St Lawrence Church
During the 'Our Town' exhibition held in Christchurch Mansion during the
first Ip-art festival in July 2003, we noticed a wonderful picture of St
Lawrence Church in Dial Lane painted in a gorgeous diffuse sunlight by Howard
Gaye in 1882, presumably from the basket of a hot air balloon. This prompted
us to seek out the 'S' and 'L' of 'St Lawrence' in the medallions near the
top of the tower. Then we saw some even more obscure characters in the weather
vein on the very top! Let's walk up Dial Lane past the church and into the
lower part of Tower Street and look back ...
-
Yes, now we can see it. If the wretched wind had been blowing in the opposite
direction, we could have captured the whole thing in the upper pictures.
Cut out of the metal is the impressively early date of '1799', which must
be the earliest example of lettering on the site.
-
Having visited St Lawrence about thirteen tears ago for a Youngblood exhibition,
we can recall the amazing blue light through the surviving windows and the
truly marvellous polychrome stone, terra cotta, flint and tile decoration
and carvings in its lofty tower. On the ground its not a pretty sight: dirty,
worn stonework, an abused area surrounding the church - barely a churchyard
- thank goodnes that the Great Gippeswyckian Carl Giles celebrated the church
towers in some of his cartoons.
Giles, 1971. St Mary Le Tower with St Lawrence in background.
Home
Copyright throughout this site belongs to Borin Van Loon, 2003.