Two failures

At some point after our return from the Isle of Wight, BH read that the stations of the cross for the Catholic church in Garlands Road in Leatherhead had been made in Eric Gill's workshop in Ditchling, under the supervision of the great man himself. See for example, reference 1. So we thought we would take ourselves off there to take a look. Would they look anything like the ones in the very much larger and grander Westminster Cathedral? See, for example, reference 2.

Antepedium, lifted from the church website

The Church of our Lady and St. Peter turned out to be quite small, and closed. But we good look through the glass screen at what looked like a dignified and decent place of worship. With a fine antepedium, that is to say a hanging for the front of the altar, depicting the unity of Mass with Christ and his Apostles. Just about visible in the snap below.

Snapped through glass

Front garden

Accessible books

Side garden

Stations of the cross clearly on a much smaller scale than those in town, but not really visible from the wrong side of the glass. Something to be taken in on another occasion.

But someone had taken a lot of trouble with the small garden, which looked very well. Books were accessible, on our side of the plate glass screen, part of which is visible left in the snap above, but the font and the other church treasures were behind a serious looking grill.

Being closed rather unusual, with our experience being that Catholic churches work hard to stay open, with their being open a lot more often than Anglican churches. But by way of spiritual consolation, we took ourselves off to the old parish church of St. Giles of Ashtead.

I had remembered that one approached through an avenue, but I had not remembered the size and number of trees in the avenue and otherwise about the place, with one or two of them, sadly, deceased.

One of the larger avenue trees

Yew, front

Yew, back

Yew second

Not sure that I had noticed this second yew at the time, but perhaps part of an unconscious prompt for the more serious yew spotting expedition to Newlands Corner which followed, and which will be noticed in due course. At the time, we were more interested in the educational arrangements for the children of the toffs of north Surrey, epitomised by the City of London Freemans, rear left. Up to around £10,000 a term for boarders, plus various extras.

Extensive graveyard

Front door

Unfortunately, the front door was very much shut, so we did not even get to see inside, let alone get inside. But the outing had been worth it for the trees alone.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/ditchling.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/05/cheese.html.