The Church
On a steep hillside above the village, St Catherines was built to a design by J P Seddon by William Poole, the wealthy Vicar of Hentland in the 1870s.
A fascinating Victorian chapel in rich Italianate style, it is technically a chapelry under nearby Hentland church. The man responsible for building the first chapel at Hoarwithy, Rev Thomas Hutchinson, was curate of Hentland parish in 1840. His fairly simple chapel was a small brick structure that had few redeeming architectural qualities. In 1854 Prebendary William Poole was appointed vicar of Hentland, and around 1870 he embarked on a scheme to beautify Hoarwithy Chapel, financing the project by setting aside rent income from properties he owned elsewhere.
Poole was a friend of architect John Pollard Seddon, who had designed a new school in Hentland, and around 1874 he asked Seddon to replace the old brick chapel with a much grander one. Seddon, whose other major works include the University College Wales, Aberystwyth and the Sir William Powell Alms Houses in Fulham, worked mainly in the Gothic Revival style that was so popular in Victorian times, but at Hoarwithy he drew on an entirely different inspiration; the architecture of the Byzantine empire.
With the aide of George Fox, who designed the ornate decorative scheme, Seddon created an astonishing new church in Italianate style. Rather than destroy the earlier brick chapel he completely encased it within a complex structure including a campanile and external colonnades. The colonnades alone are reason enough to visit Hoarwithy; these are composed of twin columns with beautifully carved capitals..
The interior is sumptuous, modelled after the Cathedral at Le Puy, in France, with an apsidal chancel raised on steps, with a half-apse to either side. The focal points are the white marble altar studded with precious stones and a similar white marble pulpit with panels of green porphyry. The pulpit was modelled after that of Fiesole Cathedral, outside Florence, while the hanging lamps are copied from those at St Marks in Venice.
The chancel is supported on tall marble columns set on bases of porphyry, and the domed ceiling is decorated with an amazing mosaic showing Christ in Majesty. This was installed by a team of Italian craftsmen from st Pauls Cathedral. The capitals of the chancel columns are exquisitely carved in intricate Byzantine designs.
The hanging lamps are relicas of those used in St Marks Cathedral in Venice. The original heating system was a hypocaust, essentially the same as that used by the Romans, though this has now been converted to a modern heating system. The overall effect of the interior is awe inspiring; the Italian style is so unexpected in a quintessential English landscape.
The chancel dome mosaic of Christ in Majesty
The work on Hoarwithy Chapel took decades to complete; it began around 1874 and was not finished until 1903, though most of the construction took place in the 1880s. This is even more remarkable when you consider that at the time Hoarwithy was being created, Gothic Revival style, in all its various permutations, reigned supreme in England.
The stonework and masonry on the church tower has recently been restored with the help of grants from English Heritage and others.
The Cache
To locate the cache, find the answers to the following questions:
Q1: Plaque on gate - How many letters in Baker's first name? = A
Q2: What position in the alphabet is his middle initial? = B
Q3: Grave - On which day of the month did Mary Stead die? = CD
Q4: In which year did she die? = EFGH
The cache can be found at:
N 51° 57.A(Hx2)(D-B) W 002° 39.(C+G)(F-B-E)C
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