Rothley: The Knights Templar and Mike Gatting

Visiting Gaddesby last year I mentioned the unsubstantiated theory that the Knights Templar from Rothley were responsible for the extraordinary south aisle at St Luke's.

Today I was at Rothley Court Hotel, which includes a chapel erected by the Templars when King Henry lll granted them the Manor and Soke of Rothley in 1231. You can see the chapel foreground of the photograph with the main hotel range further from the camera.

As I also mentioned in that Gaddesby post, the hotel has another claim to fame. It was here in 1988 that Mike Gatting lost the England captaincy because he had a late-night drink in his room with Louise Shipman, a barmaid, during the Trent Bridge test against the West Indies.

Cricinfo reminds us of the wider context. Gatting had alarmed the authorities, first by his on-field row with the Pakistani umpire Shakoor Rana the previous winter and then by publishing his controversial autobiography Leading from the Front. From then on, those authorities were keen to get rid of him.

The story continues on Cricinfo:

Common sense suggested that West Indies would have given the selectors an excuse to sack Gatting sometime during that summer anyway - the draw at Nottingham was never going to be more than an brief interruption to their winning run. His record was poor enough - the two wins in Australia were the only ones in his 23 Tests as captain - and his form with the bat was also on the slide, his average a modest 25.80 since his spat with Shakoor. But common sense at and English cricket have never gone hand-in-hand.

Gatting gave his side of events to the selectors, who were acting on behalf of the TCCB. He admitted taking Shipman into his room but denied anything untoward had happened. Three days after the incident, the TCCB summarily dismissed him.

And then Peter May, the embattled chairman of selectors, offered the media an explanation which left him and his board ridiculed. We don't think he slept with the barmaid, was the gist of May's explanation, but he shouldn't have invited her to his room. Gatting had effectively been sacked for having a late-night drink with a female.

But then Peter May's tenure as chairman of selectors was not a success. You can see why. He once replied to a journalist's suggestion that people thought he was out of touch with "Really? I haven't heard that."

Colonel Cheney's statue in Gaddesby church

This rather horrible statue is the object I went to Gaddesby to see many years ago. It depicts Colonel Cheney who is also remembered by a plaque that sits above in the chancel of St Luke's Church:

In/ affectionate remembrance of/ Edward Charles Hawkins Cheney C.B./ Colonel in the Army/ second son of Robert Cheney Esqr/ of Meynell Langley, Derbyshire: he was born 4th Nov 1778/ he joined as Cornet the Scotch Greys in Holland;/ under the Duke of York 1794; where he was severely wounded;/ and served with honour in the same regiment at Waterloo/ in the battle of the 18th June. Four horses were killed/ and the fifth wounded under him; and the command/ of the regiment devolved upon him./ he married in 1811 Eliza, youngest daughter of/ John Ayre Esqre of Gaddesby;/ and died there 3rd March 1848

I went to see it because of another incident in Edward Cheney's life. He was one of the two Liberal candidates for the Southern Division of Leicestershire - the seat that preceded the Harborough constituency - at the general election of 1841. His fame did not help him: the two Tories were elected and Cheney finished bottom of the poll.

His statue originally stood in the neighbouring Gaddesby Hall and was moved to the church in 1917. As Pevsner said, it is "of a type more suited for St Paul's Cathedral than a village church". The notice that explains its presence to visitors claims it is the only equestrian statue in an English church.

The Colonel is hidden away in the dark chancel: the rest of the church interior is light and a little rough. And the locals do their best to make the statue more homely: the horse's teeth are blackened from the apple that is put in its mouth at harvest festival each year.

Take it away boys...

The dry brick walls of Gaddesby

I went to Gaddesby on Saturday to photograph its remarkable church, but I was also struck by the village's dry brick walls and their distinctive herringbone pattern.

Later that day I saw a short stretch of similar walling in the nearby village of Twyford, but I cannot recall having seen it anywhere else.

As you can see, the natives in Gaddesby are friendly.

St Luke's, Gaddesby

I have visited Gaddesby twice before. The more recent occasion, though it is some years ago now, was to play chess for the Leicestershire in the village hall here. We played most of our home games in the old Leicester City Council staff social club, but for some reason we played our match against Nottinghamshire here.

The hall took some finding today. It is a modern - perhaps 1960s - building on the outskirts of the village. I had no memory of it, but for once I have a clear memory of the game I played there. I was Black in a Modern Defence and the game was a short and violent draw. Afterwards my opponent and I played over it again, both rather pleased at how clever we had been.

The first time I came to Gaddesby was at the height of my interest in local political history. I wanted to see something that was inside the church.

I shall show you that in a day or two, but the point of this posting is the church itself.

Writing of St Luke's, Simon Jenkins says:

The Decorated west end of the south aisle appears to have been designed at the end of a riotous 14th-century party. It is one of the most eccentric compositions on any English church.

What is it doing in an obscure Leicestershire village?

A history of the church, written by Ernest Smith in 1968, gives two reasons. The first is that in the 14th century Gaddesby was a significant market settlement in the most prosperous part of one of England's most populous counties.

The second, intriguingly, is that the living belonged to the Knights Templar at Rothley. (Their chapel is now party of the Rothley Court Hotel, where Mike Gatting lost the England captaincy after entertaining a barmaid in his room.)

It is by no means certain that the Knights Templar were responsible for this remarkable work at Gaddesby, and the new Pevsner for Leicestershire pours a little cold water on the idea in a footnote:

As rectors there is no reason why they should have been responsible for the work in the aisles.

But let's ignore that, because the Knights Templar are good box office.

I intend to write a novel mixing up the suggestion that the Holy Grail is buried here somewhere with speculation about the survival of members of the family of Tsar Nichloas II and the real reason the Titanic sank so quickly.

So enjoy Gaddesby while it is still obscure.