Project reveals 500-year-old art at Ludlow church
They were scratched off the walls nearly 500 years ago, and painted over – but what remains of ancient pictures inside a medieval church are now coming under the spotlight once more.
People normally imagine bare stone when they think of the interior of large medieval churches such as St Laurence's in Ludlow, but that wasn't always the case.
Once upon a time, the walls of the 12th century church were alive with colour and depictions of saints, angels, and scenes from the Bible. Now new life is being breathed into the scraps that remain in the church for those who know where to look, after the divine artwork was ruthlessly hacked away, whitewashed over and sanded off as England went through a time of major religious upheaval.
Patterns and pictures painted in the 1400s are now coming to light to be preserved and restored – some of which have not been seen for centuries, buried under a layer of lime wash.
Shaun Ward, clerk of works at St Laurence's, said about £20,000 was now being spent on conserving what was left – but in the process new details were coming to light.
"The whole building would have been covered from top to toe," he said.
He said: "Most rooms back then would have been single storey, timber-framed, dirty, smelly and lime-washed about every year," he said, "and then you came into the church and it was covered with colour."
The interior decor of the church underwent radical transformation as the Church of England broke away from the Pope and the Catholic Church in the English Reformation of the 16th century.
But on the walls supporting the huge arches of St Laurence's, seraphim (angels) can still be seen, particularly high up, where they could not be reached by those looking to deface them.
He said many of the paintings were rediscovered in the 19th century as architects moved memorials on the walls. Among the most tantalising are in the the church's parvise (paradise) room above the porch, thought to be the oldest original interior in Ludlow.
There lime wash and red ocre paint that was plastered on the walls is being removed to reveal, among other things, an unknown haloed head, possibly of a saint or an angel, and Tudor roses. What is there is being restored by specialist conservators Cath Lloyd Haslam, Sarah Warburton and Joanna Pucci. Joanna has worked on such projects in the UK for the last three years, but trained in Florence, Italy and lived there for 10 years.
She said: "Most of my work there was Renaissance, so this is earlier, though I have worked on medieval stuff before."
The work is being funded by the St Laurence Conservation Trust – now known as Ludlow Palmers – an independent group set up to raise money for the church. The Church of St Laurence attracts 65,000 visitors a year.
