We are a Grade 1 listed church in the Greek Revival style, designed by Nicholas Revett and built in 1778. It is supposed to be inspired by the Temple of Apollo on the Greek island of Delos, which Revett had visited and illustrated in his “Antiquities of Athens” series (co-authored with James “Athenian” Stuart). The Doric columns of the portico are finished at top and bottom by “crimping” detail wh
ich makes it a unique building, and has earned it Grade 1 Listing. It is, we believe, the only complete example of Revett’s work still standing. Its “Greek Revival” exterior is married with a more Roman interior, hence its common (if inaccurate) name of “Palladian”. Whilst it was built as a (somewhat bonkers) parish church for this very small village, it also served as Sir Lionel’s mausoleum. He must have had a rather droll humour, as he stipulated in his will that “what the church ..united in life, let it keep separate in death”. It seems that he and his wife (his cousin Rachel, from whom he “inherited” the Ayot St Lawrence estate) did not get on well, and so they are supposed to be buried under little temples at opposite sides of the colonnades. The church has a fine if small Georgian organ, which George Bernard Shaw, a local resident for 44 years, often used to play, although not during services. It also has a most unusual altar dating from the late 1880s which looks very Burne-Jones in style: we know little about this. There is also a fine stained glass panel which features some very old glass, rescued by the Victorians from the crumbling earlier church, now a stabilised ruin, and depicting the arms of the Bristowe family, who owned the Ayot Manor in the latter part of the C16. Nicholas Bristowe was one of the early members of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries, which - coincidentally - features our old friend Apollo in its coat of arms. According to the Wiki entry for this body, “the Society motto - which, unusually, is specified in the blazon of the Grant of Arms and is therefore immutable - is Opiferque Per Orbem Dicor, a Latin part-quotation from Ovid referring to the Greek deity Apollo, meaning: "and throughout the world I am called the bringer of help". The full quotation, from the first book of Metamorphoses (Daphne and Apollo), which describes what Apollo says when he and Daphne are struck by Cupid's arrows but Daphne flees from him, puts the motto in context and makes it particularly relevant to apothecaries:
Inventum medicina meum est, opiferque per orbem dicor, et herbarum subiecta potentia nobis. Hei mihi, quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis; nec prosunt domino, quae prosunt omnibus, artes! (Medicine is my invention, throughout the world I am called the bringer of help, and the power of herbs is under my control [but] alas for me, love cannot be cured by herbs, so the skills which help everyone else do not benefit their master.)”
Still with Wiki and The Society of Apothecaries, its shield has, as its “supporters ... golden unicorns, and its crest is a rhinoceros. The unicorns may have been a compliment to James I, and the horns of unicorns and of the rhinoceros are reputed to be of medical use. The illustration of the crest in the Grant is based on Dürer's 1515 depiction of a rhinoceros, an animal which he had never seen but which he drew from a description[5] - the dorsal horn may have been intended to be on the dorsum of its nose, rather than on the animal's back”. Now I have included this becuase, if you look carefully at the stained glass panel, something remarkably like this dorsal horn features. Or maybe someone with knowledge of heraldry will inform me differently. Anyway, for today I am pleased to find a link between Apollo in the C16 and Apollo in the C18. I imagine the Georgians were well aware of this link.....Do browse through our photos and posts, and, better still, visit us for an event. We rely entirely on fund raising to maintain the church, receiving no money from the Church for this purpose.
