Roadtrip to Mells

Well, young reader, I do like to start the year with a rock 'n' roll roadtrip, and there is no finer place to go then that hotspot of aesthetic wonder, Mells village, just outside Frome in Somerset.

I'm the one in the trap with the beard...

Yes, I know, it's not very bustling cosmopolitan den of retail extravagance, but rather it is a very picturesque village and home to Frances Horner, friend of Burne-Jones and Rossetti and general Soul lovely...

Frances Graham (Horner) (1869) D G Rossetti

Our reason for the roadtrip was to see the church in Mells, St Andrews, which contains not only the Horner family memorials but also the Burne-Jones plaque to Laura Lyttleton.  Mr Walker and I are engaged in writing an article at present and felt the journey was necessary to appreciate the presence of place in the Souls history.  We were more than proved right...

Mells is the sort of place that makes you think 'When I am rich, when I have my three book deal with enormous advance, I shall live here...'  It is beautiful and quiet, dominated by a 16th century manor house and church, St Andrew's, adjacent.  The Horner family, allegedly containing 'Little Jack Horner' (although that is very dubious and much to do with the Victorians cleaning up Georgian filthy stories), built the manor house in around 1543 and had it altered in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.  It is literally right next to the church, and it shares so much history, it's heartbreaking...

The manor house from the doorway of the church

You may remember this post on the Souls group, where I spoke about the Horner family, of Frances Graham, who married in and had two children called Edward and Katherine. In St Andrew's church, there is an amazing tribute to Edward, the fallen hero of the Horner family...

Edward, as drawn by Burne-Jones in 1898

Edward, all grown up and off to war

Memorial to Edward, died in 1917 at the Battle of Cambrai

My God, it could break your heart.  Lovely Edward Horner, Burne-Jones cherub and lover of Diana Manners (daughter of another Soul, Violet Manners), dead.  Mind you, all the rest of them were dead too.  Mr Walker just pointed out how utterly bleak it must have been if we were sat here thinking of all the sons of our friends had all been wiped out, leaving Lily without her friends, let alone hope of marrying one of them.  It's terrifying when you think of it like that and pretty much broke a generation who had to just carry on.  I can't quite get my head around the horror as all of my relatives came home, but then none of them were posh enough to be officers.  You were really done for if you were an officer.

Moving on, before we all start sobbing, the church is beautiful and pack full of Victorian delights like some beautiful stained glass...

...some of it sneakily name checking the important folks in the congregation...

Also Frances Horner had stitched a Burne-Jones design into the most lovely tapestry, which hangs at the back of the church...

And finally it is home to the pale alabaster plaque to the faint star that was Laura Lyttelton, beloved of Burne-Jones and dead by 24...

Mells is possibly not a place to go if you wish to be cheered, but it does hold the memories of promising young people cut down or defeated by grief.  It seems quite strange to find so much frank acknowledgement of premature death in somewhere so chocolate box perfect, but not a moment of it is maudlin or miserable.  The sheer scale of Edward on his ridiculously big horse is astounding, feeling bigger than lifesize because you are pressed into such a small space with him, surrounded by pews.

Frances is buried in the graveyard after dying in 1940 at a ripe old age.  Buried alongside her in the family row is Julian and Anne Asquith, Julian being the son of Katherine Asquith (nee Horner) daughter of Frances, who also lost her husband in the First World War.

Also, a few rows away was a more surprising name, someone who actually and famously did not die in the First World War...

Siegfried Sassoon is one of those characters who is a survivor, an escapee of a cataclysm that wiped out a swathe of his generation, and yet he died in the midst of the swinging sixties in this quiet Somerset town, just round the corner from a massive War memorial...

War Memorial with Portland stone bench

Detail of St George and the Dragon, from the top of the  Memorial

The war memorial lists the names of Raymond Asquith and his brother in law Edward Horner, along with the others of the village who died, and further panels of Second World War deaths.  The St George that heads the memorial is a rather incongruous figure, looking down at the list of the dead while he survived his battle.  That is the byword for the Souls, who seem to have looked at the bigger picture in order to cope with the grief that befell them.  For them St George had to have won against the dragon to make it worth while.  The death of the bright star, Edward Horner, so ostentatiously grieved in such a small church, is given such dignity that it almost seems the right thing to have happened, rather than a blight that wiped out the family name.  In order to carry on, the good people of Mells had to honour their dead and move on.  It is only the scale they chose to honour poor dead Edward that gives any hint of the tragedy that befell them.

So that is Mells, just outside Frome in Somerset.  I heartily endorse a journey to see the church and the Burne-Jones connection there in.  Just go on a day you feel cheery...