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.
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Denne historien er fra December 13 - 20, 2023 (Double Issue)-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Kitchen garden cook - Apples
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The original Mr Rochester
Three classic houses in North Yorkshire have come to the market; the owner of one inspired Charlotte Brontë to write Jane Eyre
Get it write
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'Sloes hath ben my food'
A possible paint for the Picts and a definite culprit in tea fraud, the cheek-suckingly sour sloe's spiritual home is indisputably in gin, says John Wright
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Plants for plants' sake
The garden at Hergest Croft, Herefordshire The home of Edward Banks The Banks family is synonymous with an extraordinary collection of trees and shrubs, many of which are presents from distinguished friends, garnered over two centuries. Be prepared to be amazed, says Charles Quest-Ritson
Capturing the castle
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Nature's own cathedral
Our tallest native tree 'most lovely of all', the stately beech creates a shaded environment that few plants can survive. John Lewis-Stempel ventures into the enchanted woods
All that money could buy
A new book explores the lost riches of London's grand houses. Its author, Steven Brindle, looks at the residences of plutocrats built by the nouveaux riches of the late-Victorian and Edwardian ages
In with the old
Diamonds are meant to sparkle in candlelight, but many now gather dust in jewellery boxes. To wear them today, we may need to reimagine them, as Hetty Lintell discovers with her grandmother's jewellery
