Church porch

“ Large is the church, noble of line, rich of sculpture, fronted by a large, covered porch supported by stone pillars richly carved. Like the interior of the building, this porch is decorated all over with frescoes, artless of conception, archaic of design, and harmonious, the colour having been toned down by the hand of time.
Within, the church is high, dim, mystical, entirely painted with strange-faced saints, who stare at one as though astonished to be disturbed out of their lonely silence and peace. ”

“ The shadows lay sleeping under the trees, and a family of cocks and hens went plodding inquisitively to and fro among the cabbages in the adjacent field. Just beyond the moat, with only this field between, stood a little solitary church—a church with a wooden porch, and a quaint, bright-red steeple, and a churchyard like a rose-garden, full of colour and perfume, and scattered over with iron crosses wreathed with immortelles. ”

“ Annually numerous tourists visit this village to see its very remarkable ecclesiastical monuments, its church, porch, sacristy, calvary, and the little Chapel of Ste. Anne. The porch rivals that of Bodilis and Landerneau. The doorway into the porch has a series of biblical scenes in sculpture in the mouldings. The date is 1617. The voluted keystone alone proclaims the abandonment of Gothic for Italian architecture. To the west side of the porch is attached an ossuary, the roof supported by columns. ”

“ Peering through the railings on the side nearest the river, you will see beneath the shadow of the soot-grimed church’s soot-grimed porch—that is, if the sun happen, by rare chance, to be strong enough to cast any shadow at all in that region of grey light—a curiously high and narrow headstone that once was white and straight, not tottering and bent with age as it is now. ”

“ The buttresses of the porch have slender shafts at the angles, which are finished off with foliage of a remarkably free and graceful kind; it should be noticed as an example of those subtle touches that are so abundant in this porch. On the buttresses are pinnacles with an arcade, at the top of which little openings cast a shadow that gives a lightness to the whole effect. A smaller pinnacle is at the apex of the gable, and underneath it an ornament of twisted foliage. ”

“ Outside, this end of the church rises far above the nave, which looks merely like a long porch leading to it, with a small and curious romanesque porch in its own south flank. The transepts, shallow but very lofty, display to the spectators in the place the reach of their two clere-storey windows, which occupy, above, the whole expanse of the wall. ”

“ The church porch has, in fact, always been a favourite resort for the performance of certain business. In 1610, we hear of mortgages being paid off in the South porch of Ecclesfield church, near Sheffield. Welsh instances prove that rent for lands was sometimes brought to the church porch. Mrs C. King Warry, who has made a careful study of the folk-customs of the Isle of Portland, describes a practice which helps{156} us to realize the business methods of our ancestors. The practice, which exists to-day, is a survival of the old pre-feudal mode of conveyance by “church-gift.” ”

“ In proof of the idea being current among the lower orders, that the church porch is a place of refuge for any houseless parishioners, I beg to state that a poor woman of the adjoining parish of Langford, came the other day to ask whether I, as a magistrate, could render her any assistance, as, in consequence of her husband's father and mother having gone to America, she and her family had become houseless, and were obliged to take up their abode in the church porch. ”

“ The exterior of the church is exceedingly simple. There are doors at the west end and in the west bay of the north aisle. In front of the former there was a groined porch, of which a small portion of the springer for the groining on one side only remains; this was brought to light by the removal of a brick porch which had been erected in its place. ”

“ The North Porch, which no doubt from the days of its erection in the fourteenth century has formed the chief entrance into the church, is opposite to the westernmost Norman bay of the nave arcading. The porch itself is vaulted in two bays, the vaulting springing from slender shafts of Purbeck marble which rest on the stone seats on either side of the porch. The bosses in which the ribs meet are carved with foliage. Over the porch is a small room to which no staircase now leads ”

“ The porch and inner doorway are of a pointed style. Inserted in the north wall, one within and one without the church, are two small stones with inscriptions, evidently of great antiquity; but the letters, partly illegible from age, are wholly so, except to those conversant with ancient characters. Against the south wall is a consecration-stone, precisely similar to that of Corhampton, but in better preservation, it having been secluded from the weather by the porch. ”

“ There is, indeed, nothing in the west façade to compel admiration, and yet there is a fascination about it that to some will be irresistible.
A sixteenth-century porch, of suggested Burgundian style, forms the main entrance to the church, and is situated midway along the south side. Almost directly opposite, on the north, is the curiously contrasting feature of a crenelated battlement, a reminder of the time when the church was doubtless a temporal as well as a spiritual stronghold.
The interior, as the exterior, is gloomy and melancholy. ”

“ On this western side, too, the foliage which fills the spandrels of the lowest arcade is at its best; it is indeed the purest and truest piece of decorative work in the whole cathedral. Each moulding in this beautiful porch, from the filleted ribs of the groins to the bands round the shafts, and the moulded edge of the stone bench, is most carefully thought out, and adapted to its position, in a way that every architect will appreciate. ”

“ The old porch by which we went in, black, and full of holes as a cullender, was worn out of shape and deeply furrowed at the sides (as also was the holy water stoup to which it led us) just as if the gentle grazing touch of the cloaks of peasant-women going into the church, and of their fingers dipping into the water, had managed by agelong repetition to acquire a destructive force, to impress itself on the stone, to carve ruts in it like those made by cart-wheels upon stone gate-posts against which they are driven every day. ”

“ The northern porch is the only place in which the pointed arch appears, and it seemed to me to be of the fourteenth century, though the doorway is of Lombard character, with very quaint but poor carving in its tympanum, of Our Lord with the four Evangelists. The whole church is built of stone, and has a Classical want of life and vigour which one notices only too often in the best Lombard work. Were it not for the building attached to its north-east angle, I suspect the general impression would be much less agreeable than it is. ”

“ Butch Bosworth and Dick Bissell took a turn past the Baptist Church and, observing the sexton on guard before the door, passed on. At the Presbyterian Church they found the coast apparently clear. The porch was vacant, and there was no light to be seen inside. ”

“ Stone porch, Wotton church, Surrey. The inner doorway dates from c. A.D. 1200, but the porch itself belongs to the 13th or 14th century. Internal measurements, 14 ft × 11 ft approx. The outer doorway and the inside arcade are modern restorations. The barge board is of the Decorated period.
Hope and Tideswell, the former existence of the porch-school rests on tradition alone. But John Evelyn, referring to the year 1624, says definitely that “one Frier taught us at the church porch at Wotton,” in Surrey [366] . ”

“ Standing inside the south porch and near the tower, and looking up the church, you get a most picturesque effect, for the church has so many aisles that you can see no less than twenty-three different arches. The north porch is handsome, and had three canopied niches over both the outer and the inner doorway, and a vaulted roof supporting a room over the entrance. A five-light window over the chancel arch is curious. There is a rood-loft and a staircase leading to it, and going on up to the roof. The Perpendicular west window is very large and has seven lights. ”

“ I said that the church was built on a rock, and its western face, forming one of the principal streets of the city, is so steep as to consist alternately of steps and inclines, until, at a short distance in advance of the west front, it is changed to an almost interminable flight of steps. The grand west entrance is an open porch, like an enormous crypt, beneath the three western bays of the nave and its aisles, whose walls and piers it reproduces in its plan. ”

“ The mouldings here are all decidedly characteristic by a later—probably fifteenth-century—vaulted porch, which occupies the space between two added chapels. The effect is very good and picturesque.”
The transept doors are also very fine, especially the southern one. The cornice is beautifully sculptured and the wheel window above reveals in its details the influence of the Italian Romanesque. These entrances make us regret the effacement of the west porch, which is concealed by the vast square cloister covering that side of the church. ”

“ The most effective of the porches is that on the west front, just north of the tower. It appears to have been built after the nave was finished, and may have been added expressly to provide a more dignified entrance to the church when Henry VI came in state in 1451, for it faces directly up the nave. The groining with cusped panels and numerous bosses has escaped restoration. The five niches above the porch are statueless, and so are those on the porch front. May they long continue so! ”

“ The porch is rather long, though not proportionally wide, and more than commonly lofty, the ancient beams and kingposts seeming quite sound. The church door is not opposite that of the porch, but rather on one side, and likewise is narrow. The nave is small. The chancel is in two divisions; the eastern, projecting as usual beyond the nave, is evidently that of the original Norm. structure, but its termination is square, not apsidal. A string course runs round the interior, which has clustered columns in the angles, as if a groined roof had been contemplated, but it never was completed ”

“ There is something curious, too, in the severe plainness of the tower that almost suggests the unnecessarily shabby clothing worn by some men whose wives are always to be seen in the most elaborate and costly gowns. Internally the church shows its twelfth century origin, but all the intricate stone-work outside belongs to the fifteenth century. The porch which is, if possible, richer than the buttresses of the aisles, belongs to the flamboyant period, and actually dates from the year 1496. ”

“ The front entrance archway has highly enriched spandrels and two lateral octagonal staircase buttress turrets at the angles. These have glazed windows in the upper portions, forming a picturesque lantern to each. This outer porch consists of two stories, the lower of which is formed by three wide, open arches, springing from four piers at the extreme angles, two of which are united with the staircase turrets, the others with the ends of the old porch. The upper story, containing an apartment, is sustained on a vaulted and groined roof, and has three large windows, with elaborate tracery. ”

“ Entering the park, almost immediately by the disputed ground, we pursued a pleasant footpath winding among the verdant turf and the beautiful trees, until it brought us to the church porch.
The congregation was extremely small and quite a rustic one, with the exception of a large muster of servants from the House, some of whom were already in their seats, while others were yet dropping in. ”

“ The staircase continues within the porch, where it divides, leading on the left to the cloister, on the right into the church. The doorway of the south transept is sheltered by a fine Romanesque porch. The isolated bell-tower (184 ft.) , which rises behind the choir in seven storeys, is one of the most beautiful examples of the Romanesque transition period. The bays of the nave are covered in by octagonal cupolas, the central cupola forming a lantern. The choir and transepts are barrel-vaulted. ”

“ These have louvred windows to the bell-chamber, and a quaint metal weather-vane atop; to right and left range the lichen-clad roofs and walls of the main structure; while a lofty and massive porch stands bol [Pg 91] dly out, enclosing a rambling stairway that leads to the tower. The foreground is occupied by crumbling headstones, wreathed in ivy and decked with flowering creepers; and a shapely churchyard cross rises beside our pathway.
Nor does the interior of the church prove a whit less interesting. ”

“ Certainly nowhere in England, possibly nowhere in the world, is there to be seen so fine a porch. "Perhaps the most gorgeous porch of this style in existence is the Galilee at the west end of Ely Cathedral: this magnificent specimen of the Early English style must be seen to be duly appreciated; it combines the most elegant general forms with the richest detail; a very happy effect is produced by the double arcade on each side, one in front of the other with detached shafts, not opposite but alternate."8 Each side, externally, is covered with lancet arcading in four tiers. ”