Leominster Priory

I first visited Leominster (to pronounce it correctly, ignore the ‘o’, ‘i’ and ‘n’) in Herefordshire twenty-five years ago to attend a wedding. A friend and I both sneaked off to the parish church in order to inspect it. I was not ‘in’ to churches like I am now, but even back then I was impressed by Leominster Priory’s scale and beauty.

It was once a Norman priory as well as a parish church. When one stands at the back and looks forward, once can see the ‘heavy’ Norman style to one’s left, and the rather daintier, elegant Decorated style to the right, with thinner, Victorian pillars. One is solid and dependable, the other light and airy.

Both are pictures of what the church (the body of Christ on earth, rather than some architectural scheme) ought to be like. In terms of faithfulness and morality, we should be staunch and unyielding; in our dealings and conduct- gentle, soaring, gracious and beautiful.

Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. Ps 48:2