Axminster

Last Sunday morning, a wander around Axminster, taking one piano (No.46) in the church, already noticed. This on top of the three Wellingtonia (Nos.38, 39 and 40) in the town, collected up the day before.

Started the day with bacon and white toast, the white bread having gone missing. But I was pleased that they managed this without feeling the need to add drizzles or anything else. Much the same form in fact as the black pudding of the previous day. A simple but sustaining breakfast.

First stop the back door of the church, a door which looked very old, Norman even. A supposition confirmed by Historic England this afternoon at reference 1. However, it is described as being 'reset', and not sure whether this was an architectural term for a kind of door or whether it simply meant that the door had been recycled at some point, I asked Bing, who turned up reference 2, which opts for recycled. I also learn that the phrase 'burial aisle' is used for a freestanding burial vault. Perhaps there is an access aisle down the middle and coffins arranged on both sides. The usage, in any event, appears to be Scottish.

Across the way, the Conservative club, an institution I was once told was an important supplier of billiard tables in country towns. We were amused that it claimed to be the site of the Axminster carpet industry, which one might have thought was a bit more spread out, possibly even making use of the local rivers water power. We thought that maybe the finances were not in very good repair, the sign bottom right suggesting trouble.

A bright and cheerful front garden.

Something of a contrast to this once grand door, now rather neglected, to what is now called the Axminster Delivery Office, presumably what is left of what was the main post office. Note the Egyptian flavouring of the capitals, I think a fad at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

While the Masonic Hall had a very severe look. Presumably the building predates the grand door, inscribed '1960', sash windows having long vanished by then. While in the course of checking the location of this hall, I came across collections of photographs of once grand halls in the US, perhaps in what was the rust belt, now more or less derelict. And one supposes that, like the nearby Conservative Club, this hall is not the important institution it once was.

From there down an attractively landscaped footpath - perhaps a joint venture between the town council and Tesco's - to procure what turned out to be an entirely satisfactory picnic: bread, cheese, onions, water and coffee. This last feloniously assembled in our hotel room - there being very fierce notices about not consuming takeaway food in one's bedroom. While anything like cooking would certainly count as a felony.

Things got slightly ragged at the top of the path, the town end, where new has to join old. By this time, morning service was over and we could take a look inside the church.

The board above, a little tucked away now, recording the more substantial donations to church funds. I suppose we still do this sort of thing, but perhaps not quite in this way. The name of the donor in small at the bottom of a stained glass window, yes; full on account down to the last penny, no. But some might argue that publicly recording the contribution of the faithful to their church in this way is all part of the church being the church of the faithful. Not just some fancy building which dropped down out of the sky, as it were.

A panel after the fashion of Georgia O'Keeffe, a lady who, as it happened, cropped up just a day or so ago at reference 3. As they say, it's a small world.

The caption does not tell us where the panel came from and offers a quote from the Bible instead: 'Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither tool nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these'. St. Luke Chapter 12 Verse 27 in, as Bing tells me, the English Standard Version. Which can be compared and contrasted with the 'Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these' of the King James version. In any event, I dare say I could use it as a text for a passable sermon. Also a reminder that one does not have to believe to get good use out of the good book.

A rather curious building, across the green from the church, describing itself as the registry office. We wondered about a church connection, but today I find it really was a register office, built in the Early English Gothic style of around 1850. See reference 4. One of the consequences of the Registration Act of 1836 which set up the General Register Office - which by the time I came of age had been gathered into the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys, the boss of which, usually at that time a statistician, doubled as the Registrar General. And which inhabited part of Somerset House, where I had my first job involving a suit, where I was issued with the soap, towel and substantial glass ashtray accorded to all civil servants at that time. Not, so far as I can recall, graded by rank - as much else was.

Furthermore, when still a student, BH had worked in a laundry in Thornton Heath which specialised in laundering these towels. Which, she tells me, used to contain all  kinds of interesting items by the time they reached her.

Which draws that morning's activities to a close. Picnic to follow.

References

Reference 1: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1333520.

Reference 2: http://www.dunsehistorysociety.co.uk/edrom.shtml.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/heading-west-again-part-1.html.

Reference 4: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1103773.