Wrexham County Borough 121 - Holt/Rushbearing and Civil War musket ball holes

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We are in Wales but only just . A few hundred yards down the road is the border . The medieval bridge spanning the River Dee . One side Wales . The other England. From where we were standing we could see England. We also could see the medieval church of St Chads on the other side . It seemed as if each church watched each other from a distance . What history they both told . We had visited St Chads on the English side . Now it was the turn of St Chads on the Welsh side . St Chad was awfully popular on both sides of the river or the congregation of the two churches had not got the imagination to find two different saints to name their churches after. St Chad is extemely popular in the Marches - St Chads Farndon, St Chads Holt , St Chads Tushingham . This Mercian saint seemed to be the go to name for your medieval church.

There are no handy car parks near the church so we parked the car that still does not have a name on the roadside opposite the church. A path leads from the High Street straight to the church door. The remains of the congregation having completed the morning service where ambling home for lunch . .I don't know how large the congregation is now. Numbers have dropped over the years. The stragglers stopped to explain that we were too late for coffee and biscuits . It seems that the coffee and biscuits always followed the end of the hymn singing , the listening to the sermon, the readings and the psalms .

Outside the church door was a bicycle . Covered in flowers it looked lovely . The idea seems to have grown to fill bicycles with flowers. They are appearing everywhere . In gardens, outside the swimming baths . Tied up to trees in the towns square. A novel idea that is rather interesting.

One large bullrush was weaved through the gates . A hint of Rushbearing inside. I asked Glenn had he come across the old service of Rushbearing in Derbyshire ?. No he had not . It seemed that the old ways of well decoration were alive and well in Derbyshire but Rushbearing had never been a feature of church life in that part of England . I knew it from living in Cheshire where the old churches would be decorated at this time of year with Rushes. The rushes were collected from the countryside and carried to the church. The old rushes were collected up and burnt along with the dirt , dust, mice droppings and vermin that had accumulated over the previous twelve months . The new rushes were carefully laid on the floor where they would stay for another year. . The tradition dates back to the time when most buildings had floors made of little more than earth. The collected rushes fulfulled the need for cleanliness. A renewable source that also formed an insulating layer to the church floor . The festival of Rushbearing was well spread out by the Medieval period but had fallen into decline as earth floors were replaced with stone or tile. The festival had died out in some area but had been revived and for that I felt thankful to be able to be part of something ancient..

Inside St Chads there were no rushes on the floor but one singe bullrush was placed at the end of every other pew in the nave. It looked extremely effective . Easy to place them to great effect and easier to clean them out after Rushbearing was over.

As we wandered around the building we realised it seemed smaller than its opposite number across the Dee. Not so high nor so wide . No side chapels nor any large Elizabethan tombs. But it was still an interesting building with pock marked walls where muskets had been fired during the Civil War at its interior walls . None of the stone had been replaced and we were left with the imprints where musket and small cannon balls were fired at the stone .

What other differences were there between the two buildings ? What was similar ? We were soon to find out.

We thought about the master architect who may well have gone from one church committee to the other with a set of plans drawn up. A bit like the salesman with his book of samples . Which building do you like ? This one or that one? Which style suits what you need for worship? This one will be larger and will cost more to build and will take a lot longer to complete. . I could imagine the conversations that must have gone on before the church began to be built .It is extremely difficult not to compare one with the other especially as they are so close to each other .

Both were built in the local red sandstone which does not weather well. The stone is so soft that the rain washes it away . It was never meant to last and probably costs the churches now a great deal of money to repair and replace the weathered stones. Where they are replaced the new stones look quite out of place . Their newness and neatness stand out against the weathered old stones which have mellowed over time. I wondered just how hard it must have been for the quarry to keep up with demand from two churches that were being constructed at roughly the same time .

Holt had been mentioned as early as the 1280's and the current church was dated to construction commencing in 1379. There was no mention of what type of church if any sat on the site of the present building . I would guess there must have been some place of worship as across the border there was a Saxon church on the site of the current building . This was replaced sometime in the 14th century .

So as well as materials being fought over there would be a flurry of activity both sides of the border to attract the best stonemasons and the most able of labourers . A host of other tradesmen would have flocked to one church looking for work and if nothing available would have been directed up to the road to the "other " church. It must have felt very different to Sunday today in Holt. There would have a flurry of activity all the time during daylight hours and the noise of banging and hammering would have been all pervasive . Today Holt was quiet .

.Both churches were built in the Perpendicular style which was the go to building style of the day. .

In the 15th century a little over a hundred years since it was constructed work was carried out by the local Stanley family . By 1732 the rood loft and screen had been removed . All that was left was a small amount of fretwork that once had been part of a much loftier construction. The rood screen was seen as an ancient structure with little purpose in what was considered the modern world of the 18th century . They were torn down as they harked back to the old religion and the mysticism of the clergy . .A Catholicism which was no longer the main sect of Christianity . More open worship was encouraged. So down came the rood lofts and the screens .

Across the river the Barnston family added chapels and monuments . There seemed more money across the border . The whitewashed walls of Holt were cleaned and taken back to the stonework between 1871 and 1873. The stark whiteness of the walls taken back to the mellow stonework which has fared better inside than out. The bells were rehung and a weather van added to the tower in 1897 . Farndon too had eight bells . I imagined them in competition with each other ringing in the changes . Did they still compete with each other bellringing today I wondered ?

A clock was added quite late to Holt in 1902. Unlike Farndon there was no clerestory but there was an interesting feature where the walls were built inward and sloped out of straight to I believe aid stability to the building without the need for arches .

The font dated 1493 was a stunning piece of workmanship . It included the arms of the Bromfield Lordship. A piscina had been moved but was still part of the church fabric and various bronze plates on the wall were dated to 1666.

We wandered around for a while having the place to ourselves . The church donation box was placed at the door so before leaving we dropped in some money . There would never be enough to keep these churches open but whilst they are open we are trying to visit as many of them as possible .

So today was a history lesson in church building , the Civil War and the medieval festival of Rushbearing . I wondered what next week would bring to the table .

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Comments

[Home and Away]

What a coincidence!!!
I just finished reading "The Blazing World" by Jonathan Healey which provides the history of revolutionary England from 1603-1689. This is where I first heard about rushbearing described as a ritual in which youngsters garlanded themselves in greenery and carried rushes to strew across the church floor, followed by games and sports in a local field. The Puritans were strongly opposed to the games and sports on the Sabbath! This probably explains the musket ball holes in the church stone wall.

[JenGog]

Small world indeed
It is indeed a small world Bob . The musket holes in the wall were the Oliver Cromwells Puritans target practicing I believe. The holes in the doors were the places they pushed their muskets throughin order to fire at the advancing Cavaliers . . Across the river in the opposite church in Farndon they stabled their horses before advancing on the Parliamentarians in Wales . A case of the river dividing the families who before the Civil War probably got on very well . There is a window in Farndon- one of very few that depict the Cavaliers who billeted themselves in the church . I have not heard of the children dressing in the green but to be honest a lot of our customs such as well dressing are pagan in origin so I guess this was a practical event but also served both the Christian and the harking back to Paganism and the Druids.