NOTES ON A SMALL CITY

Richard Wyatt: Notes on a small city

Columnist Richard Wyatt finds a pub in a church and some famous ledger stones, and tells the story of two small museum artefacts that he took under his artistic wing

Ican see the connection between a church and holy orders –it’s how the clergy are ordained after all –but calling last orders for those drinking in the nave was a new one on me. I had stumbled upon a group of people supporting a community fund-raising project at Upper Swainswick, just outside Bath. They proudly boast that their little parish church was the first in the region to become a pub, if only on the first Friday of every month.

St Mary the Virgin has called the faithful to prayer for around 700 years in a village that historically doesn’t seem to have ever had room for an inn. Now those who support ‘Pub Swainswick’ help swell the church coffers and support an historic building that boasts a Grade II* listing. I first chanced upon this gem of an English country parish church, which dates from the 12th century, during lockdown when I walked a daily early-morning circuit. I couldn’t resist such a place and was pleased to find the door unlocked. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it is the last resting place of the architects of Georgian Bath John Wood the Elder and Younger, along with members of their family. John Wood the Elder died in Queen Square and his son at Eagle House in Batheaston, but we don’t know why the Woods ended up where they did.

Locally based sculpture and stone engraver Iain Cotton –who carved the engraving in front of Bath Abbey’s west door, which marks the start of the Cotswold Way –has been carefully restoring the lettering on the Woods’ two ledger stones, a delicate job funded by the Bath World Heritage Enhancement Fund.

I have poked my nose in to support the church in persuading archaeologists from Bristol University to do some ground radar when things settle down. It might give some idea, without doing any damage to the stones, of what lies below. I’ve done a bit of geophysical surveying myself, helping those more qualified than me from the Bath and Counties Archaeological Society on the Royal Crescent lawn and on top of Little Solsbury Hill.

When ITV cut all regional production apart from news and us programme-makers were made redundant, I went to Bristol University to do an MA in History of Art. My dissertation was on ‘Museums and Modern Marketing’, illustrating my desire to see such places and the objects they contain as ‘windows to history’ and living centres for debate and discovery.

A couple of years ago I took part in a project organised through the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution in Queen Square. I was one of several people invited to ‘guest curate’ an object in their collection. I got a little bottle which bore the label ‘Part of the liquor in which the body of Lord Nelson was preserved –after the Battle of Trafalgar.’ This national nautical hero was brought back to England in a large water barrel filled with brandy to preserve it. It took 44 days to tow what was left of his flagship HMS Victory home. The item was owned by a local man who, as a 17-year-old Naval lieutenant, had watched the ship, flying its battle-torn flag at half mast, return to home waters.

Little curiosities would appear to be my forte. While living in Totnes I became involved with the Elizabethan House museum and was fascinated by the collection’s tiniest treasure, the Lee Ring. This was one of two matching 17th-century gold and painted-enamelled thank-you tokens presented by the town to the daughters of a local merchant who had stumped up the cash to build a trading place for local businessmen. The beautiful object had the figures of local merchants painted in miniature around its band. They didn’t know where the other one was, but I managed to track it down to London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Curators there had no idea of the ring’s provenance or that it was one of a pair. With some pride I witnessed the V&A giving permission for the two rings to be temporarily re-united for the first time in 400 years and displayed in the Totnes museum for the season. I’ll raise a church pub glass to that!! n

Iain Cotton at work on one of the Woods’ ledger stones in St Mary the Virgin, Swainswick

Calling last orders for those drinking in the nave was a new one on me ❝