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Under Faversham's choir stalls: the condition of its misericords

Misericords are among the most quietly remarkable survivals of medieval church craftsmanship in England. Tucked beneath the hinged seats of choir stalls, these small carved panels were designed to offer weary clergy a little support during the long services of the divine office, their name drawn from the Latin "misericordia," meaning mercy or pity. To look beneath the seats and discover a bestiary of carved creatures, foliage and satirical figures is to step into a parallel world that the medieval carpenter built for those who sat above. Learn more about Why The Church Is Called St Mary Of Charity.html.

The misericords at St Mary of Charity in Faversham belong to a long tradition of devotional woodwork found across the great parish churches of southern England. Set in the heart of the medieval market town, the church holds one of the more interesting collections of late medieval carving in Kent. Visitors who travel to Faversham from places like Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane often arrive expecting the predictable grandeur of a Gothic interior, and leave remembering instead the small, hand-cut faces peering down from beneath the stalls. Learn more about Justrememberthepast.com.

This piece looks closely at how those carvings are faring today. It traces the wood, the wear, and the quiet work of conservation that keeps them readable for another generation. It also considers how the condition of Faversham's misericords compares with similar survivals elsewhere, and what visitors from Australia might look for when they make the journey to see them. Learn more about Builttoinspire.org.

A medieval legacy carved in oak

The choir stalls at Faversham date from the early fourteenth century, a period when English parish churches were lavishing fresh attention on their interior fittings. Local oak, cut from the Weald of Kent and seasoned for years, was shaped by carpenters who worked from sketch patterns passed between workshops. The misericord panels were never meant to be the centre of attention; they were utilitarian objects, hidden from the congregation by the high backs of the stalls. Their survival, therefore, is partly a matter of accident. Learn more about The Churchyard And The Changing Burial Landscape Of Faversham.html.

The carvings draw on a familiar late Gothic vocabulary. There are leafy vine scrolls, a Green Man disgorging foliage from his mouth, a fox in a monk's cowl preaching to a congregation of geese, and small human heads whose expressions shift according to the angle of the light. Such imagery has long fascinated scholars because it allowed medieval craftsmen to comment, obliquely, on the church and society around them. The fox preaching to geese, for instance, was a pointed warning about hypocritical clergy; the same motif appears in misericords from Lincoln to Ludlow.

The wider story of the church, including the question of why the church is called St Mary of Charity, gives these carvings much of their context. The dedication reflects the medieval association of the Virgin Mary with active charity, and the misericords sit naturally alongside other fittings that speak to that theme, including the painted column and the memorial inscriptions in the nave. Heritage researchers interested in the broader sweep of local church history often begin with that single question of naming, because the dedication explains so many of the choices the medieval patrons made about imagery, liturgy and ornament.

Eight centuries of wear

Open any guide to conservation and you will find that wood, like stone, records the weather of centuries in its grain. The Faversham misericords show their age in ways that are typical, and a few that are particular to their position. The most heavily abraded panels are those beneath seats that were used most often, and the smooth polish on a few of the figures' heads and shoulders comes from the friction of robes, elbows, and gloved hands over many generations.

Specialist survey work, similar in method to studies carried out on the timber roof of St Mary the Virgin in Higham Ferrers, has identified a handful of recurring problems. Woodworm has left fine networks of flight holes in some panels, though these are now dormant. A small area near the south stall has suffered from rising damp where the floor beneath was historically poorly ventilated, leaving a faint tide mark on the underside of one misericord. Some of the original paint traces have worn away entirely, while a handful retain thin remnants of red ochre and green earth that hint at how colourful the choir would once have appeared. Patterns of damp in this corner are inseparable from the history of Faversham's changing burial landscape, since centuries of interment immediately beyond the wall have lifted the ground level and concentrated moisture against the foundations.

There is also damage that is purely human. The nineteenth-century restorers who passed through many English churches in the Victorian era were often heavy-handed, and at Faversham a few panels show the careful but unmistakable marks of Victorian re-knifing, when worn surfaces were re-cut to restore a sharp outline. This kind of intervention is now seen as part of the object's history rather than a flaw to be erased, a view that echoes the careful retention of wear marks on colonial timber ceilings in places such as the heritage-listed Parramatta Park gatehouse in New South Wales.

Conservation in practice

The current care of the misericords follows the gentle, reversible philosophy that has become standard in British heritage work. Where earlier generations used hard resins and heavy varnishes, today's conservators prefer minimal intervention. Cleaning is done with soft brushes and controlled suction; losses are supported with linen-backed fillers rather than hard fills; and environmental monitoring tracks the conditions around the stalls throughout the seasons.

Common conservation treatments applied to medieval woodwork:

A growing influence on conservation thinking at parish level has been the parallel rise of heritage awareness among Australian communities. Projects such as the careful repair of nineteenth-century timber churches in Hobart, Adelaide and the historic timber hall at Richmond in Tasmania have shown what methodical care can achieve. The same ethic now shapes the slow work on the Faversham stalls. Visitors who have seen the restored Gothic Revival timberwork at the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, or who follow the conservation of nineteenth-century joinery in Sydney's colonial terraces, often recognise the careful, low-intervention nature of the work underway at St Mary of Charity.

How the work is organised matters as much as the techniques. Volunteers trained through local heritage groups carry out the gentle dusting and visual monitoring, leaving structural intervention to accredited specialists. Funding streams such as those distributed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund have supported training days where volunteers learn to recognise the difference between old wear, active infestation, and accidental damage from modern visitors. That volunteer-led, professional-backed structure has become a quiet model that mirrors the way many Australian heritage trusts in Adelaide and Perth now handle nineteenth-century Gothic and Edwardian church fittings.

Comparing English misericords

Few medieval collections of misericords survive in a directly comparable state. Some, like those at Beverley Minster, remain comparatively crisp because they spent centuries behind protective boards. Others, like the heavily worn set at Ludlow, have been worn almost smooth. Faversham sits between these poles, retaining readable carving in most panels while showing the unmistakable softening of long use. For readers who want to follow the wider trail of medieval English woodwork, the Just Remember the Past archive brings together surveys from a number of parish churches and offers useful comparison points.

Church Approximate date Number of misericords Subject focus Current condition
St Mary of Charity, Faversham Early 14th century 13 surviving Fox preaching, Green Man, foliage Good overall, surface wear, Victorian re-knifing on a few
Beverley Minster, East Yorkshire c. 1520 68 Grotesques, daily life Crisp, well preserved behind modern glazing
Ludlow, Shropshire Mid 15th century 28 Sub-humour, moral satire Heavily worn, several panels near-defaced
Lincoln Cathedral, Lincolnshire c. 1370 18 Angels, foliage, fable Good, recently conserved with minimal intervention
Bristol Cathedral, Somerset Early 16th century 53 Allegory, classical motifs Fair, some losses from nineteenth-century refitting

It is worth pausing on what such a comparison actually tells a reader. A high number of misericords does not necessarily mean a richer experience; it is the clarity of the imagery and the conservation approach that shapes how much meaning each panel delivers today. Faversham's smaller set rewards close attention precisely because every panel can be studied in detail, whereas the great sequences at Beverley or Bristol reward the slower art of noticing recurring patterns across many seats. That same lesson shapes how Australian visitors approach both medieval European sites and the smaller nineteenth-century Gothic Revival collections preserved in places like Perth's older Anglican churches.

Seeing the misericords today

For visitors arriving from Australia, a trip to the choir stalls is one of the most rewarding things to do inside the church. The stalls are accessible without charge during opening hours, and a small mirror placed on the south wall allows those who cannot comfortably crouch to see the carvings reflected from above. This kind of thoughtful provision echoes the visitor care found at the heritage-listed convict chapels in Sydney and Hobart, where accessibility is built into the historic fabric without compromise.

A visitor's checklist for the choir stalls:

Reflection, as much as heritage, is part of the reason the church invites people in. The misericords were carved for the comfort of those who prayed, and they still sit quietly beneath the seats as if waiting for the next long office to begin. That sense of continuity resonates strongly for Australian visitors who value the slow work of remembrance, whether at the dawn services held at Gallipoli each ANZAC morning, or in the quiet commemoration that fills the small country chapels of rural New South Wales on ANZAC Day.

For those planning a visit, the Built to Inspire site holds practical information on opening times, accessibility, and how to make the most of a stay in the medieval market town. Together, the choir stalls and the painted column, the brasses and the memorials, give a visitor a sense of how generations of craftsmen, clergy and townspeople have cared for the same small set of carvings across eight hundred years.