A Church Wander - 21 September 2019
Church Cottage, Humbleton, 2019.
Monday, 23rd September 2019
On a cloudless Holderness afternoon we had our final visits of the year. The theme was loosely connected by Francis Johnson, the traditionalist architect who was a prominent early member of the Georgian Society for East Yorkshire. Our first venue was St Margaret’s church in Hilston. This is at least the third church on the site. A mediæval church had been replaced by a Victorian one in the 1860s, but this was destroyed in 1941 by a stray German bomb. The present church was built to the designs of Francis Johnson in 1956-7 in a style influenced by Danish architecture. It is a simple but effective red brick building with a tower and an interior without aisles or chancel. Many of the fittings were designed by Mr Johnson, including the altar cloth and the communion rail, both of which incorporate the marguerite flower as a play on the name of the saint to whom the church is dedicated.
Mr Johnson was also responsible for the design of the choir pews at St Bartholomew’s Church in Aldborough. The church has a mixture of Norman and Gothic features; it also incorporates some fragments of Anglo-Saxon and possibly Roman carving.
Our last port of call was St Peter’s Church in Humbleton, followed by tea and cakes at Church Cottage, the home of Digby Harris, architect at Francis Johnson and Partners.
Our final event of the year is a lecture on Tuesday 12th of November.
St Margaret's Church, Hilston , 2019.
St Margaret's, Hilston, interior 2019.
St Bartholomew's Church, Aldborough.
St Peter's Church, Humbleton.
