LOWER BENEFIELD. CHURCH : ST MARY
Good Friday 2008. A day of beautiful blue sky, and very strong wind. No white Christmas here for years but the Met Office promised snow for Easter Saturday and Easter Day, so, strong wind or not, this was a chance to get the heart and lungs working before the snow set in! A white Easter...not even Bing Crosby dreamed of such a thing!
Destination was three fold. Starting off with a visit to Lower Benefield, moving on to Weldon near to Corby, on to Bulwick and then home. Sadly, though, this was not to be and I abandoned the trip with just Lower Benefield visited. My journey there was just about all headwind, and to be perfectly honest I was shattered by the time that I arrived there!
The wind was so strong by the time that I reached Lower Benefield that I had real difficulty in even keeping the camera steady. Thank goodness for image stabilisation!
The church was locked. Grounds were well maintained and there is a War Memorial in front of the church. Interestingly, some of the older gravestones had been set in to the churchyard wall. Two of these are pictured below with the picture fourth down on the right being a favourite, with a human skull peering out from a surrounding of ivy.
According to what little piece of information I could find on the internet regarding this church, it has extensive Victorian restoration in the late 1840's. I am assuming that this is the age of the four grotesques which surround the tower. Three of these are pictured below. The fourth was frustrating in that no matter where I stood, I just could not get a clear shot of it! The quality of worksmanship on these grotesques is quite superb. Four mythical beast surround the tower, with at least two of them appearing to hold an inscribed scroll. Just look at the quality of the carving in the feathers of the bird below right, and also look at the size of his claws as well!
A pleasant enough stay here, despite the poor conditions. Next scheduled stop was Weldon, but that was headwind and uphill...not an appetising proposition so I headed back to Peterborough, at a considerably higher speed than I had arrived, popping in at nearby Southwick on the way home.
