Ancient Treasure, Living Church
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Ancient Treasure, Living Church A Guidebook to St. Petroc’s Parish Church, South Brent and its stories compiled by Peter Taylor PAGE 1 OF 172 A general view of the interior of St. Petroc’s, with the new lighting installed 2017 ↑ Low Door A Diagrammatic Plan of St. Petroc’s The orientation of the church is not exactly east, but east-by-north, about 11° north of east; this is thought to be in honour of the feast day of St. Petroc on 4th June. PAGE 2 OF 172 Ancient Treasure, Living Church A Guidebook to St. Petroc’s Parish Church, South Brent and its stories Compiled, researched and edited by Peter Taylor PAGE 3 OF 172 © Peter F. Taylor 20/04/2020 16:17:00 THANK YOU for having a look at this electronic draft of what I have been researching about St Petroc’s Church. I shall be very interested in any suggestions for improving the contents, or correcting mistakes. Please use the contact provided on the website to send me a message. Thank you. Peter ### = marker, for REVISION NEEDED ### (Reminder for PT) If names in the index appear in BOLD, this is a glitch as none are set to do so. To remedy, ensure hidden text is NOT being displayed, then save and close the document. Re-open, and with the cursor in the index below, Update it with ALT+S+D. PAGE 4 OF 172 Acknowledgements Any such book as this would be impossible to produce without an enormous quantity of help from other people. The help of many parishioners, including a few now departed, has been essential, but the largest debt is to churchwarden Mr. Greg Wall; his published books on South Brent were the starting point, but then his knowledgeable comments, and his patience with my interminable enquiries, have proved invaluable. Thank you too to those many others who have treated my persistent questioning with kindness; they helped me to gain the knowledge and understanding which is otherwise not easily available to ‘blow-ins’. Special thanks to my wife Joy who has patiently answered “Oh, OK then” to innumerable calls of “I’m just going down to St. Petroc’s for a bit”. After a while, I did learn to add the obviously re-assuring local phrase, “ullbeebaccombdrekly”. I owe a great debt to the professional architects and engineers who accompanied me on countless visits to churches in Essex in the Archdeaconry of Harlow in years past; they taught me to observe carefully in hope of a greater possibility of real understanding. I am also extremely grateful for help in translating the document discussed in Appendix 1, as it is a long time since I tackled much Latin: thanks to John Froggatt for the loan of his Latin Dictionary, and particularly to his long-standing friend Sir Michael Partridge KCB who—when recruited (and somehow persuaded) by John—translated the entire Latin text in one day. I am hugely indebted to Sheila and Peter Finch for proof-reading the early text, and giving many helpful suggestions and much good advice. There are different interpretations possible for some of the features in St. Petroc’s, and so many things still to be understood and added—and probably mistakes to correct … I have changed my mind on several things several times. If you can see items to be put right, or if you can point out further sources or supply further information, please do not hesitate to be in touch with me and corrections can be made. I have found it a huge pleasure to embark on this journey of observation, questioning, discovery, and realisation, which I hope you enjoy sharing. P.T. PAGE 5 OF 172 PAGE 6 OF 172 Contents PAGE Acknowledgements 5 Introduction A Time Machine 8 Prelude The leaflet ‘A Brief Guide to St. Petroc’s Church’ 9 How did St. Petroc’s get like this? — A Detective Story: Chapter 1 The Building we see 14 Chapter 2 The Rood Screen (what Rood Screen?) 34 Chapter 3 A Remaining Puzzle 40 Chapter 4 From the 15th to the 19th Century 43 Chapter 5 Other old Places of Worship: 72 Chapels at Harbourneford, and on Brent Hill; and South Brent Methodist Church Chapter 6 How did the Parish Church system develop in England? 79 Chapter 7 Poor or Rich? Parish Finance, Tithes and Property 84 Chapter 8 People and Memorials—the Inscriptions in church 96 Chapter 9 The Vicars of South Brent and their times 126 Chapter 10 Renovation Work in 2016; and later events 147 Postscript A Church for Today? 150 Appendix 1 The 1559 ‘Composition’ and the Vicar’s pay 152 Appendix 2 Names in the 1842 Tithe Map Apportionments 157 Appendix 3 Altars and Communion Tables 159 References – Books, Sources, and Credits 161 Index 165 PAGE 7 OF 172 Introduction A Time Machine I forget where the idea came from, but it’s useful: you can think of many an English parish church building as a time machine. To get the full benefit, we absorb all the perspectives we can observe, and strenuously attend to each of the dimensions on offer—Past, Present, Future, and Space. St. Petroc’s is of course an ancient treasure, and many people’s first instinct—to concentrate on the past—is perhaps the most obvious. Understandably so, for we do stand to learn much that is fascinating. By observing and reflecting we can begin to appreciate what people long ago thought and did, and to ponder why they did it. But that on its own would be too one-dimensional, too superficial. And anyway, if all we do is look at the past, we are actually going exactly against the mindset of those whose work we observe, since they made changes in their day for their future. They were looking forward, using the space they had, making the changes they needed. Why insist on looking at a photograph only in black- and-white, when full colour is available? Other people more instinctively concentrate on the present; they seem almost to exclude the past in their thinking about a place like St. Petroc’s. They so much love the people and activities connected with the present life of St. Petroc’s; and of course they benefit enormously. As each takes their part in a living church, they feel themselves to be members who—as St. Peter put it all those years ago—“like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house”. This is the purpose of the Church of England’s ministry in every parish, serving and building faith in community. But this idea of St. Peter, that people can be thought of as stones brought to life, points to the third dimension of the church as a time machine. Perhaps in the back of St. Peter’s mind was the great stone that he knew had ‘come to life’, or had at least moved—the huge stone that originally sealed a tomb in a garden, but was rolled away to reveal the Resurrection of Jesus, the key to the future. A clear focus on the future must have been the whole reason for ever building something like St. Petroc’s—whether it was inspired by memories of the sixth century warrior-monk Petroc, or perhaps, as legend has it, he actually founded it and maybe also some forerunner of Buckfast Abbey. People built a church here because they were thinking of tomorrow. They were providing for others as well as for themselves and their own future. But the real inspirational energy comes from seeing the future as God’s future, in realising that time itself—whatever time may be—moves towards a fulfilment beyond anything that humans can achieve. Peter the fisherman of Galilee knew that stones do not live. But there was something about Jesus Christ that had changed him, and he likened it to stones becoming living. It was a bringing of life to what was dead—a Resurrection. Maybe, as we look at the physical stones of St. Petroc’s, we should think of them as looking at us, watching, waiting, wondering if in us is stirring a response to this Loving, Transforming God. This is how a physical church building acts as a time machine. It reveals the past to us, declares the future to us, and calls for change in us—change in our present, change in our time, change in our space. “Ancient Treasure ... Living Church” PAGE 8 OF 172 PRELUDE - A BRIEF GUIDE Prelude The text of the Leaflet “A Brief Guide to St. Petroc’s Church” The text of this prelude chapter is almost identical with the leaflet “A Brief Guide to St. Petroc’s Church” (January 2019 version) which is a free handout available to visitors to the church. Therefore you can use this or the “Brief Guide” leaflet on a short visit, and then read on here in more detail at leisure—and perhaps visit again another day. Historic England lists the “Church of St. Petrock” (yes, they have that, not “Petroc”!) as a Grade I historic monument, List Entry Number 1147794; it was Grade II from February 1961 until amended to Grade I on 28 January 1987. The Index at the end of the book may help find another reference to any particular item. The Parish Church of St. Petroc, South Brent A Brief Guide WELCOME TO ST. PETROC'S We hope this leaflet will help you explore the Church. So, who was St. Petroc? Not everyone has heard of our patron saint, Petroc! He was the son of a Welsh chieftain, who became a priest.