69.St Laurence, Ludlow

Many of the churches and places of worship I’ve visited have left an impression one way or another. Most, it must be said, have left a favourable impression either through their architecture or their welcome; some through the slightly closed nature of what they offer have left a less favourable impression.

The impression left by this visit to the depths of Shropshire will stay with me like no other for wholly unexpected and rather ghastly reasons.

Ludlow’s parish church of St Laurence is a real beauty capping this town on a hill and visible from miles around. Close up it’s less easy to see being snookered from many approaches by a labyrinth of buildings and lanes.

Inside, the church should be a glorious high, open space known for its superb windows, historic organ and for being the resting place of poet AE Housman. But today the interior is cluttered and darkened by the remnants of what looks like a major production of Becket finishing the night before. A vast stage and dangling crown, banks of scaffolding and temporary curtains masking props tables with replica swords and costume rails of historic robes - all of this must be negotiated in an effort to find a way through to the chancel and choral matins. It looks like the set of Midsomer Murders and is the horribly suitable setting for what happened next.

Moments after choosing a seat in the choir the quiet of the church was shattered by a piercing scream and the cries of a woman in obvious distress and pain somewhere back in the nave. At first I feared someone was being attacked or had plummeted from a high gallery. With others I hurried through to discover an older woman who had slipped on the stone floor and, in falling, had fairly evidently broken her hip or her leg. Her agony was obvious and awful and, given the position she was holding her leg, not likely to go away. We tried to calm her and keep her warm. 

An ambulance was called and a consultant who happened to be in the choir ( a stroke of fortune that!) arrived to give the opinion that paramedics were needed and she was best left where she was. Draped under robes from the costume rail she remained in acute pain as, I felt surprisingly, the service carried on further down the church. Just for the record, not a word was said and the poor women didn’t even merit an ad hoc intercession to the Almighty to send some sort of relief right away.

Many things can distract those at a church service from concentrating on the singing or the words being spoken, but I defy anyone to follow a psalm (however beautifully sung by a choir featuring a hospital consultant) or mutter the words of a creed when the whole building reverberates to the sound of someone in evident, vocal distress. By the time I left some fifty minutes later, the ambulance had arrived and some sort of stretcher was being assembled.

If I’m ever back in Ludlow I’d like to visit again on a less dramatic day in every sense. As it was I allowed myself to be ushered out a different way and went on to spend the day with friends watching rugby and then the Super Bowl and inwardly wincing with every crunching collision.