Church Micro 3788...Strelley Traditional Geocache
Church Micro 3788...Strelley
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A nice little church in Strelley village. There is limited parking at site and a chance of being muggled due to local residences and traffic to local farms and Strelley Hall. Care should be taken if caching with kids - the village may seem sleepy but cars race along this little road faster than necessary. This is also a good place to start for other nearby caches including "A Bridge 2 Far", "A Christmas Carol" & "PJs morning walk" series.
Our very 1st Church Micro!
Strelley's All Saints Church is a Grade I listed building in the village of Strelley. The oldest part of the Church is the tower, with a 12th century lower stage, which continued upwards at different dates. The rest of the Church was entirely rebuilt in the 14th century. All Saints has many beautiful features including a nave of three bays with aisles, and a chancel with two short transepts forming side chapels opening into the chancel and aisles by arches. Its nave arcade has octagonal pillars, flat responds with chamfered edges and corbels supporting the inner order of the arches. Two of these corbels should be specially noticed for their female heads with very elegant drapery folds of the couvrechef (headwear).
The glory of the Church is said to be the almost perfect 15th century screen, with its overhanging cove of tracery supporting the beams of the rood loft. It stands on its original stone plinth. The pulpit is made up of four old carved oak panels and has a Jacobean canopy of the 17th century and the font is a plain hexagonal bowl, with its two staples for securing the cover. In the chancel are three miserere seats on each side, with good carving under some of the movable seats. Despite this being a small building, there are several monuments in the Church. The oldest, and in my opinion, the most beautiful, is a fine altar tomb of alabaster in the centre of the chancel. There is no inscription or date of any sort on this, but there is little doubt that the figures are those of Sir Sampson de Strelley and his wife Elizabeth. The head of the knight rests on his family crest, a strangled Saracen’s head. He holds his gauntlet in his left hand, and with his right the hand of his lady; he wears a “pot” sheathed dagger on the right and a sword on the left. The head of the lady is an almost unique specimen as regards the hair, which is trussed at the sides, with a covering of richly jewelled network, over which she wears a handsome coronet, which is now somewhat damaged; a slender necklace, with elegant pendant, is round her neck, and an open mantle is held across her breast by a cord fastened to the robe by jewelled plates. Round the base of the tomb are 14 angels bearing shields, these are of most simple but beautiful workmanship, the angels being true angels not “women” angels. It is probable the shields were originally emblazoned. Under the tomb are two graves filled in with very rough stones in hard lime mortar.
If the Church is open when you are caching, take a little while to go in and look around.
Set off a main road and very close to the M1, the village is almost hidden away in beautiful countryside. Take a picnic along with your usual caching gear and stop off somewhere to take in the lovely views.
Happy caching!
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For full information on how you can expand the Church Micro series by sadexploration please read the Place your own Church Micro page before you contact him at churchmicro@gmail.com.
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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