The Church of Our Lady, Merevale, et al

This church is now known as St Mary’s but I have chosen to retain its original nomenclature before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Now it is a parish church but it dates from the 13th century and Pevsner thinks it was  a capella ante portas of Merevale Abbey, a Cistercian house founded in 1148 by Robert, Earl Ferrers.

Often Pevsner is a dry old stick so one must savour his flashes of humour: “the church is approached through a gatehouse so intensely medieval that it is at once recognised as Victorian”.

Pevsner was ambivalent about Victorian architecture, sometimes championing it but recognising its failings. PG Wodehouse’s view, however funny, now seems old-fashioned. “ Whatever may be said in favour of the Victorians, it is pretty generally admitted that few of them were to be trusted within reach of a trowel and a pile of bricks.” (Summer Moonshine, 1938.)

This is an effigy of a knight, as you can see deficient in both the head and foot department. Pevsner rates it of the highest quality, dates it to the second half of the 13th century and notes it is a very early case of crossed legs. He wears chain mail and a windswept skirt. James Miller, in the notes for his sculpture tour, thinks the knight may be William, Earl Ferrers, 5th Earl of Derby (c 1193 – 1254).

There is a chest tomb with alabaster effigies of another William Ferrers and his wife Elizabeth, circa 1440. These sort of monuments are beautifully executed but, more than that, contain a Chaucerian sense of humour; the puppy is guiltily chewing a corner of his mistress’s dress.

Now let’s switch on the sat nav and dash to All Saints in Grendon and admire an alabaster effigy of an unknown lady done around 1450. Perhaps because of her headdress, improbably slim figure and broken nose she appears Egyptian.

Near her is an incised alabaster slab made some hundred years later to commemorate Margaret Chetwynd who died in 1539. This detail is a sad reflection of medieval infant mortality; a still born child lies wrapped beside her.

By now I was getting hungry and thirsty but there was one more to visit before lunch: St Peter & St Paul in Coleshill. There’s another cross legged knight and loads of monuments but the Norman font is what I want to show you.

“An outstandingly good Norman piece of the mid 12th century, drum-shaped, with arcading. In the arcading single figures in very excited Late Norman draperies, with much expressive criss-cross, alternating with vertical scrolls. One only of these is symmetrical in itself. Also the arcading is interrupted on the east side for for a Crucifixus with the Virgin and St John. The Crucifixus is of a type hardly possible before 1200, and a circular band surrounds him which cuts in front of the Virgin and St John, as though they stood behind it.” Pevsner, Warwickshire, 1966.

Pevsner often spots details that are easy to miss if you are thinking about an aperitival pink gin.  I hope you are enjoying James Miller’s sculpture tour as much as I did.

https://youtu.be/oKwSGovRACk