The Church
The two most significant buildings in the village are Brockhampton Court and All Saints' Church. Brockhampton Court was substantially rebuilt, in the neo-Tudor style in 1893, as the Herefordshire residence of A.W. Foster and his American wife, Alice. In the late 1870s, Ebenezer Jordan of Boston, Massachusetts had purchased Brockhampton Court, now a retirement home, as a wedding present for his daughter and her groom, Arthur Foster.
The construction of nearby All Saints' Church, financed by Mr and Mrs Foster (as a memorial to her parents), was completed in 1902, the work of the Arts & Crafts pioneer W.R. Lethaby.
Straddling a sloping south-facing site, the first impression of All Saints' is that of a traditional English thatched church. In fact, Lethaby's ingenious 'partnership' of a thatched roof sitting on top of un-reinforced cast-concrete roof, pre-dated current thermal insulation thinking by more than a century.
The interior's most striking feature is the lofty vaulted roof, formed of four bays of lime-washed shuttered concrete, divided by slender sandstone arches (the stone came from the now-redundant local Capler quarry). At Brockhampton, Lethaby predicted the Modern Movement's short-lived passion for patterned concrete surfaces, by leaving the internal face of the Nave's roof lining unplastered.
The architect's decision to carry out the entire project using direct labour craftsmen (eschewing the conventional building contractor route) is thought to have been a contributing factor to his subsequent ill health and decision to concentrate on teaching and writing. All Saints' Brockhampton was Lethaby's last significant building. Randall Wells served as his resident architect on site.
In The Buildings of England - Herefordshire, Nikolaus Pevsner describes All Saints' as "perhaps the most thrilling church in any country of the years between historicism and the Modern Movement". In the introductory section of the revised edition of Herefordshire, All Saints' Brockhampton is described as "One of the most convincing and impressive churches of its date in any country".
The church contains many examples of Christopher Whall’s stained glass work.
The Hotel Monterey Grasmere Osaka, Japan features a three-quarter scale replica of the church as a wedding venue on the 21st & 22nd floors of a tower block.
The Cache
To locate the cache, find the answers to the following questions:
Q1: Memorial sign: How many words in each line of the inscription at knee level? = A
Q2: How many letters in the fifth word? = B
Q3: Ornate Cross: What position in the alphabet is the first letter of his first name? = C
Q4: How many letters in his middle name? = D
Q5: Gutter - How many 6 pointed stars? = E
Q6: How many pretzels? = F
Checksum is A+B+C+D+E+F = 27
The cache, a screw top tube can be found at:
N 51° 59.C(D-B)(D-B-E-F) W 002° 35.(C+F)(A/2)(F-E)
****************** ********************
For full information on how you can expand the Church Micro series by sadexploration please read the Place your own Church Micro page before you contact him at churchmicro.co.uk
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
****************** *******************