A Parish Divided (2)

On entering the church of St John the Baptist the first impressions are light and colour. The light was sunlight streaming in (well it was a glorious spring day!) through the six 15^th century windows and highlighting the red and yellow floor tiles of that same century.  Oddly there was a freshness to the atmosphere of this retired place, unlike many dusty churches still in use up and down the land.

Historical delights are found throughout the building, but first mention must be made of the narrow chancel and tiny sanctuary.  The eye is drawn to the delightful 17^th century communion table (a sign of those liturgical times) but in order to reach that sacramental piece one has to walk a memorial stone gauntlet of huge dimensions – all the while treading on the brasses commemorating Robert Russell (d 1390) and John Russell (d 1405.)  Both of these brasses are solidly mounted on Purbeck stone (I later discovered) and watched over by eleven other Russells whose names are enshrined on the walls of the chancel. Yep, this is a Russell church.

 

Turning around as memorial claustrophobia began to set in, and looking down the full length of the nave – past the rows of 16^th century pews and the large Russell family pew (there they are again) – the font becomes the centre-piece. (Norman design, but age?  And it has been relocated at least twice.)  But it is above this stone basin that the real jewel in the crown is found, and one which demands a post of its own.

(To be continued)

A Parish Divided (1)

 

Mention the name Strensham to most people familiar with driving the motorways of England and they will think of the service station on the M5 in Worcestershire.  Now an award-winning and expensive rest-stop filled with McDonalds, Pizza Hut and numerous facilities deemed essential for the modern traveler (even toilets) it was not always so.  The first concrete and glass structure was put up by the Kenning Company in 1962 and swiftly developed the reputation of being the place to go for weak tea and over-priced food which it successfully sustained for two decades. It was then bought by another company who upgraded all services, and then came RoadChef in 2001.  The rest, as they say, is history.

But history began a long time ago in Strensham.  In the ninth century no less, when Streongham (“strong village”) was land and a manor house owned by Pershore Abbey.  Over the next five centuries a thriving community grew up under the patronage of the Russell family, one of Worcestershire’s leading dynasties, and a church was built circa 1370 with nave and chancel, and a tower a few years later.  The parish was dedicated to St John the Baptist.  Fast forward six hundred and forty three years …

Driving the northbound land of the M5 and approaching the Strensham service station the parish church can be (carefully!) glimpsed on a rise to the east.  But the problem is there’s no motorway exit!  The nearest junctions are Worcester South (twelve miles to the north) or a convoluted detour via the M50 to the west, and as you’ve passed that exit by now there’s no looking back!  No, the way to Strensham parish church is not via the motorway but by a more sedate series of country roads from Worcester or Tewkesbury. And therein lies the reason why the parish died a slow death in the 1970s and 80s.  It was literally cut in half by the building of the M5 motorway.

I had learned that St John the Baptist had finally and reluctantly closed its doors in August 1991 citing a decline in the electoral roll and an inability to fund necessary repairs.  The deeds and keys were handed over to the Churches Conservation Trust which still cares for its fabric.  Would the building be open that day I visited in May of this year?  The answer was no, but all was not lost.  As I walked up the surprisingly well-kept path a man riding a tractor in the next field stopped his mechanical beast and called out, “If you want the key it’s hanging on an old brick pillar near the old rectory – down that driveway!”  I thanked him and retrieved an enormous iron key.  The heavy church door opened effortlessly, and a treasure chest was opened!

(To be continued.)

 

A Christmas Past

I’m not sure how we got onto the subject, my mother and I, but it was after dinner a couple of weeks ago when we had cleared the table and the kitchen and were finishing our wine in the living room.  We started talking about Christmas.  Not last Christmas but the first Christmas that we celebrated in Himbleton Vicarage.  So the year was 1959, and naturally I had no recollection of it whatsoever.  My mother on the other hand remembers down to the finest detail it as if it were a mere few years ago.  In particular the gifts of food and drink that were brought up to the vicarage.

Major Rushton was a shy man of few words but famous for his hospitality, (it was at one of his champagne and oyster parties that my aunt Myra got quite tiddly!)  and a man who believed in the generosity of the Christmas season.  So he rang the doorbell, presented a large plucked goose, touched his cap, and left.

Mr Curtis was, by contrast, a man of many words and theological ideas that could only come from a true countryman.  He would reason that the birds’ pausing of their dawn chorus was in order to say Matins.  And who is going to argue with that?  Mr Curtis was the head gardener at Himbleton manor and would shower the vicarage family with seasonal gifts.  Year after year, just in time for Christmas, two barrels of cider would arrive, dry and potent (or so I would later discover.)  My parents were not devoted cider drinkers and so the barrels would stand in the old scullery with enamel mugs hanging on racks above, to be drunk by the numerous tradesmen who came, did, delivered or collected.  And to think that they were always smiling!

That first Christmas Mr Curtis was on a mission and approached my father (who owned a car) with a request.  If my father would drive him to Bromsgrove to pick up a turkey there would also be a bird in it for the family.  A round trip of twenty miles along narrow country lanes? My father agreed and two huge freshly killed and dressed turkeys were collected.  I hope that they had said Matins.

With less drama but with much kindness came the gifts of Mr and Mrs Jenkins who lived in the old rambling cottage halfway up Neight Hill, overlooking the small school. She would clean for us, and instilled in me the love of cleaning brass and silver; and he would do this and that around the garden.  And that Christmas, and for years to come, they would deliver a brace of pheasant and a boiling foul.

All that food for a young family of three!  Such was the generosity of that small rural community in a day where there were no fridges and certainly no freezers.  But also a day when no one in the village ever went hungry or without – for food not eaten or needed was always given away to those who needed it:  the genuinely poor, the sick, the house-bound.  The meat that made the vicarage kitchen table groan was passed on immediately, cooked or not. Old fashioned though it may sound, this was our Christian duty.  How times have changed.  And not just at Christmas.