Inspired by better weather and Diarmaid MacCulloch's excellent Radio 3 Essay series on church crawling (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000twbd) Jean and I have taken to the road again, and started to explore more of Herefordshire's amazing churches. Our first trip took us to St James' Church at Kinnersley, a very pleasant half-hour drive or so north-west of the city. The strongly-built fourteenth-century tower with its saddleback roof is what strikes one first: we are next to the site of an old moated castle and security must have been in the builders' minds. Inside the feeling is open and airy, helped by the north aisle added also in the fourteenth century, but the party pieces of the church are from a later period. Top of the list is the wonderful Smalman memorial of 1635 with exquisite fluid carving and a flotilla of eight children keeping watch. Then look around and you see the design work of G F Bodley everywhere, executed by the then Vicar Frederick Andrews from 1873. What a task! Why Bodley? He married Minna Reaveley, the daughter of that castle next door, and is buried in the churchyard himself. It was a family affair. And oh yes: the local marmalade that was on sale when we visited is VERY good. David Thomson | April 19, 2021 at 4:54 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL: https://wp.me/poSLL-3Us |