Ship of Fools: Late 18th century Anglicanism

Thread: Late 18th century Anglicanism Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=030444

Posted by Meet and Right So to Do (# 18532) on :

I'm curious if anyone know what late 18th century Anglicanism, in particular the colonial Church of England and the early post-independence Episcopal Church, would have looked like?

I've always thought it would have been indistingusiable in theology and churchmanship as the early Methodist church in the colonies and newly-independent United States. As such, I've always reasoned that's partly why Methodists are so prominent in the United States--much more so today than Episcopalians. It was easy enough for Americans used to the Church of England to relate and transition to Methodism.

Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :

The Anglican Church here in Kenya was born around that time.
The church has no doubt changed over the years but in some of the rural parishes I visit I have met elderly parishioners who are descended from some of the first converts. Their theology and praxis is apparently as it has always been and is very similar to what I recall in the UK of prayer book Evangelicals last century.
Tanzania on the other hand was also evangelised by Anglican missionaries from a High Church background so their traditions and practice reflect that diversity of tradition.

Posted by Corvo (# 15220) on :

Surely Anglicanism in east Africa began about a century later?

Posted by Wild Organist (# 12631) on :

A good (musical) picture can be read here http://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780264661254/17747853203 Eric Routley's Short History of English Church Music.
Basically, the CofE was in the doldrums. Almost completely non-eucharistic worship with small pockets of "doing things properly" (for some reason Moravians tickle my memory here - anyone like to say why?). The Church was ripe for the Oxford movement.

Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Corvo:
Surely Anglicanism in east Africa began about a century later?

Yes and no perhaps?!
The first (German Lutheran)CMS missionary, Krapf, arrived here in 1836 and the Anglican Church Kenya counts him as their founding father.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MrsBeaky:

quote:
Originally posted by Corvo:
Surely Anglicanism in east Africa began about a century later?
Yes and no perhaps?!
The first (German Lutheran)CMS missionary, Krapf, arrived here in 1836 and the Anglican Church Kenya counts him as their founding father.

but that's the mid-19th century, not the late 18th...

Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :

quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:

quote:
Originally posted by MrsBeaky:

quote:
Originally posted by Corvo:
Surely Anglicanism in east Africa began about a century later?
Yes and no perhaps?!
The first (German Lutheran)CMS missionary, Krapf, arrived here in 1836 and the Anglican Church Kenya counts him as their founding father.
but that's the mid-19th century, not the late 18th...

You're right and that's why I said yes and no...CMS was born right at the end of 1700s and I suppose I count 1836 as early 19th century rather than a century later than late 18th century but I'm not an historian and realise that's just an idiosyncrasy
From the point of view of the OP the Anglican Church may well have looked similar here in 1836 as to what it did in the UK when CMS was launched.
But I could well be wrong about that too!
I don't know I was just musing.....

Posted by Offeiriad (# 14031) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Wild Organist:
A good (musical) picture can be read here http://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780264661254/17747853203 Eric Routley's Short History of English Church Music.
Basically, the CofE was in the doldrums. Almost completely non-eucharistic worship with small pockets of "doing things properly" (for some reason Moravians tickle my memory here - anyone like to say why?). The Church was ripe for the Oxford movement.

The difficulty is that history isn't always as objective as it pretends to be. There is evidence that the 'Ritualists' exaggerated the state of what they had inherited in order to justify the changes they wanted to make.

For example, many of the church buildings they wanted to 'restore' were in fact in quite decent condition and had been well maintained: the problem was that they didn't reflect a Ritualist ethos of worship. Likewise the Gallery musicians the Ritualists wanted to replace with organs and robed choirs weren't all bad, and weren't swept away without a fight.

The trouble with recorded history is it tends to highlight 'bad news': quiet unspectacular faithfulness hit the headlines as rarely then as it does now!

Posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop (# 10745) on :

18th century Anglicanism predated the Oxford Movement, which meant strict adherence to the orders or service in the 1662 BCP, with Morning & Evening Prayer (with Litany added), reigning supreme. The King James version of the Bible would have been the invariable usage. BCP Communion would not have been celebrated weekly; but in accordance with the rubric to the effect that worshipers were to receive communion three times a year, of which Easter should be one. Most Sundays, Ante-Communion may have taken place, when the full order of "The Lorde's Supper" would not have been observed. It is for others to say how often Holy Communion would have been celebrated from place to place and to compare English Episcopalianism and Methodism with their counterparts in America.

With the Methodists on the other hand, once separated from the C of E, were no longer bound by the 1662 BCP and at some point, the "hymn sandwich" style of worship, with extemporary prayers would have developed. The order of Morning Prayer for Methodists, would have been available from the Methodist Book of Offices, for congregations that chose to use it. John Wesley and his followers had the reputation of being "High Churchmen", which may have influenced their worship style and the frequency of celebrating Communion.

Obviously, now in the 21st century, much water would have flowed since then.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

I think we would have noticed a few differences;
1) sermons would have been a lot longer-- 45-60 minutes would have been the norm. There were shelfloads of printed sermons on the shelves at my old university library (TCD) and legions of graduate students mining them for evidence of attitudes toward women, constitution, law, employer-employee relations etc. Sermons filled the role of providing commentary on society and I have been told gave Hanoverians a single-perspective internet.
2) seating was often economically segregated, with the wealthier enjoying box pews with footwarmers, down to row pews, down to stools, down to standing in the gallery, as can be seen on this page;
3) people would often attend two services on Sunday, with matins/ante-communion with litany in the morning, and evening prayer after the main meal (then eaten in early to mid afternoon, in the manner now only seen in Spain and Italy).

There were variations on this in the north-eastern American provinces, chiefly related to music (more congregational than in England or Ireland) and the weather (winter!! winter!! an hour of sledding in each direction precluded attending evening prayer).

Laura Mooneyham Whyte's Jane Austen's Anglicanism, while addressing the post-Napoleonic period, gives us a good idea of what pre-Oxford movement English church life might feel like.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

The differences are probably more social and cultural than obviously theological. Methodist circuit riders were willing to travel all over the USA, reaching those areas where the Episcopal Church was absent or otherwise engaged. Methodism was proactive at the right time and was able to benefit from the two Great Awakenings between 1720 and 1840. By 1820 it had become the country's largest denomination.

Anyway, I found this interesting article about the historical relationship between the two denominations in the USA.

Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :

The United Church of Canada maintains Old Hay Bay Church in Adolphustown, ON as a museum, which gives you a feel for what Methodism looked like in 1794 in Canada.

They have benches instead of box pews, but that was due to their settler status.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

Some feel of it can be gained form the diaries of Parson Woodforde. The edited version in one volume is readily available, though I suspect more attention to the full diaries with a focus on the life and practice of the church would give a fuller picture - that not having been a particular focus of the C20th editor.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

You could always take a trip to Tasmania, and see the eighteenth century C of E in operation - perhaps using a more modern prayerbook than the BCP, but for the most part strict prayerbook and non-dogmatic evangelicanism.

Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
You could always take a trip to Tasmania, and see the eighteenth century C of E in operation - perhaps using a more modern prayerbook than the BCP, but for the most part strict prayerbook and non-dogmatic evangelicanism.

That sounds very similar to here!

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

By and large, Tasmania even looks the part. With half-closed eyes, the central and south-western mountains can be imagined as Wales in the distance, much of the rest is farmland. The main difference is having electric power poles.

[ 17. January 2016, 09:02: Message edited by: Gee D ]

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:

Laura Mooneyham Whyte's Jane Austen's Anglicanism, while addressing the post-Napoleonic period, gives us a good idea of what pre-Oxford movement English church life might feel like.

I must get that.

The religious culture that nourished Jane Austen and Samuel Johnson can not be despised.

Despite my painfully learnt Anglo Catholicism, my heart leaps up at the sight of box pews indicating religion untainted by Enthusiasm.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

That book's 95 quid online. Stuff that.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

Perhaps this holds true for the American colonies too, but if we're talking about Britain, I've read that 18th c. religious life was characterised by 'Latitudinarianism above and Wesleyanism below'. Latitudinarianism was a sort of Christian Deism, so I understand.

Of course, the 18th c. was the era of the Enlightenment, and its general religious flavour has also been depicted as a reaction against the bloodletting of the 17th c. wars of religion.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
That book's 95 quid online. Stuff that.

The Google preview might be worth a look..

[ 17. January 2016, 12:49: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

Posted by Oblatus (# 6278) on :

quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
That book's 95 quid online. Stuff that.

There's a "hardly used" one for 42.

Posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop (# 10745) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
I think we would have noticed a few differences;
1) sermons would have been a lot longer-- 45-60 minutes would have been the norm. There were shelfloads of printed sermons on the shelves at my old university library (TCD) and legions of graduate students mining them for evidence of attitudes toward women, constitution, law, employer-employee relations etc. Sermons filled the role of providing commentary on society and I have been told gave Hanoverians a single-perspective internet.
2) seating was often economically segregated, with the wealthier enjoying box pews with footwarmers, down to row pews, down to stools, down to standing in the gallery, as can be seen on this page;
3) people would often attend two services on Sunday, with matins/ante-communion with litany in the morning, and evening prayer after the main meal (then eaten in early to mid afternoon, in the manner now only seen in Spain and Italy).

There were variations on this in the north-eastern American provinces, chiefly related to music (more congregational than in England or Ireland) and the weather (winter!! winter!! an hour of sledding in each direction precluded attending evening prayer).

Laura Mooneyham Whyte's Jane Austen's Anglicanism, while addressing the post-Napoleonic period, gives us a good idea of what pre-Oxford movement English church life might feel like.

I could have gone on and my mentions were by no means exhaustive, but it would have taken time.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

My favourite primary source for 18th century English Anglicanism is James Woodforde's Diary of an English Country Parson. He's fonder of cataloguing the details of his dinner menu than he is of discussing churchy goings-on, and his favourite account of a Sunday morning seems to be "went to church today and read prayers". Church attendance seems fairly feeble. He rarely mentions numbers, but iirc makes a point of commenting that there were 26 in church one Easter Day.

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

I was in a church with one of those fee boards which recorded the costs of supplying different services, which included the Churching of Women. I notice that it is also recorded in the "Diary of a Country Woman". I guess it has something to do with childbirth?

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
He rarely mentions numbers, but iirc makes a point of commenting that there were 26 in church one Easter Day.

I don't know the size of his parish, but even assuming it was a small (300 or so) English village that is not an enormous congregation, especially for Easter. The doomsayers of today need some historical perspective.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Anthony Russell, in The Clerical Profession (1980) argues that in England church attendance began its decline in the 1730s .

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I was in a church with one of those fee boards which recorded the costs of supplying different services, which included the Churching of Women. I notice that it is also recorded in the "Diary of a Country Woman". I guess it has something to do with childbirth?

'Churching of Women', or 'Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth' is what it says it is, is in the 1662 BCP and remained normal until about the mid C20, since when it has faded gradually away. There may be still places where grandmothers still insist on their daughters being churched before they can return to normal life, but that doesn't fit with modern emancipated ideas.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

The best description of pre-Tractarianism worship I know is John Betjeman’s introduction to Collins Guide to English Parish Churches.

I was delighted to read it as a teenager – here was Christianity totally opposed to self-indulgent romanticism and emotional evangelicalism. I have since come to see that there are deeper existential issues in our radically distorted world which such a socially smug and conservative world view does not address. But the saving alternate is catholic Christianity, symbolic and embodied, which the Tractarians opened up despite their political Toryism. And it was present in C18 High and Dry Anglicanism. (Dr Pusey said he learnt his catholic faith from his mother, Lady Lucy Pusey. I believe Lady Lucy was taken to the Grosvenor Chapel in her sedan chair well into the nineteenth century.)

As I say, my heart still leaps up at the sight of an unrestored C18 church.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I was in a church with one of those fee boards which recorded the costs of supplying different services, which included the Churching of Women. I notice that it is also recorded in the "Diary of a Country Woman". I guess it has something to do with childbirth?
'Churching of Women', or 'Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth' is what it says it is, is in the 1662 BCP and remained normal until about the mid C20, since when it has faded gradually away. There may be still places where grandmothers still insist on their daughters being churched before they can return to normal life, but that doesn't fit with modern emancipated ideas.

Somebody on the ship- can't remember who- one of the English A-Cs- posted about his wife being churched fairly recently. You're right, it was seen as a purification rite- I remember talking in the 1990s to a lady who said that after boith her children were born (in the 1950s) she didn't leave the house until it was time to be churched. But actually there's nothing in the text of the service itself which supports such a view and IIRC Latimer in one of his sermons preaches against the idea. In itself the service is simply a rather lovely thanksgiving for a safe passage through childbirth (something of course far more dangerous in the C16 nd C17 than now, but even now not to be taken for granted) and as such could I think usefully still be offered or updated, perhaps with some of the elements of thanksgiving for birth of a child as opposed to simply maternal survival (although i think that should be in there).

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I was in a church with one of those fee boards which recorded the costs of supplying different services, which included the Churching of Women. I notice that it is also recorded in the "Diary of a Country Woman". I guess it has something to do with childbirth?
'Churching of Women', or 'Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth' is what it says it is, is in the 1662 BCP and remained normal until about the mid C20, since when it has faded gradually away. There may be still places where grandmothers still insist on their daughters being churched before they can return to normal life, but that doesn't fit with modern emancipated ideas.
Somebody on the ship- can't remember who- one of the English A-Cs- posted about his wife being churched fairly recently. You're right, it was seen as a purification rite- I remember talking in the 1990s to a lady who said that after boith her children were born (in the 1950s) she didn't leave the house until it was time to be churched. But actually there's nothing in the text of the service itself which supports such a view and IIRC Latimer in one of his sermons preaches against the idea. In itself the service is simply a rather lovely thanksgiving for a safe passage through childbirth (something of course far more dangerous in the C16 nd C17 than now, but even now not to be taken for granted) and as such could I think usefully still be offered or updated, perhaps with some of the elements of thanksgiving for birth of a child as opposed to simply maternal survival (although i think that should be in there).

'Twas Thurible .

Posted by Meet and Right So to Do (# 18532) on :

quote:
Church attendance seems fairly feeble. He rarely mentions numbers, but iirc makes a point of commenting that there were 26 in church one Easter Day. [/QB]

So perhaps those Church of England attendance figures of last week weren't that bad, historically speaking. Though, of course, there were a lot more standalone parishes then, too.

Posted by Meet and Right So to Do (# 18532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:

3) people would often attend two services on Sunday, with matins/ante-communion with litany in the morning, and evening prayer after the main meal (then eaten in early to mid afternoon, in the manner now only seen in Spain and Italy).

At least where I grew up, most families who gather for a Sunday meal do so around 2 o'clock, which is about two hours after the last of the churches around those parts finishes up.

As for meal times, my grandparents (born in 1920) and their siblings, second generation Americans of British (Cornish or English stock, depending on the branch) extraction, typically during their retirement years ate their main meal of the day -- throughout the week -- in the early afternoon at what most people today would call lunch. In the evening, it was leftovers or something light.

Posted by Meet and Right So to Do (# 18532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Offeiriad:

quote:
Originally posted by Wild Organist:
A good (musical) picture can be read here http://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780264661254/17747853203 Eric Routley's Short History of English Church Music.
Basically, the CofE was in the doldrums. Almost completely non-eucharistic worship with small pockets of "doing things properly" (for some reason Moravians tickle my memory here - anyone like to say why?). The Church was ripe for the Oxford movement.
The difficulty is that history isn't always as objective as it pretends to be. There is evidence that the 'Ritualists' exaggerated the state of what they had inherited in order to justify the changes they wanted to make.

For example, many of the church buildings they wanted to 'restore' were in fact in quite decent condition and had been well maintained: the problem was that they didn't reflect a Ritualist ethos of worship. Likewise the Gallery musicians the Ritualists wanted to replace with organs and robed choirs weren't all bad, and weren't swept away without a fight.

The trouble with recorded history is it tends to highlight 'bad news': quiet unspectacular faithfulness hit the headlines as rarely then as it does now!

So organs weren't typical? What was typical music?

Posted by Knopwood (# 11596) on :

I have a copy of a historical tract on the first years of the Church of England in Toronto. On music, it says this:

quote:
There was less music in church compared to today, and organs were not common in the early decades. ... Instead most congregations heard music from a band. The one at Toronto in 1819 had a bass viol, bassoon, and clarinet, and around that time there seems to have been an effort to improve the quality of music. Sometimes a regimental band from Fort York participated in worship … The psalms were often not the Prayer Book versions, but rather were paraphrases by Tate and Brady. The band and choir performed from the gallery in the back of the church,which conjures up images of Thomas Hardy’s Mellstock choir in Under the Greenwood Tree …

Otherwise, what others have said applies. Mattins, Litany, and Ante-Communion with sermon and "table prayers" would have been the usual Sunday service. Surplice with tabs and tippet were the usual clergy dress, directly over the street dress without cassock. Communion was celebrated roughly quarterly, with those participating "drawing near with faith" at the confession and remaining until they received, when they would be dismissed and, if necessary, followed by one or more further "heats" of communicants entering the sanctuary. Sermons were indeed longer and Evensong, in the cold Canadian climate, primarily a summer affair.

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

Meet and Right =

Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree has as its plot the introduction of an organ in place of the band.

Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Knopwood:
I have a copy of a historical tract on the first years of the Church of England in Toronto. On music, it says this:

quote:
There was less music in church compared to today, and organs were not common in the early decades. ... Instead most congregations heard music from a band. The one at Toronto in 1819 had a bass viol, bassoon, and clarinet, and around that time there seems to have been an effort to improve the quality of music. Sometimes a regimental band from Fort York participated in worship … The psalms were often not the Prayer Book versions, but rather were paraphrases by Tate and Brady. The band and choir performed from the gallery in the back of the church,which conjures up images of Thomas Hardy’s Mellstock choir in Under the Greenwood Tree …
Otherwise, what others have said applies. Mattins, Litany, and Ante-Communion with sermon and "table prayers" would have been the usual Sunday service. Surplice with tabs and tippet were the usual clergy dress, directly over the street dress without cassock. Communion was celebrated roughly quarterly, with those participating "drawing near with faith" at the confession and remaining until they received, when they would be dismissed and, if necessary, followed by one or more further "heats" of communicants entering the sanctuary. Sermons were indeed longer and Evensong, in the cold Canadian climate, primarily a summer affair.

(Begging pardon of shipmates and hoping that this doesn't turn into too much of a Canadian thread) Jacob Mountain, proto-hierarch (Anglican, 1793-1825) of Québec, simply put his surplice over riding dress when taking services in rural Canada. AFAIK this was common practice until well on into Victoria's reign.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Offeiriad:

quote:
Originally posted by Wild Organist:
A good (musical) picture can be read here http://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780264661254/17747853203 Eric Routley's Short History of English Church Music.
Basically, the CofE was in the doldrums. Almost completely non-eucharistic worship with small pockets of "doing things properly" (for some reason Moravians tickle my memory here - anyone like to say why?). The Church was ripe for the Oxford movement.
The difficulty is that history isn't always as objective as it pretends to be. There is evidence that the 'Ritualists' exaggerated the state of what they had inherited in order to justify the changes they wanted to make.

For example, many of the church buildings they wanted to 'restore' were in fact in quite decent condition and had been well maintained: the problem was that they didn't reflect a Ritualist ethos of worship. Likewise the Gallery musicians the Ritualists wanted to replace with organs and robed choirs weren't all bad, and weren't swept away without a fight.

The trouble with recorded history is it tends to highlight 'bad news': quiet unspectacular faithfulness hit the headlines as rarely then as it does now!

Yes but his source is Routley. Routley was a mid-20th Century Congregationalist. Probably he got his liturgical history from Horton Davies directly (i.e. they are both associated with the same theological college although my impression is Erik Routley was slightly after Horton Davies).

Jengie

[ 18. January 2016, 15:56: Message edited by: Jengie jon ]

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

My wife sometimes sings with a rural church choir, Augustine The Aleut, and the farmer's wives come in from the milking or the horse stables in their wellies (gum-boots) and slip a choir robe over whatever they happen to be wearing at the time ...

So if it makes sense in rural Cheshire, it'd make even more sense in 19th century Canada ...

I've heard that Orthodox priests tend to do the same ... they might be wearing a T-shirt and jeans or all kinds under their cassocks ...

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Offeiriad:
The difficulty is that history isn't always as objective as it pretends to be.

History is never objective. The problem, as you say, is when it pretends (or believes) that it is.

[ 18. January 2016, 17:57: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Hooker's Trick (# 89) on :

There would be no cross (let alone crucifix) on the Holy Table, and probably not lights. Except where a medieval stone altar survived, the Table would indeed have looked like a wooden table with legs. It might or might not be covered in a carpet or rich cloth, or not covered at all except according to the BCP rubrics.

Tablets would have been set up behind the Holy Table with some combination of Lord's Prayer, Ten Commandments and Creed.

Double or triple-decker pulpits to provide a place for preaching and a place for reading the lessons and/or prayers.

Music as described above except in churches in possession of an organ, but even in cathedrals the music and organ playing were often described as very diffident.

My impression is Methodists were slow to construct chapels, and would meet in (or outside) the parish church or in some other structure like a hall or barn (although there are certainly nonconformist chapels in England dating from the C18...).

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Here are some pictures of a Welsh country church which has changed little internally since the C18 or even late C17. It looks as if it might be a bit basic even by the standards of the time but then it is in Radnorshire which was proverbially poor:

Alas, Alas, poor Radnorshire!
Never a Park and never a Deer,
Nor ever a Squire of five hundred a year
Save Richard Fowler of Abbey Cwmhir."

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

The question may be, though, how similar an Episcopal church in the thirteen former colonies, immediately after (or even before) the Rebellion was to a CofE church at the time in England, or in Disserth's case, east Wales. Would it have been fairly similar, or would it already have deviated quite significantly, and if so in what ways?

Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :

That's gorgeous, Albertus. I must go there.

Posted by Bibaculus (# 18528) on :

What a lovely church. it looks perfect in every way. Would Cewydd be pronounced something like Keith?

I would think Christ Church Philadelphia (see here ) would be a good example of an 18th Century colonial CofE church.

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

I remember visiting a TEC church in Rochester, New York, which still had its three-decker pulpit sited centrally (there was a door into the top level through the east wall), with a tiny communion table placed in front of it. Recent clergy had done their best to catholicise it with a crucifix and candles, but basically it looked like an old-fashioned British nonconformist chapel.

Posted by Ecclesiastical Flip-flop (# 10745) on :

I may have posted about it elsewhere, but I would say that St. Mary's Castle Street, Reading, Berks - C of E (continuing) is in the running for an 18th century church.

Morning & Evening Prayer 1662 BCP reign supreme on the Lord's Day at 11.00 am and 6.30 pm respectively. The only time they have the Lord's Supper, or Communion, is according to the Sunday in the month (once each, morning and evening) in place of Morning/Evening Prayer. There is no early service nor stay behind Communion on any Sunday.

There is both a large pulpit and a small one; whichever one is used, presumably depends on the size of the congregation. On my visit, it was the smaller of the two pulpits, and I suspect the larger pulpit has now become obsolete, through no longer managing a large congregation. I tried that church out a year-and-a-half ago.

The minister was robed in cassock, surplice, scarf and hood for the greater part of the service. But before preaching the 20 or 25 minute sermon, he popped into the vestry to change into a black Geneva gown.

If I go again, I will have to think of MWing there.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bibaculus:
What a lovely church. it looks perfect in every way. Would Cewydd be pronounced something like Keith?

I would think Christ Church Philadelphia (see here ) would be a good example of an 18th Century colonial CofE church.

That's very handsome too.
ASs for pronunciation- not easy! Perhaps a native Welsh speaking shipmate can advise but I think I'd say it as something like co-with (with the tongue pushed forward on the 'th' to give a slight buzz to it).

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

K-ew-ith Accent on the first syllable. Ew as in the exclamation of disgust. Th as in "this", not as in "thin".

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0