Shobdon, Herefordshire, again

The architecture of fragility

The church that replaced the 12th-century one at Shobdon was just as remarkable in its way as that lost Romanesque masterpiece, but it could scarcely be more different. It was built for the Bateman family, 18th-century lords of the manor and friends of Horace Walpole of Strawberry Hill. And as one would expect from people with links to Walpole, the church is Gothic – not the medieval Gothic of poised stone structure but the 18th-century reinvented Gothic of exquisite decoration, lace-like plasterwork, papier mâché trimmings, and theatrical interior effects.

This kind of architecture is now known as Strawberry Hill Gothic, after Walpole’s famous house in Twickenham. At Shobdon it is an architecture of pinnacles, double-curved ogee arches, and panelling festooned with Gothic motifs. Arches float in the air, without supporting pillars. Pews, pulpit, reading desk, and walls, all are given the same pale, delicately Gothic treatment.

The architect is unknown. Henry Flitcroft, usually a Palladian specialist, who worked at Woburn Abbey and Wentworth Woodhouse, is a possibility. Or maybe, like Strawberry Hill, it was created with the help of Walpole’s ‘Committee of Taste’, his group of artistic friends. If so, they had the unity of vision to keep the design all of a piece. If visiting the church is a bit like being inside the icing of an overgrown wedding cake, or a particularly elaborate country-house drawing room, it is also unique. In no other parish church was Strawberry Hill Gothic used with such verve; nowhere else do pulpit, reading desk, pews, and other furnishings complement one another, and the interior as a whole, with such conviction; in no other church does 18th-century Gothic delicacy turn into such fragility. And now, well into its third century, the building is as fragile as it looks, with its full roster of cracked walls and rotten beams. Its custodians deserve our support in preserving it.

Shobdon, Herefordshire

Oliver's arches

In the Middle Ages the Norman Mortimer family was a powerful presence along the borders of England and Wales. They came over with William of Normandy, maintained castles to defend their lands against the Welsh, and took key parts in political and military history – one of them, Roger Mortimer, led the rebellion that deposed Edward II, for example. In a family as powerful as this, their key servants were powerful too. In the 12th century their steward – the man who ran their estates – was called Oliver de Merlimond, and he was important enough for the Mortimers to grant him a manor of his own, at Shobdon.

Soon after he acquired the manor, Oliver undertook two acts of piety – he went on pilgrimage to the shrine of St James at Compostela and rebuilt the small Saxon church on his manor. The tantalizing evidence we have of Oliver’s church tells us that it was small but stunningly decorated, its arches carved with dazzling patterns and mythical beasts, its shafts adorned with intricate interlaced decoration and figures, the semicircular panels above its two doorways bearing beautiful depictions of Christ in Majesty and the Harrowing of Hell. The church seems to have been the first building decorated by the celebrated Herefordshire school of sculptors, and was followed soon after by Kilpeck, Castle Frome, and a host of others.

So ornate is the Herefordshire sculpture, so unlike what was being done in the rest of England at the time, and so like other work in Europe, that there has been speculation that Oliver’s journey influenced it in some way. Did Oliver bring back a carver from Spain or France? Or did the group of pilgrims with which he travelled include a local stoneworker who absorbed the powerful influence of buildings on the route to Compostela?

We will never know, but whoever worked for Oliver created a masterpiece at Shobdon. He worked at other churches in the area too, carving in a style that seems to combine French, Celtic and Scandinavian influences and also teaching apprentices, sons perhaps, who carried on his work in the pink Herefordshire sandstone that must have been so rewarding to carve.

Oliver’s church survived until the 18th century, but then a lord of the manor with a taste for a very different kind of architecture decided that it was time Shobdon had a new church. In a curious act of creative vandalism, he pulled the old church down, but preserved the entrance doorways and chancel arch, taking them apart and re-erecting them – with added gables and pinnacles – as an eye-catcher in his park. They’re still there, and are universally known as the Shobdon Arches.

Although they are very worn now, the arches give some idea at least of what a wonderful building the old church must have been. To add to our enlightenment – and also, it has to be said, our frustration that such a building should have been swept away – a plaster cast of the Christ in Majesty was made in 1851 for the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace. As for the originals, they are sadly weathered, as if the once-crisp Romanesque carving has begun to melt away, like ice at the end of a long winter.

Shobdon Arches, detail

Cast of Christ in Majesty, Victoria & Albert Museum