OMG!!! What an ecclesiastical erection St Peter’s, Walpole, is… and no mistake!
A pal told me recently that the Indian religious honourific Bhagwan actually means big dick! I do so wish that were true. But a quick look online suggests not.
This looks and feels like a shockingly grand edifice for such a small obscure location. Look at the entrance. And then inside the entrance; dig those bosses and the vaulting.
This is a truly breathtaking building. I found myself experiencing waves of mounting ecstasy just contemplating it. And how amazing is that!? The very building itself facilitates a kind of chemico-psychic reverie that one could easily call either simply ecstatic, or perhaps even deeply spiritual?
That the ceiling bosses, as you enter, demand your attention, and lift your view skywards, towards the heavens, is so utterly apt for a church.
I really must investigate exactly what it is about some church architecture that engages me so strongly. I think it’s a combination of associative ideas, pure aestheticism, and the hedonic chemical circuitry.
One thing that’s very striking about St Peter’s, bringing to mind Hardwick Hall – ‘Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall’ – is the abundance of huge windows. And the resultant light. Would these originally have all been stained glass?
There’s also a plethora of wonderfully worked woods. It’s truly astonishing. Everywhere the eye roves, it’s a feast for the senses, and in turn for the mind. And yet, whilst it simultaneously overwhelms one’s faculties, it also seems to soothe them.
No matter where you turn, there’s artistry of breathtakingly exultant quality, in stone, glass, metal, and wood. Lots of wood!
It’s also wonderful that such a treasure trove as this can lie open and unattended. Many churches now are locked up. Sadly due, one imagines, to thievery. I’m so glad St. Peter’s was open. It provided me with an epiphany of sorts, for which I’m truly grateful.
Churches, at least of this grandiose sort, always exhort the visitor to look up. And when you do… well, wow! The symmetry, the rhythms, the light, the accumulation of sensory input, all of it sublimely and divinely uplifting. Talk about a pleasing unity of form and function.
This church really is something very special. One of the best I’ve discovered in my recent ecclesiastical ramblings. I’ll be coming back here, for certain. Love it!