St Agatha's Church, Easby

St Agatha’s Church at Easby, North Yorkshire, is a crooked, irregular little building. It sits in the shadow, literally, of Easby Abbey, that imposingly beautiful ruin. The little parish church survived Henry Tudor's Reformation because it served the community, unlike, it was supposed, the high and mighty monks next door.

Dating from the twelfth century, its tunnel-like, barrel-vaulted porchway is like stepping back in time. The thick, medieval font, the high arches, the relative darkness: this is what our pre-modern forbears would have witnessed when they attended church. The highlight, however, as any visitor to St Agatha’s will vouch, is the surviving medieval wall paintings.

Although whitewashed at the Reformation by order of Edward VI’s government, and reinforced by Cromwell’s, Victorian restorers uncovered them. Although they have doubtless been touched up, they still retain their original essence. One can feel the medieval piety (both good and ill) reflecting off the painted clothes and faces.

There are scenes from the Garden of Eden, Christ’s nativity as well as His death, burial and resurrection. How many of those illiterate worshippers beheld these frescoes and found the real Lord Jesus, and how many made them foci of idolatry and superstition, one cannot tell. Charming as they are, faith cometh by hearing, not seeing, and the paintings’ covering was no hardship when God’s word, the Bible, was increasingly read, pored over, heard and loved.

Hear the word of the Lord, You rulers of Sodom; Give ear to the law of our God, You people of Gomorrah. Isaiah 1:10, NKJV