St Bridget's Church is in the village of Brigham,

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

, England. It is an active

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

in the deanery of Solway, the archdeaconry of West Cumberland, and the diocese of Carlisle. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The church dates from the later part of the 11th century, with additions and alterations in the 12th and 13th centuries. The south

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

was re-built in the about 1323 as a chantry for the rector, Thomas de Burgh.

Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

of the church was carried out between 1864 and 1876 by William Butterfield; this included adding the east window and the south windows of the chancel, and the

saddleback roof A saddleback roof is usually on a tower, with a ridge and two sloping sides, producing a gable at each end. See also * List of roof shapes * Saddle roof A saddle roof is a roof form which follows a convex curve about one axis and a concave cur ...

on the tower. The timber roofs of the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and chancel also date from this restoration. Fletcher Christian, leader of the Mutiny on the ''Bounty'', was baptised in the church on the day of his birth in 1764.

Architecture

Exterior

St Bridget's is constructed in

calciferous sandstone Calciferous sandstone is a geological term relating to strata at the base of the Carboniferous formation, below the entire sequence of coal measures. This term may be unique to the UK. Typically this part of the geological sequence, as in the T ...

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

, and has a green

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roof. Its plan consists of a three-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

nave with a south aisle and south porch, and a two-bay chancel with a north vestry. At the west end is a three-storey tower with a

, and at the ends of the

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s are cross

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

s. The church contains elements of

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

and

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

architecture. The Norman features include a blocked doorway in the north wall, and the arcade between the nave and the south aisle. The ground floor of the tower is tunnel-vaulted.

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

cross slabs have been incorporated in the north wall and in the blocked west door.

Interior

Both the nave and the chancel have painted timber roofs. The south aisle contains a piscina, a

sedilia In church architecture, sedilia (plural of Latin ''sedīle'', "seat") are seats, usually made of stone, found on the liturgical south side of an altar, often in the chancel, for use during Mass for the officiating priest and his assistants, the ...

, and a recess for the tomb of Thomas de Burgh, who died in 1348. In the church are pieces of carved stone; these include an Anglo-Danish cross-socket, and fragments dating from the pre-Norman period. The east window contains stained glass depicting the Ascension, designed by

Alexander Gibbs Alexander Gibbs & Co. was a British stained glass studio founded in 1858 by Alexander Gibbs when he split off from the family firm founded by his father Isaac Alexander Gibbs in 1848. The studio continued until 1915. It was first located at 38 ...

, and is a memorial to Rev John Wordsworth, son of

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ' ...

, who was vicar of the church for 40 years. On each side of the east window are niches for statues. There is more glass by Gibbs in other windows, dating from 1865, and glass elsewhere by Cox & Buckley and Sons, from 1870. The

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

dates either from the 13th century or possibly from the 17th century. The two-manual organ was built in 1895 by W. Hill and Son of London.

External features

In the churchyard is a red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

sundial A sundial is a horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the word, it consists of a flat ...

dated 1684. It has a square shaft, the head is weathered and the

gnomon A gnomon (; ) is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. The term is used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields. History A painted stick dating from 2300 BC that was excavated at the astronomical site of Taosi is the ol ...

is missing. The sundial is a Grade II listed structure. The churchyard also contains many carved gravestones from the 17th to the 19th centuries, and the table tomb of Fletcher Christian's father Charles.Alexander, Caroline (2003). ''The Bounty: the True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty''. New York: Viking. . pp. 359-60.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brigham: St Bridget's Church Church of England church buildings in Cumbria English churches with Norman architecture English Gothic architecture in Cumbria Gothic Revival architecture in Cumbria Diocese of Carlisle Grade I listed churches in Cumbria