Rural Life Museum, Glastonbury

Following a service at Wells Cathedral yesterday, I stopped off on the way home at the Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury, which was a big plus on a day when I had only expected to be religious.  Somerset's rural past is evident on display at the museum, including the magnificent Abbey Barn, the centre piece of the site and once part of the medieval Glastonbury estate. 

 

 Chapels and churches have played a big part in the county's history: I came across this undated painting by an amateur hand, which I think once adorned a non-conformist country chapel, possibly not far from Glastonbury itself. Fears for the future of Christianity were very real back in the 1800s as the stark choices show. On the left, 'unbelief' is coupled with the dodgy foundations of the emerging 'new theology' signifying the grim future for the 'lost' who will never know Jesus, while on the right, the heavenly city awaits the saved who build their foundation on 'the precious blood of Christ'. White magician's gloves point in both directions. I wondered whether these gloves are a contemporary reminder of the threat that bygone Glastonbury and its magical past seemed to pose to rural Somerset Christians two hundred years ago. The painting was meant to inspire and encourage Christians to hang on in there, but now, in a museum context, looks a little forlorn, and, dare one say, lost. 

 

 

 

John Batten

I picked up a second hand reprint of a book first published in the late 1800s. Doughty John Batten was a well known figure in Yeovil in the 1800s. A local solicitor, he held lots of public appointments, as well as being deputy lieutenant for Somerset. He was keenly interested in local history, and when nearly eighty years old, published his 'South Somerset Villages'. It's full of detailed and painstaking research, done over many years. Its publication seems to have given its author a new lease of life: he attended the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Meeting in Sherborne in 1896, and read a paper, with those present remembering his vigorous and smart appearance and manner, as well as his clear enunciation 'which would have done credit to a man 20 years his junior'. 

 

Sleeping figures

These days, retired clergy are needed to conduct weddings and I've got a few requests in the pipeline for the summer. I made a foray into one of the churches where I'm to officiate in a couple of months: a little gem called St Andrew's, Brympton, built in warm hamstone and nestling just on the edge of the town of Yeovil. Next to it is a medieval manor house, now used as a wedding venue. There are stone effigies in a side chapel of the church, including this priest and nun; the priest holds a chalice of wine, used at communion, while the nun clasps her hand in prayer. Lovely peaceful faces, yet strangely modern. They were originally sculpted in the 14th century, but were discarded in the churchyard. Thomas Carew, who worked on London's Nelson's Column, was employed to do some restoration work at Brympton in the 1800s, and it was he, apparently, who gave the effigies a make-over. And very successful his face lifts are.