ANOTHER VOICE
An appeal to save St Wulfram's, the perfect parish church
CHARLES MOORE
We climb to the top of the tower and walk out onto the roof. Nearly two acres of lead are being replaced, the spare odds and ends lying folded in piles like dirty linen. The architect shows me how great sheets of the stuff are pinned with copper tingles to the steep-pitched roofs of George Gilbert Scott's restoration.
Then we walk out onto the parapet where the tower ends and the spire begins. The entire circumference of the town is vis- ible, and beyond it, the undulations of Lin- colnshire. At some distance stands a tower called Lord Brownlow's Trousers, and near it, the cupola of Belton House. On the other side is the London-Edinburgh rail- way. Much closer, skirting the graveyard, is the King's School, one of the pioneers of 'Opting out' and the alma mater of Sir Isaac Newton. Across the way is a handsome, part-mediaeval, part-Elizabethan, part- 17th-century house, in whose large gardens I can see the half-naked figure of Major General Sir Brian Wyldbore-Smith walking With his dogs in the hot afternoon. Finally, the eye travels to a less elegant part of town. There is a curious little neo-classical Roman Catholic church, and opposite, for- merly Roberts' grocer's shop, now known as the Premier restaurant, is the birthplace of Britain's first woman prime minister. For we are in Grantham, and I am being guided by Bill Read, whose firm of Bond and Read has looked after the church since before the war, and Bob Reiss, formerly the chaplain of my college at Cambridge, and now the rector of Grantham. I am here because I am a patron of its 2000 AD Appeal, and I want to have a closer look at the place I am supposed to be trying to help.
It is said that when Ruskin turned a cor- ner in the town and saw the great spire and west front for the first time, he swooned at their beauty. If so, it was an idiotic reaction, for the beauty of St Wulfram's church is not romantic or mystical. It is utterly unhys- terical. To be sure, the delicacy and height of the steeple are inspiring, and the front is noble, but what one sees at once is a thor- oughly English, altogether sane, robust building, ideally suited to the prosperous mediaeval wool town which paid for its Construction. It soars to heaven, but with feet planted firmly on the ground. St Wul- fram's is the perfect parish church. It is part of the character of the place that one does not suddenly light upon it, and so, if Ruskin was surprised by the vista, he must have been unobservant in his earli- er walks. For the church sits comfortably right in the middle, visible from all quarters of the town, radiating confidence to the lesser buildings nearby.
Gilbert Scott thought it second only to Salisbury in beauty, and there is a Salisbury connection. Until the 19th century, when they were foolishly and rationally (two words which should be linked more often) handed over to the Bishop of Lincoln, there were two Salisbury prebendaries of Grantham Borealis and Grantham Aus- tralis. But it would be wrong to think that, because Salisbury is the bigger and more famous, it was Grantham's inspiration. The Revd Henry Thorold, the great Lin- colnshire antiquarian, was most insistent on the point when I telephoned him to ask about the church. Grantham, he said, came first: 'It is the earliest of the great spires,' and no one knows exactly whence the idea for it came.
As well as the spire, the church is remarkable for what Pevsner calls 'the clar- ity of its interior'. It is exceptionally wide, with the north and south aisles almost as big as the nave. There is a great feeling of amplitude, though no hint of vulgarity or worldliness.
And St Wulfram's is a broad church in the metaphorical as well as the literal sense. The churches of the Lincoln diocese tend to be Higher than is usual in country areas through the legacy of the saintly 19th- century bishop Edward King, but they are not so in any cliquey way, and Mr Reiss, having used incense twice, stopped doing so when he found that it caused some offence. St Wulfram's is not enthusiastic in the old meaning of that word (`Sir, I am no friend to Enthusiasm' — Dr Johnson). Its worship — Prayer Book and ASB, both used every Sunday — is decorous, and the music is good, but it is not one of those tiresome places where the congregation appears to be worshipping the choir. The church is for all the people of Grantham, which means, predominantly, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker. It is where they are baptised and married, where they remember the war dead and where they have their funerals. It is the heart of Grantham, belonging to the peo- ple, even to those who do not attend it assiduously. By long tradition, and by Mr Reiss's choice, it is part of the life of the town, rather than a place apart.
Now it needs £450,000. Gilbert Scott installed a handsome, sturdy and efficient central heating system of cast-iron pipes. They need to be resealed. The choir needs a bigger vestry. There is an alleged need for lavatories because of all the concerts, school events and so on which take place in the church. (Spectator readers may object to this, though the plans are certainly unob- trusive; perhaps any objector kind enough to send a cheque could write 'not for lava- tories' on it.) But by far the biggest expense will be the restoration of the 18th-century organ and the huge reroofing described above. The appeal is called 2000 AD, because that date is obviously a moment of some importance in the life of every church and the organisers want to have St Wul- fram's in peak condition for the celebra- tion.
Please give something if you know the place or if you like the sound of what you have read above, or if you believe that the Church of England should not be an inward-looking sect, nor an aesthetic mau- soleum, but a living institution which is important because its message is universal and its presence is local.
At the time of writing, the organisers of the appeal have not approached Grantham's greatest daughter. There is a feeling that her support might put some people off. If that is so, some people are very bigoted indeed. Anyway, I hope that the Thatcher connection might encourage some Spectator readers. It is pleasant to think that she would have passed that great spire every day on her way across the town to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, a girl from a household which perhaps did not think very much about such things, absorbing beauty as she passed. I like to think that its kindly influence persuaded her at last to abandon the Wesleyanism of her youth and drew her into the warmer and more capacious bosom of the national church. But if the fancy displeases you, ignore this last paragraph.
To send money, please make a cheque payable to St Wulfram's Church, and send it to St Wulfram's 2000 AD Appeal Office, clo Duncan and Toplis, 3 Castlegate, Grantham, Lincs ; and please say where you read about it. My friend and fellow patron Hugh Mont- gomery-Massingberd (as he then was) wrote an article appealing for the same cause which raised £700. I want us to beat him.
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