I posted this a few months ago.

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While at the church I was repeatedly phoned by a withheld number, giving me a stream of abuse whenever I answered. I eventually switched my phone off. It was a most strange thing - an event not repeated before or since.

Fortunately I was tweeting my visit and a kind Twitter user gave me the number of an alternative holder. I was able to obtain the key from friendly Mr Hodgson.

My visit was also notable for the odd encounter I had getting a key. On ringing the key-holder the conversation went thus:

"The key isn't here."
"What do you mean it isn't there?"
"The key isn't here. Tat-tah!"

The phone was slammed down.

Within the last few years a new housing estate has been created. The church now sits within a sea of new builds, right up to the churchyard walls. In some respects the old spoils held more charm than the brash brick buildings of today.

These views no longer exist. The cooling towers were demolished long ago, but even if they were still there, you wouldn't see them.

When I recorded the church in April 2012 it lay surrounded by the remains of industry - the churchyard a tranquil, pleasant place amidst spoils, derelict buildings and views of power station cooling towers.

The mainly Norman fabric was extended in the 14th and 16th centuries, the latter producing the Perpendicular Rokeby Chapel, added by William Rokeby, the rector here before rising to become Archbishop of Dublin. The tower of 1828 had to be truncated in 1935 when it became unsafe.

Phoning St Oswald

St Oswald, Kirk Sandall, near Doncaster, Yorkshire. This is a Grade II* redundant church now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. Its origins go back at least to Domesday, with a legend that the body of the Northumbrian king Oswald rested here after his death in 642.

Certainly lacking the angles, but the shields are the same - the details are lost in the reduced-size images I uploaded but are clear in the original photos.

Oooo. I didn't know this existed. I once had a book on Watts and I don't recall this being listed. I'd say it's a copy. Do you know what material it is made from? It almost looks like artificial stone. Thanks for the image.

References

Wilson, B. and Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England. Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East. (Harmondsworth, 2000), p. 400.

Various on-line sources.

Country Church Monuments Buy Country Church Monuments by Newham, C. B. (ISBN: 9780241488331) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

He married Lady Constance Talbot in 1857. They had no children.

Like his father, who died when William was nine, he was dogged by ill health. He died aged only 37.

Monument number 184 in my book 'Country Church Monuments'.

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William Kerr was born in 1832 and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. A collector of books and art, he was a patron of Watts, and the author of two books: one on Italian medieval art, the other on the Confederacy in America.

Life-size Angels

The memorial to William Kerr, 8th Marquess of Lothian (d.1870), at St Andrew, Blickling (Norfolk), is the work of G. F. Watts. A painter turned sculptor, Watts produced both the recumbent effigy and the life-size standing angels. It is large, eye-catching, and unmistakably his.

Indeed it is. And there are several things like this that I have seen over the years which are not in Pevsner - even the latest volumes.

References

Grössinger, C. "North-European Panel Paintings - A Catalogue of Netherlandish & German Paintings Before 1600 in English Churches & Colleges". London (1992). p. 238.

Additional observation by CBN: In Christa Grössinger's catalogue entry the painting is described as hazy and heavily varnished, with the faces obliterated. Clearly this is not the case now. The panels must have been conserved recently.

The attribution is to an unknown minor artist working in Huguet's orbit, probably in the 1450s. How a Catalan predella ended up in the hands of a London private owner, and thence to a Lancashire church, remains unknown.

The figures are frieze-like, with prominent chins and heavy gold haloes. The compositions find their closest parallels not in the Netherlands but in Catalonia, specifically in works associated with Jaime Huguet, the major Catalan painter of the 15th century.

It is divided by wooden tracery into three scenes: Christ before Pilate, The Man of Sorrows, and The Lamentation. It was bought in 1952 by the vicar, the Rev. Harry Nightingale, from a private owner in London.

An Unusual Treasure in Lancashire

Sometimes the most ordinary churches can contain the most extraordinary things. Such is the case of Christ Church, Walmsley, Lancashire, a church built in 1839. In the south chapel is a 15th-century Netherlandish or North European predella.

...

Rylands, W. H. (ed.). The Visitation of the County of Buckingham made in 1634 (London, 1909). p. 24.

Williamson, E. and Pevsner, N. The Buildings of England. Buckinghamshire (Harmondsworth, 1994). p. 371.

References

Page, W. (ed). 'Parishes : Hardmead', in A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 4 (London, 1927), pp. 362-366.

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Francis married Susan Brocas in 1605. They had two children, Thomas and Dorothy. He died in 1636.

Monument number 220 in my book 'Country Church Monuments'

amzn.eu/d/0iPSWSFi

The conceit of using books as structural elements is rare. It may be seen on the monument to Sir Thomas Bodley at Merton College, Oxford, and that of Sir Henry Yelverton at Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire. Hardmead is humbler than either, but no less charming for it.

By the Book

The monument to Francis Catesby (d.1636) at St Mary, Hardmead, (Bucks), is naïve in execution but unusual in invention. Francis lies as a miniature recumbent effigy, while above him kneel his wife and their two children. The whole family is framed within an architecture of books.

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Williams, W. R., The Parliamentary History of the County of Worcester (Hereford, 1897). p. 93.

Will of Rowland Berkeley: TNA PRO 11/117/66.

Will of Catherine Berkeley: TNA PRO 11/157/38.

References

Brooks, A. and Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England. Worcestershire (Yale, 2007), p. 598.

Cass, F. C., East Barnet (London, 1892). p. 58.

History of Parliament: BERKELEY, Roland (1548-1611), of Worcester.

...

Country Church Monuments Buy Country Church Monuments by Newham, C. B. (ISBN: 9780241488331) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

Rowland was a self-made man - eighth son of a gentry family, successful Worcester clothier, First Master of the Clothiers' Company, and four-time MP.

Monument number 67 in my book 'Country Church Monuments'

amzn.eu/d/0ezrFPwE