Harvington Hall - Part 2: The Garden, Chapel and St Mary's Church

After looking round the Hall we spent some time exploring the gardens.

Mallard and ducklings

*D


The Malthouse - unfortunately we missed the exhibition and displays in here.

I do love Cornus and would dearly love to have one in the garden at home.

The Armillary (Elizabethan sundial) donated by volunteers Sheila and Malcolm Spencer Williams.

This building houses a Georgian Chapel in the Upper storey and toilets and a

secondhand bookshop in the lower.

Time for Cherry Cake and very tasty it was too.

A final stroll in the gardens before we left.

Those ducklings again!

The Georgian Chapel was opened in 1743. In 1823 it was damaged by fire destroying the original oak altar. Following repairs it was used as the village school until 1913.

Opposite the hall is the Catholic Church of St Mary - it was the usual rush to look round as B and D were waiting in the car.

The church opened in 1825 replacing the Georgian Chapel in the grounds of the Hall as a place of worship. It is the earliest Catholic church in the area and is a Gothic style sandstone building.

19th century gravestone

Memorial to Ellen Ferris (who bought the Hall for the Archdiocese of Birmingham) and her son.

Parish Priest Gravestones

Above the church porch is a new sculpture called "The Annunciation" made by Gabrielle Mercer, a former parishioner. The design includes two kneeling figures - one is Mary and the other the angel Gabriel with the dove representing the Holy Spirit.

The stained glass window in the porch shows St Anne, Mary's mother, St Margaret Clitheroe, Blessed John Henry Newman and St Nicholas Owen (the 16th century maker of priest's hiding places) with Harvington Hall in the background. The window was donated in 2005 in memory of Anne Mulroy and is dedicated to the deceased members of the Hague and Mulroy families.

This is a bronze relief of the Shrine of St John Wall by the artist Faith Tolkien. The work shows the saint disguised as a layman in the 17th century when he was actually a hunted priest. You might be able to make out Harvington Hall (sorry it was very dark in this area and it is not the best of photos!). St John Wall was a Franciscan priest and the bronze also depicts St Francis's love of nature with sheep, ducks, geese, a wagtail, a nuthatch and a dove.

This stained glass window shows the Tree of Jesse (depicting ancestors of Jesus) donated by the Ephraims family.

Window depicting the life of Mary

The area around the altar was alarmed so it was difficult to take photos

This window depicts angels Raphael and Michael (Michael is wearing traditional military type clothes) and most of the window shows Raphael and the Old Testament story of Tobias and the Angel. This window was donated in 1920 by Mrs Mildred Watts of Sion House as a thanksgiving for her two sons surviving the First World War.

The Stained Glass window behind the altar was installed in 1893 in memory of Charles Austin Spink by his widow. The patron saints of the family (St Charles Borromeo, St Augustine, St Joseph, St Anne, St Edward and St Elizabeth of Hungary) surround St Mary. 60 decades later the three lower panels of the window were altered in memory of Humphrey Watts and the saints added were St Thomas More in the centre, St John Wall on the left and on the right St Humphrey Middlemore. In the 1970's the lowest three panels showing a rose and fleur-de-lys were added.

Two bronze sculptures by Gabrielle Mercer. The first photo shows St John Wall who travelled the Midlands as a roving missionary and is believed to have visited Harvington. He was arrested at the nearby village of Rushock and was tried and executed in Worcester in 1679.

The 2nd photo (sorry neither of these pictures are very good and don't show enough detail) shows St Nicholas Owen, a carpenter and Jesuit Lay Brother who built priest hiding places at Harvington and in many other houses. St Nicholas Owen is dressed in his cloak with his carpenter's bag close by. The horse represents his many journeys across the country travelling from house to house. On the right hand side of the statue is Hindlip Hall where he was captured. On the bottom left is a relief of St Nicholas on the rack where he died on 2nd March, 1606.

I wish we had had time to visit the nearby village of Chaddesley Corbett which looked exceedingly picturesque and where the church of St Cassian dates back to the 12th and 14th centuries.

I do hope we can return one day.


Reference: A Short Guide to the Church of St Mary, Harvington.

*D - photo taken by D with the Canon bridge SX50 camera

Remaining photos taken by me with the Panasonic FZ330 bridge camera