DECEMBER 2008 » book review

Houses of God

Harris's Guide to Churches & Cathedrals
by Brian L. Harris
Ebury Publishing, London, UK; 2006
512 pp; hardcover; 131 color images, 54 b&w; $45
ISBN 0091912512

Reviewed by Nicole V. Gagné

"I have been researching and visiting churches for over 50 years," Brian L. Harris announces in the introduction to Harris's Guide to Churches & Cathedrals. But even the most superficial glance at this 500-plus-page tome makes that statement seem almost superhuman: An ordinary person would have to spend closer to 100 years researching and visiting churches in order to write this exhaustive study! However he was able to compile it, Harris has completed one of the most thorough, useful and flat-out interesting accounts of this essential – and all too frequently overlooked – aspect of English history, culture and architecture. Whether you're engaged in historical research or whether you need an authoritative guidebook to take on your UK vacation, you will be continuously thumbing through it.

Harris's Guide offers insightful write-ups of over 500 churches and cathedrals in England and Wales, paying attention to their most unique and unusual features. Harris has organized his book alphabetically by city, from Abbotsham in Devon – where the backs of some of the pews in St. Helen have brass plates from the 18th century, "each differently engraved, indicating where people from every house and farm in the parish should sit" – to Zennor in Cornwall, with its 15th-century bench-end carving of a mermaid with a mirror and a comb – "a very rare depiction for a bench-end." There's also a "County By County Gazeteer" that organizes the lists of cities by their counties, and an index listing all the churches alphabetically by name.

Of course Harris pays special attention to the great houses of worship. More than five pages are devoted to London's mighty Westminster Abbey, the UK's second-largest church. (Did you know that its north transept has a wooden model of the central tower and steeple that had been proposed for the abbey by Sir Christopher Wren but were never built?) York's Minister and Cathedral Church of St. Peter also gets several pages, but how many other sources would point out that it's "the only church in the UK that is allowed to use mistletoe in its Christmas decorations"?

That detail is typical of Harris' keen eye, and he's most observant in his entries on the smaller churches. They're the heart and soul of Harris's Guide, the places that, over the decades or the centuries, have drawn the faithful, not the tourists. It's in those write-ups that Harris' expertise and his love for his subject really shine.

St. Nicholas Church in Moreton, Dorset, was badly damaged by Nazi bombing in 1940 and rededicated in 1950; its cemetery is the final resting place of Colonel T.E. Lawrence, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia." St. Michael Church in East Coker, Somerset, was immortalized in the poetry of T.S. Eliot; the north door, built in the mid-14th century, still has its original lock in working order. St. Olaf in Wasdale Head, Cumbria, nested in the heart of the Lake District, is one of the smallest English churches, measuring some 40 ft. long by 17 ft. wide; one of its windows features a stained-glass lozenge about four inches square with an inscription from Psalm 121 – "supposedly the smallest inscribed glass window in England."

Harris's Guide also includes sidebar pages examining neglected aspects of church design and appointment. A survey of "Stores About Medieval Brass Lecterns" notes the fate of several lecterns that had to be hidden away during England's 17th-century Civil War. Tributes to sculptors John Bushnell (1630-1701) and Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) trace the surviving examples of their work, both sacred and secular, which can still be found in England. An appreciation of church clocks combines history with factoids such as a list of the 22 English churches with one-handed clocks.

There's a detailed look at fan-vaulting as roof decoration. Even the role of vamping horns is discussed, although not without some perplexity: "Nobody knows exactly what vamping horns were used for in churches." There are also accounts of stories associated with wooden effigies, the popularity of the Lily Crucifix, and the importance of bells.

Churches with chapels erected on nearby bridges get their own sidebar, as do those with thatched roofs; with dovecotes; with medieval stone pulpits; with lead fonts; with wooden fonts; with fonts of black basalt made by Josiah Wedgewood (1730-1795), founder of the famed pottery firm; with monumental brasses; with stained-glass sundials; even with stone boards for playing the two-person game Nine Men's Morris (sort of a medieval Chinese Checkers).

"For centuries our parish churches have been an integral part of our national heritage, and with 16,000 ancient churches to choose from, there are infinite treasures to see and appreciate." That description by Brian L. Harris could also be applied to his book, insofar as it too overflows with treasures to see and appreciate. So strong is the spell cast by it, that even if you never visit the UK, you will catch yourself gazing with greater attention and appreciation to the churches in your vicinity, and feeling grateful to the legions of unknown craftspeople who labored to erect and appoint them. TB

«BACK TO DECEMBER 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Have something to say about this article? Feel free to comment!

Comments feed