At Lyme Regis

We took as our text for the day a flier for a pilgrim's tour of ten churches in the Lyme Regis area, listed in a rather curious order, an order which showed no interest or understanding in what might have thought was the well known travelling salesman problem. We had visited one the day before, the old church at Lyme Regis, noticed in the previous post, but we were certainly not going to manage the rest of them in a single day, and in the event we settled on three, with the first up being the Protestant church of St. Giles in Chideock, on the coast road between Bridport and Charmouth.

Ornate crucifix

Ornate dress

Amongst other items of interest, the church included an elaborate crucifix, made I think of mother of pearl and the gift of a sister church somewhere near Turkey. And an elaborate effigy of an important local, wearing clothes which one might have thought were quite possibly anachronistic even at the time it was made. However, reference 3 suggests 15th century, when rich knights did still wear full armour - but there is still room for pretentious, in that it is entirely possible that the knight in question did not go in for battles, preferring to stick to his sheep and other chattels. Liked to think of himself in full fig, but didn't actually do it very often.

East window

In zoom

A rather dark shot of an east window gently patterned in green which we rather liked, with neither the natural nor the zoomed version doing it justice. But with neither knights in armour nor saints in full technicolour.

Graveyard chapel in the Catholic half

Detail

Outside there was a second graveyard to the north, which turned out to be where the Catholics were put - and we got the impression from a Protestant parishioner, an older lady, that tensions were still running high between the two communities, near five hundred years after the break with Rome.

And then we followed a sign to the Catholic Church, maybe half a mile up the road, right up against Chideock Manor, presumably owned by a family of the old faith. Which turned out to be an unexpected bonus, not on our list at all, as once inside we found that it was an impressive 19th century replica - 1874 - of a chapel in Florence. The church of our Lady, Queen of Martyrs, and St. Ignatius, the latter being the founder saint of the Jesuits. Complete with a small museum adjacent telling us about the fate of Catholics in this part of Dorset for the last 500 years or so. See reference 4.

Sanctuary lamp, lit

Nave one

Altar, with cunningly illuminated Virgin behind

Back of altar

It was rather striking how the altar had been designed to be viewed from the body of the church, with round the back being rather scruffy, with this accessibility and visibility of round the back rather detracting from the thing as a whole. To my atheist mind, a considerable loss of integrity.

Nave two, sanctuary lamp left

Some interesting detailing, centre

Recusant family, from the museum

Stained glass, generally good. All in all, a handsome and interesting place. Although hard to see that it would being doing much business, out here in the country, on a Sunday. One might have thought that the days when the tenants and their troops had to follow the squire in were long gone, story lines in 'Midsomer Murders' notwithstanding.

Handsome trees in and around the car park adjoining the church. And what seemed like a very large number of pheasants, all over the place. Was it their last dance before the squire's beaters moved in for the shoot?

To Hell

A lane perhaps named for the religious diversity of the area. But a lane which did not require an uphill, reversing exit as we were able to turn around at the bottom. Nothing like the smelly experience reported at reference 6.

To the Five Bells of Whitchurch Canonicorum for lunch, the nearby church, complete with relics, having been visited earlier in the year. See reference 5. Cheerful landlady, adequate jacket potato.

Wound up the clerical proceedings with a visit to the much newer church - 1841 - at Stanton St. Gabriel, a long narrow place, jammed up against the main road, superseding the alliance with Whitchurch Canonicorum and replacing the much older, now derelict chapel much nearer the sea. Not clear why there was an icon behind the altar.

Home Bible

Interested to see that the Bible provided on the pulpit, in not very good condition had been printed by the Cambridge University printer in 1844, not long after the church was built. With the binding along the same lines, albeit battered, as my handsome Prayer Book, picked up when the second hand book shop in Sunbury was closing. I had not realised that printing Bibles for all and sundry was still thought a proper business of the university printer at that time, thinking that he was fully employed printing learned tomes for the lay members of the university. Geologists, historians, astronomers, mathematicians and people like that.

Possibly the closed bookshop

The closed bookshop might have been the now disused building in the middle of the snap above, which I last remember as some sort of a bistro type place and perusal of old blogs suggests that it has been shut (as a bookshop) at least ten years. A shame, as it used to be an interesting place with an interesting public house (The Bell) more or less next door. A good day out from Epsom.

Back in Lyme, we found time for the visit noticed at reference 7, before taking an entirely satisfactory bar meal in the comfortable main bar at the Royal Lion. In my case, steak and kidney pudding, followed by some of BH's oven chips dipped in the left over gravy. Choice of wine a bit thin in the bar, choice being part of what you pay for if you dine in the grand Oak Room upstairs. Where indeed we have dined, on occasion.

Poster

PS: we had been amused earlier in the day by this old poster, hung up somewhere in our hotel, then seemingly owned by an Irishman. And it seems that going on scenic outings was very much the order of the day, in those days - so things have not changed that much.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/piano-30.html. The piano at Chideock.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/refractory-period.html. The senior moment at Chideock.

Reference 3: https://www.chideockandseatown.co.uk/groups/st-giles-church/.

Reference 4: https://www.chideockmartyrschurch.org.uk/.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/mixed-relics.html.

Reference 6: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/05/clutch-smells.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/10/old-and-new.html.