Saint Leodegar

The St Leger has been run on Town Moor outside Doncaster since 1776, or thereabouts. It’s the oldest of the Classics run over a mile, six furlongs and 132 yards in September.

It is part of the Triple Crown; the Derby (1780) and the Two Thousand Guineas (1809) are the other two. These heritage Classics are the only ones open to three year-old fillies and colts. The Oaks (1779) and the One Thousand Guineas (1814) are only open to three year-old fillies. If I may digress, a friend had a runner in the Derby and, when it won, was presented to the Queen. Somebody in the Royal Box asked her husband (my friend’s husband) how old the horse was. I hope the Queen didn’t catch this faux pas, or fox paws as my grandfather said one of the gardeners called it.

But I digress. You probably know the St Leger is named after Anthony St Leger, born at Grangemellon in Co Kildare. He was born in 1731 and Grangemellon was built circa 1780, six years before he died. This is a three-pipe problem that I must turn over to the Irish Aesthete. Anthony St L was no bog rat; Eton, Peterhouse Cambridge, a Major General, an MP and the oldest Classic has been run in his name for nigh on 250 years to boot. But who was St Leger?

Do you remember St Hubert? The chap who chased the talking stag on Good Friday? (If you don’t, read here.) The stag had a crucifix between its antlers and the de la Poers of Gurteen le Poer in Co Waterford have this as their crest.

Likewise the St Legers have a connection with a seventh century saint: St Leodegar (615 – 679, maybe). He was a bishop at odds with the Establishment. His eyes were gouged out and his tongue cut out. As if that wasn’t enough he was subsequently beheaded. In 1458 his feast day was declared a holy day of obligation* but now he is largely forgotten. However, the church of St Leodegarius at Ashby St Ledgers in Northants is named after him and it was our final port of call on Peter Miller’s church sculpture tour. Ashby St Ledgers belonged to the Catesbys until Robert Catesby blotted his copybook participating in the Gunpowder Plot. Then it passed to a rich draper from London, Bryan l’Anson. Let’s look at the monuments to him and his wife and then their son.

He bought Ashby St Ledgers late in life when he had made a name  for himself: Alderman of London and High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. He is depicted kneeling with his wife either side of a prayer desk with his children ranged below. His eldest son, John, is second from the right and dressed like his father but his memorial depicts him very differently.

It is also 17th century but in a very different style; more sophisticated, Italianate and in alabaster. John is a dashing Cavalier; his parents look almost Tudor.

* HOLY DAYS OF OBLIGATION IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH