An Afternoon in Bakewell - Part 5

 

One of the wives of Sir George Vernon

Entering the porch of All Saints church, having briefly explored the churchyard during my afternoon in Bakewell, I took a few more photographs of the mediaeval grave slabs and other salvaged architectural sculpture before entering the church. 

 

Salvaged headstops in the porch

 

During my previous visit to the church, I had a quick look around the interior where I spent most of the time in the Vernon Chapel and didn’t really take much notice of the nave and aisles, which were replaced in 1852 by Hadfield and Weightman of Sheffield. 

 

A C12 arch in the north arcade

A single bay of the C12 nave was retained and two blind arches are part of the west walls of the aisles, which Pevsner believes were the entrances to twin towers at the west end of the church that were planned but never built – based on archaeological evidence. 

 

A C12 arch in the west wall

The arches are very simple in design and the piers to the C12 part of the arcades are rectangular, as at St. John’s church in Ault Hucknall, with no capitals and the only ornamentation that I could see were the billet like motifs on the imposts. 

 

A billet like motif

 

The northern blind arch, like the porch, contains a substantial collection of grave slabs and salvaged masonry. I have seen grave slabs and other miscellaneous architectural details in many churches, but I have never encountered such a concentration as at All Saints church. It is thought that some of the masonry above the blind arches may be Anglo-Saxon, but I didn't look for it on this particular occasion.

 

 A C12 arch in the west wall with artefacts

The C14 octagonal font is carved with various figures, including a seated Christ, beneath very crude crocketted ogee arches, but I just took a few general record photographs and made my way down the nave to the chancel. 

 

Views of the font

 

The original chancel was built in the C13, but was restored by George Gilbert Scott the younger in 1882. The C13 sedilia has four seats rather than the usual three, but I was more interested in the alabaster reredos and the mosaic floor. 

 

The reredos and mosaic floor

 

The Vernon Chapel contains a fine collection of painted alabaster monuments from the C15 to C17 and, although I had taken several photographs of these before, the intermittent afternoon sunshine lit the heads of Sir George Vernon and his two wives, which showed the translucent nature of alabaster where the paint had worn off.

 

Sir George Vernon and his wives

 

Pevsner attributes this monument to Richard and Gabriel Royley of Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire a part of the midlands of England, along with Nottinghamshire, which developed a great reputation for alabaster carving that dates back to the C12. 

Sir George Vernon