Exciting discovery under St Mary’s carpet

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Facebook photographs of beautiful tiles discovered under the chancel carpet at St Mary’s prompted me to investigate and to meet up with Rev Paul White to find out more.

The sanctuary at St Mary’s Rye

“I have always loved St Mary’s, long before I came here as vicar. One of the things I noticed was that the internal layout of the church was not showing the church off to her best advantage. When you entered through the north door there was too much clutter which was just too busy. There were lots of random noticeboards. It seemed to me to be an inappropriate entrance to what is essentially a beautiful church.

“Not long after I came to Rye as rector I got involved with the PCC and asked them to walk around the church, section by section, to see what worked and what didn’t work with a view to changing things around. This was such a useful exercise as everyone had the chance to chip in their thoughts. People were able to say what was good about a space and what could happen to make it a better space. Some very useful ideas came about because of this joint exercise.

The new positioning of the shop at St Mary’s Rye

“One thing everyone was agreed on was that we had to move the shop out of the space directly in your sight as you came in and that the most suitable alternative place was by the tower entrance in the north aisle.

“I spoke with the archdeacon, Edward Dowler about getting a faculty to enable the changes to take place. He was encouraging about the ideas we wanted to implement and he was all for us being more radical. We then took the pews out around the font to make it much easier for families to take part in baptisms.

The new Remembrance Chapel at St Mary’s Rye

“The Chapel of Remembrance was created next, where the shop had been. The altar moved there had been in the nave but was no longer used as we have gone back to using the high altar. It is a reflective place to pray and all the orders of service from recent funerals are there on display.

“For a while I have been looking at the sanctuary and thinking that the blue carpet was covering up some very beautiful tiles. Of course we couldn’t be sure why it had been laid in the first place and there may have been cracked tiles underneath. The PCC agreed for me to able to investigate and see what was lurking underneath. I started with the carpet on the top step, cleaned the underlying tiles up a bit and it looked really stunning. I was then given permission to get rid of all the carpet. On Tuesday I lifted it and exposed all the tiles. At the moment they are not looking at their best because they have been under a carpet for decades and the lining plastic sheet trapped moisture so the tiles have gone a little cloudy.

“The first thing we need to do is to get an acid wash which gets rid of the alkaline salts and then we will get special permeable colour enhancers which will bring all the Victorian tiles back to life. It has been a labour of love but it has been worth it.

The reredos at St Mary’s Rye

“The next thing to tackle, subject to measurements, is to move the reredos at the back of the church, behind the font, to the Chapel of Remembrance. A reredos is meant to go behind an altar so it would be returned to its proper place. This in turn would mean moving the list of former incumbents to the Clare Chapel where the modern incumbents board is and they would sit side by side.”

St Mary’s will look amazing once the tiles have had their final polish.

Victorian tiles at St Mary’s Rye

Image Credits: Paul White , Kt bruce .

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5 COMMENTS

  1. Well done – it looks great without the carpet.

    I was in the choir at St Mary’s in the glory days of Rev. John Williams and Tony Pape as choirmaster – I was even organist for a short while in my teens. During my visits to Rye I always check out St. Mary’s and for years have been concerned by the general confused state of notices, displays, and quite frankly junk stored around this beautiful building. Well done to current vicar for leading a sort out …

  2. As a one time inspecting architect for several churches in the Diocese, I applaud the PCC’s efforts to tidy up and expose hidden features.
    However, I am slightly disturbed that there is no mention of their Church Architect, the Archdeacon and whether the works undertaken should have had a Faculty or Archdeacon’s Certificate. The Diocese has experts in all matters to do with churches – stained glass, bells, furniture and flooring, etc.

  3. Dear Chris, Thank you. As Rector I can confirm that all the works were done under an Archdeacon’s temporary faculty and that the removal of the carpet did not require a faculty as it is a List A matter under the new rules. The article does actually mention me speaking to the Archdeacon. We are having a visit from the DAC at the end of this month with a view to obtaining permanent faculties. So, although the article did not go into legal detail please rest assured that we are following all the rules. Rev’d Paul

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