Holiday Churches

I didn't get into a huge number of churches while I was in Yorkshire, but here are three of the more interesting. 

Firstly, St Andrew's Boynton, right next to the Hall on whose estate I was staying; a typical little village church from the outside, but within, distinctly unusual. There are those green pews, for a start, virtually unique as far as I know. Even more oddly, until the 1930s they faced inward, so worshippers at Boynton looked at one another across the nave aisle as though they were part of a college or monastery. Then there's the arrangement of pillars around the altar, forming a sort of integral baldacchino though I very much doubt that was the intended effect: Pevsner describes them as 'Gothick' although they have more of an Egyptian feel to me. Finally, the whole area east of the altar is a private memorial chapel to the Hall, and inaccessible from the rest of the church: you can only get in via an external door.

Next, St Mary's, Lastingham. This church is small, but massive, piling up in stages on a hillock to one side of the village. The space for the congregation is quite limited but the building is strangely lofty, albeit combining its spaciousness with the dark majesty of Norman churches. It has a Byzantine feel about it. Beneath the church is one of this country's ancient church crypts, a thousand and more years old. 

Finally, St Patrick's, Patrington. I was on a journey down through Holderness to Spurn Head and not intending to visit this church at all - I merely spotted it from the road and thought it was worth a look, mainly because of the unusual pillared coronet around the steeple. And so it proved: 'the Queen of Holderness', this church is referred to, far too grand for the settlement Patrington now is but most appropriate for a one-time important market town in a rich agricultural and trading area. Its gorgeous Decorated stone vaulting creates a sense of unity you rarely find in English churches, developed as they have over long periods of time. It has never been significantly altered or restored; it houses an Easter Sepulchre and a remarkable number of gargoyles.

As I went up the churchyard path to St Patrick's I looked at that stunning spire and noticed there was a solar halo exactly centred on it from where I stood. It was still there when I came out, slightly reeling from architectural sugar-shock.