded puerperal fever. Katherine lingered for 5 days as infection ravaged her body, causing multi-organ failure. She died in the early hours of Wednesday, 5 September.

And so, Katherine lay in her grave, encased in a lead coffin, embalmed in cere cloth and undisturbed as the seasons, then the years came and went. Her husband went to his grave, executed for treason a few months after Katherine died; at some point, her infant daughter disappeared from the records and, in time her siblings, friends and family also died.

Nearly 100 years later, and the country was tearing itself apart in its Civil War between Royalist and Parliamentarian forces. Sudeley, on the side of the Royalist faction, was slighted in 1643, and subsequently abandoned for around 200 years. The once beautiful castle began to fall into ruin as the walls began to crumble, and ivy grew up around the ruins. 

Agnes Strickland, a nineteenth century antiquarian, who detailed the lives of the Queens of England, gives a unique account of the rediscovery of Katherine’s body some 200 or so years later. Writing around 50 years after it was first rediscovered, she writes that the queen’s body had originally been buried on the north side of the church, near the high altar, within the altar rails. Reading an account of this, in May 1782, a group of ‘lady sightseers’ arrive for a day trip, determined to examine the ruins of the chapel. We can only imagine the moment; making their way through rubble, exploring the derelict walls covered in brambles and ivy, one of them notices a ‘block of alabaster, fixed into the wall of the chapel’.

They enlist help to dig below the panel and discover a lead coffin, buried not a foot beneath the ground. Driven by curiosity, they make two openings in the ‘leaden envelope’, which encases Katherine’s body: one over the face and another over the breast. They find that she was wrapped in layers of cere cloth. They are utterly shocked to discover that the queen’s face, ‘particularly the eyes, [are] in the most perfect state of preservation’. Can you imagine it? It is the find of all finds! However, they are unnerved by their discovery and the smell coming from the cloth, so they order earth to be thrown back immediately into the leaden coffin, without closing the holes they had made. Nevertheless, they had seen enough of the inscription to convince them that it was Queen Katherine.

In the same summer, a ‘Mr. John Lucas’, said to be the person who rented the land on which the chapel stood, again removed the earth from the leaden coffin and ripped up the top of the coffin. He claimed that Katherine’s remains were ‘entire and uncorrupted’, and after making an incision in the layers of cere cloth covering one of the former queen’s arms, found that her flesh was still ‘moist and white’.

For two years, Katherine’s body remained undisturbed. Then, in the spring of 1784, ‘ruffians’ took the corpse out from the coffin and had it ‘irreverently thrown on a heap of rubbish and exposed to public view’. Strickland relates that an old woman, present at the event and who saw the corpse, reported to a friend of Miss Strickland’s that: ‘…the remains of costly burial clothes were on the body, not a shroud but a dress, as in life; shoes were on her feet, but very small and all her proportions extremely delicate; and she particularly noticed that traces of beauty were still perceptible in the countenance, of which the features were at that time perfect…’

Of course, exposure to the air began to accelerate the corpse’s decay. Katherine’s body was rescued and again reinterred, only to be exhumed once more in October 1786 for a formal autopsy. By this time, the face was totally decayed, and the teeth had fallen out. The corpse was described as ‘perfect’, but out of ‘delicacy’, it was not uncovered. The report stated that: ‘The cere cloth consisted of many folds of linen, dripped in wax, tar and gums, and the lead [coffin] fitted exactly to the shape of the body’. It concluded that ‘The queen must have been of low stature, as the lead that enclosed her body was just five feet four inches long’.

For some while, the body lay buried under the floor of the abandoned ruined chapel, which was at one time (as reported by Strickland) used to keep rabbits which ‘make holes and scratch very irreverently around the royal corpse’! Agnes Strickland lamented the lack of a proper resting place and monument for the long-dead queen.

Eventually, however, in 1817, Katherine’s remains were sealed in the stone vault of the Chandos family. Then, in the mid-nineteenth century, the architect George Gilbert Scott was employed to restore the chapel, which was completed and re-dedicated in 1863, some 20 years after Miss Strickland wrote her account. Scott designed a magnificent, canopied tomb with a recumbent effigy of the queen, made of white marble, and carved by John Birnie Philip. Now, a major attraction for the Castle.

 The tomb of Katherine Parr in St Mary`s Church, Sudeley Castle. Quite a story, and well worth going to see.

Something else of interest amongst the many others at Sudeley Castle, was the ruins of a huge Tithe Barn

Now in ruins obviously and built in the second half of the C15. A tithe barn was a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing rents and tithes — one tenth of a farm’s produce which was given to the Church. Tithe barns were usually associated with the village church or rectory and independent farmers took their tithes there. The village priests would not have to pay tithes—the purpose of the tithe being their support—and some had their own farms anyway, which are now village greens in some villages.

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Upper and Lower Slaughter, then on to Wych Rissington

The three villages to visit today were in close proximity and just required judicial parking, and some walking - no problem, we thought! We aimed for Lower Slaughter, which was not a huge distance from Stow on the Wold, as our starting point.

The village is built on both banks of the River Eye, a slow-moving stream crossed by two footbridges, which also flows through Upper Slaughter. There is a ford where the river widens in the village and several small stone footbridges join the two sides of the community. While the mill is built of red brick most of the 16th and 17th century homes in the village use Cotswold limestone and are adorned with mullioned windows and often with other embellishments such as projecting gables.

The water fountain in the heart of the village

The river Eye

At the west end of the village there is a 19th-century water mill with an undershot waterwheel and a chimney for additional steam power.

From here we headed across a field to Upper Slaughter, passing this gate with a plaque on it which conjured up some memories.

Memories of past tragedy.

Across the river into Upper Slaughter - love the bridge!

Very narrow, as you can see. 

We made a bee line for St peter`s Church where there has been a church since at least the 12th century, and possible as early as the 11th century. The first rector is recorded in 1251 and appears to have been an Italian.

 

St Peter does seem to have had some interesting rectors over the centuries; In the 14th century, three rectors in a row had permission to be absent from the benefice (i.e. they were absentee rectors).

Later that century the rector was a notable 'Chop church', that is, he was known to exchange benefices with other rectors. 'Chopping' was the practice of buying and selling benefices to the highest bidder, or in some cases, trading benefices between rectors for personal gain. No wonder the church was so rich in that era!

The tower of St Peter is built into the south-west corner of the nave, while the north aisle runs the entire length of the nave. Most churches have the tower on the west end. Saxon stonework is incorporated into the lower part of the tower's west wall.

The lovely altar in St Peter`s Church

Under the tower arch is a deeply cut 15th-century font. It is so large that it may have originally been a 12th-century tub font, cut down in the late medieval period to its current shape. The carving is very worn, which is not surprising when you consider that from 1877 it stood in the churchyard for 20 years before it was brought back inside the church.

So, back to Lower slaughter and a short drive to Bourton-on-the-Water, and from there a walk to Wych Rissington.

 

The start of the pathway leads to open fields. About one and half miles I believe.

We arrived at another pretty Cotswold village - Wych Rissington

So peaceful. We saw just one car as we walked the length of the village to the church.

The Victorian drinking fountain on the village green. Also used as a place for memorial flowers to be placed today.

St Laurence’s Church dates from the 12th Century. The tower, though short, rises in four diminishing stages, with a doorway in the first, a lancet in the second, and small lancet bell-openings in both the third and the fourth. It is very noticeable that as you approach the church, it has a very squat appearance.

One claim to fame for this church was that Gustav Holst, the celebrated composer, fresh from school in Cheltenham, was an organist here in 1892/3 and the organ he used is still in use. How about that for fame! Although there were doubtless many interesting things about this church, this fact for me was one of the best.

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