GO into any church and chances are you'll find, hanging from hooks behind the pews, colour-fully embroidered kneelers or hassocks. Many will be patterned with familiar Biblical motifs-a dove, a cross, a cup and so on. Some may have heraldic or royal insignia; others might be considerably more eccentric. In her wonderful new book, Kneelers: The Unsung Folk Art of England and Wales, Elizabeth Bingham offers illustrations of kneelers depicting a de Havilland DH 108 jet aeroplane, a stethoscope, beach huts, the Sizewell nuclear-power station and an oil rig.
Despite the kneelers' richness and diversity, we tend to overlook these often anonymous examples of skill, imagination and pride in community. Instead, we raise our eyes to the stained glass or the spire or the vaulting. The direction of our gaze is illustrative. Whether we've entered the church for devotional reasons or simply out of interest, we are all heirs of a prevailing view that encourages us to look up and to think, to reflect, to use our minds (and our guidebooks), rather than our bodies.
However, unlike the decorated windows or the architectural flourishes or the memorial tablets, these kneelers aren't for looking at (or not merely for looking at): they are useful. The kneelers modestly tucked under the pews are a reminder that we're in the church not only as enquiring minds, but as living bodies, with flesh and blood and creaking knee joints. These days, we're encouraged to 'read' a church as we would a text. Richard Taylor's 2003 book How to Read a Church makes no mention of kneelers in all of its nearly 300 pages.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
