HOLY TRINITY, BOSBURY, HEREFS

 

In the Middle Ages, the bishops of Hereford had a palace here, and enough half-timbered houses remain to give you something of a mediaeval feeling. Herefordshire specialises in detached church towers, and Bosbury’s is a fine example of the genre. 

The tower dates from just after 1200, solid, chunky and unbuttressed. The body of the church was begun just before 1200, with round-headed doorways, and the font is contemporary, but most of the windows are lancets.

In the nave there is a Jacobean lectern and a pulpit which has some inserted Flemish carved panels, the finest of which is the Agony in the Garden, which shows Gethsemane as a walled garden. Jesus kneels at prayer, a symbolic chalice in front of him, with three barely-awake apostles. An angel overhead bears a cross, whilst Judas and a company of soldiers approach the garden in the background. 

There’s a late Perp. Screen, which may be contemporary with the South chapel – something unusual for Herefordshire – as it was built by Thomas Morton, Archdeacon of Hereford and a nephew of Cardinal Morton (of ‘Morton’s Fork’ fame) and has a TM on a barrel (pun on the -ton of Morton) on the fan vault. It was licensed in 1510 as a chantry chapel for the wife of Morton’s brother Rowland Morton.

 

Map reference: SO695434

Simon Cotton