Breedon on the Hill from the sky

Blogging about the Church Langton Chappie, I mentioned St Mary and St Hardulph at Breedon on the Hill elsewhere in Leicestershire.

This video shows that church, and in particular its remarkable situation.

St Mary and St Hardulph is on a hill - in fact Breedon on the Hill means 'Hill Hill on the Hill' - above the village and above the surrounding countryside. You get good views of planes taking off from and landing at East Midlands Airport.

And, as you will see, that hill is still being quarried away.

If you google videos of Breedon, the first that comes up is of Andrew Bridgen in the churchyard explaining how globalists are poisoning his precious bodily fluids, but I thought I would spare you that.

Saxon sculpture: Meet the Church Langton Chappie

He lives high on the wall of the passage that leads from the chancel to the vestry at St Peter's Church Langton. You have to turn a light on to take his photo - and they ask you to remember to turn it off afterwards.

The guidebook say he dates from the 10th century and likens his style to the Saxon carvings at Breedon on the Hill. Could he be a relic of an earlier church on this site?

The fact that he is wielding a hammer may mean he represents St Dunstan, who is the patron saint of blacksmiths.

Back to St Wistan's, Wistow

Seven years ago I wrote:

St Wistan's, Wistow, has Norman fabric but a pleasing Georgian interior, complete with box pews and plain glass.

I was back there yesterday, and my appreciation of church architecture must have come on because I was positively excited by the Norman arch above. It reminded me of those I saw at Breedon on the Hill.

That Georgian interior now includes a tablet in honour of someone I served on Harborough District Council with: Sir Timothy Brooks.

I wrote about him 10 years ago (note the connection to Iain Duncan Smith).

The old school at Breedon on the Hill

The approach to Breedon on the Hill from the east is dominated by the church on its man-made cliff, but the first thing you see when you arrive in the village is this remarkable Victorian school. Your first impression is that it is forbidding, but it is tamed by further study.

British Listed Buildings gives its history:

The school was built [in 1874] by Charles Abney Hastings as a memorial to his wife, Edith. His name had been Abney but he took his wife's name Hastings either on their marriage or on her succession to the Scottish title of Loudon on the death of her brother, the last Marquess of Hastings. ... 

Abney Hastings was created Lord Donington in 1880. He built this school a year after purchasing the Breedon estates of the 7th Earl of Stamford and Warrington.

Today it is too near the main road the quarry to serve its original purpose and lies empty, but it remains a remarkable building.

The Saxon carvings and Renaissance tombs at Breedon on the Hill

Back to the church at Breedon on the Hill. This is the Breedon Angel, an Anglo Saxon carving believed to represent the Angel Gabriel appearing to Mary.

Great English Churches says it is "secreted away in the bell tower where only the privileged are allowed to see it". Ah, but I turned on the Calder charm and was taken up to see it by the excellent woman who was looking after the church that afternoon.

Other carvings of the period line the walls of the church. As that website says:

There are Greek and Byzantine influences to be seen and all of this should help to give the lie to the suggestion that between the departure of the Romans and the arrival of the Normans poor old England went through artistic “Dark Ages”.

And in the north aisle you can find tombs belonging to the Shirley family, who bought the priory at the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Breedon on the Hill lock up

English Buildings explains:

The lock-up was once a common sight in English towns and villages. The local constable found it useful to have a place where wrongdoers could be detained until the authorities could deal with them and hotheads and drunkards could be locked up until they cooled down. In other words, lock-ups were used in a similar way to the cells at the police station in a time before there was an organized police force.

This distinctive 18th-century lock up can be found in the village of Breedon on the Hill across the road from the pub and beneath the church and its cliff. There is a board outside giving its history and it is kept unlocked so you can go in and experience life as a Georgian felon.

English Buildings describes it:

The tiny, one-room building is all about security. There is a stout door, no windows, and – because tiles or shingles might be removed from inside by an inmate eager to climb out – a solid stone roof. The adjoining wall is part of a secure enclosure or pound, where stray animals could be kept until claimed by their owners.

A Leicester Shire Promotions leaflet reveals that the Breedon lock up is one of five surviving in this corner of South Derbyshire and North West Leicestershire.

St Mary and St Bardulph's, Breedon on the Hill

The Leicestershire and Rutland Pevsner puts it well:

The hill is only 180ft higher than the surrounding country, but the church upon it sturdily dominates the scene, most dramatically perhaps from the immediate E[ast] where the building rises precariously near a huge lime quarry.

Indeed, the church of St Mary and St Hardulph now stands above a cliff. I stood in the churchyard and see the vast cooling towers next to East Midlands Parkway railway station and watch the planes taking off from East Midlands Airport.

What feels like the original path up from the village has escaped the quarrying. The guidebook quotes John Throsby from 1790:

Breedon hill stands on the very edge of Derbyshire; on it formerly stood the village which is now seated at its base. It would make a fat alderman puff and blow to gain the top for a turtle dinner.

The church stands within the remnants of an Iron Age hillfort  on a site has been the site of a hermitage, a monastery and a priory, though by the time of Dissolution the priory was in a poor state.

Today’s church contains parts of the old priory, with the result that it is full of blind windows and doorways, and the outside has the broken ends of buttresses and old rooflines visible. It even has a large porch that you might find in a friendly country hotel.

St Mary and St Hardulph’s is famous for its Renaissance monuments and Anglo-Saxon carvings. It is always open – staffed by local volunteers – and a kind lady allowed me upstairs in the tower to see the best of the carvings.

More about these and the monuments another day.