Early C14 parish church of St Mary at Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire. The roof of the nave has collapsed leaving just a two bay chancel. The windows have curvilinear tracery, the east window of five lights, and the chancel windows two lights.

Tags: decorated, mary, medieval, tower

The parish church of St Denys in Cold Ashby, Northamptonshire, has a simple plan, consisting of a west tower, nave and chancel. There are no aisles, transepts, although there is a clerestory. The church was mostly built between the 12th and 14th centuries, of ashlar block from the local Lias stone, and was restored in the 1840s.

The Perpendicular style font has craved flower motifs on the underside of the bowl.

The vicar, Gregory Bateman, in the 19th century carried out a number of improvements in the church, including the High Victorian style Lych Gate of 1883, and the church contains a number of monuments including stained glass to him and his wife. The stained glass dedicated to him shows him preaching in the church, and welcoming the parishioners at the Lynch Gate.

There is another wall monument to Gregory Bateman, and two other late 18th century monuments, an oval monument to Elizabeth Castle and Elizabeth Markham, and another monument to Alice Wickes.

The outside south wall of the church contains a sundial and the remains of a medieval scratch dial.

Tags: perpendicular, stained glass, tower

Completed in 1854, this Catholic Church dedicated to St. Joseph, was built in the Early English style by Pugin’s master builder George Myers.

The church contains many early stained glass works by John Hardman. Hardman was present at the church’s opening and sang with a part of the St Chad choir from Birmingham. Both the west window contain a crucifixion scenes, and has the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist in the lancets to the left and right. The east window window has a central figure of Christ, within a vesica piscis, who is sat on a rainbow that is above New Jerusalem. A number of Seraphim make up the ruby red background of the mandorla. On the left the Virgin Mary is holding a lily that symbolizes the Annunciation, and in the right window St Joseph is holding a flowering rod. In the Lady Chapel the two donor figures at the bottom of the lancet windows s are St. Aloysius Gonzaga, and St Helen. This window is dedicated to Thomas Aloysius Perry and his wife Helen (who was the niece of the church’s founder Joseph Knight.

THe nave windows are all dedicated to the donors, including the “Death of St Joseph” which is dedicated to the church Founder who died sixteen days after the church was opened in January 1855.

Tags: hardman, meyer, roman catholic, stained glass, tower, victorian

The Twycross parish chuch of St James, dates from the 14th century with a 15th century tower. The church was restored in 1840 and presented with a number of stained glass panels that had originally come from Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, Saint-Denis near Paris, Le Mans cathederal, and Saint-Julien-du-Sault in Burgundy.

The church was restored in the 1840s and contains architectural memorials to Lord Howe who sponsored the restoration, and early Victorian armourial stained glass, by Thomas Willement, showing the arms of Queen Adelaide with the 21 German States, and on the south side is a large window with a the arms of the Curzon family as a central piece.

The stained glass in the East window is early French and was originally presented to King William IV who then gave to Lord Howe.

Following the French Revolution French churches lost a lot of their original stained glass. Some of it was smashed, whilst other bits were sold off. The two panels above were original in Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, which lost a third of its glass.

Tags: french, medieval, stained glass, tower