If you stand on the north lawns of Worcester Cathedral
and look out you will see a garish, L-shaped building with a pedestrian walkway
under its shorter arm. Built in the 1960s
the ground floor is now occupied by a variety of shops and a café. The upper
five floors are now apartments but after their initial constriction in 1966
they were the prestigious Giffard Hotel, then Worcester’s one and only
up-market hotel. Three stars with
rooftop parking! The hotel lasted nearly
half a century, closing its doors in October 2003 – but it’s legacy is
preserved, officially regarded as modernist architecture “gone wrong” after George Ferguson, the president of the Royal
Institute of British Architects, said it could be included on his "X-list" of the country's "most vile" buildings.
This part of Worcester was not always a civic eyesore. It was once a ramshackle but historical part of the city. Parts were run down, admittedly, but most were simply in need of imaginative repair. From Elizabethan to Georgian it was an architectural potpourri. Until the planners moved in. As
a young boy alighting at a nearby bus stop every school morning I was a witness
to what may described justly as a development blitzkrieg. It is odd that so
much of this remains engraved on my memory.
Huge cranes with wrecking balls swinging; bulldozers and gangs of men
with sledgehammers. Noise and dust
everywhere. Tall fencing being installed
and concrete-delivering lorries by the hundred. Black and white timbered buildings there one minute and gone the next. And I recall the church, St Michael’s, opposite the War Memorial, being
pulverized by machines one morning, and thinking, “That’s not right! You can’t do that to a church!” But they could and they did. Just as they did to the Cathedral lychgate.
St Michael’s in Bedwardine was an Ancient Parish. By that I mean that it was established before
1597 (and the Elizabethan Poor Laws which defined the duties of a parish.) Its architectural roots were medieval (the
first vicar was Will’us de Norton in 1280) but the only remains of that church
are flat stones with faint inscriptions found near the war memorial. It was both a cemetery chapel (traditionally
the Archangel Michael was thought to have an interest in funerals) and a place
of worship for a small community that in those days was outside of Worcester’s
city walls. Records note that in 1775
the parish contained ninety-nine houses and six hundred and twenty-two
people. One small sketched image exists of the
church dated 1796 but I am still hunting for more.
A single description is preserved in the Transactions of
the Worcestershire Archeological Society.
The church … is an
ancient building; its inside, by the last fitting up it received, hath been
rendered extremely neat, decent, and commodious. A new altar-piece, communion table, and a
pulpit, embellished with good carvings, which, with a new gallery and pews,
have given it altogether a very respectable appearance. (Transactions. Vol. XIX.)
This original church building was demolished in 1843,
having stood empty for four years after a new St Michael’s was built in 1839 “just
over the road.”
I never entered the new church and I have asked Worcester
Museums if any images of the interior exist.
If there are any I will post them in a later column. In the meantime
these are pictures of the church that are in the public domain.
St Michael's Church, College Street
St Michael's Church with the lychgate to its side
Photograph of St Michael's Church taken from the cathedral tower
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