Burton in Bradford on Avon

The overuse of superlatives is jolly annoying. So after praising the Norman church at Devizes to the skies I’m embarrassed to tell you that Bradford on Avon has a better one.

St Laurence is a Saxon chapel built by St Aldhelm “at the turn of the 8th century and much rebuilt in the late 10th and early 11th centuries”. Thank you Simon Jenkins for this. Jenkins must be right because early Saxon chapels were built of wood and this stone structure is suggestive of Norman architecture.

The exterior has blind arcading. You may not know what this means, I didn’t, but the picture makes it obvious.

It is amazing that it has survived. It owes this to being a school, a house and a warehouse until 1856 when it was found to have been a chapel and was restored. Inside there is a small nave and a tiny chancel.

It is unexpected to find this small, ancient chapel in Bradford on Avon which did not prosper until the 18th century and the wool trade. The merchant princes built beautiful houses which make the town such a gem. Here are two examples.

Even the ATM is guarded by gargoyles. The bridge over the Avon has a  peculiar structure: it is the lock-up where drunks were detained. I hope Ian and I don’t find ourselves inside.

There is a fine secondhand bookshop where I bought The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams. To be frank, I expected it to be a novel but when the proprietor unlocked the bookcase to take out this first (British) edition it turned out to be a play. I snapped it up nevertheless because the 1964 film directed by John Huston and starring Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, and Deborah Kerr is a favourite.