#hillesden

All Saints Hillesden in Buckinghamshire has everything: a door pockmarked from a civil war siege, which the church survived, while the manor house was burned down by Oliver Cromwell's troops, and (it is said) thirty foreign mercenaries summarily executed. Despite this, quite a bit of old glass survives, including this rather wonderful piece of sixteenth-century Flemish glass telling the story of St Nicholas.

It captures all the bizarre details of the St Nicholas legends, with wonderfully expressive details:

There is a good explanation of what they represent here. Apparently this one above is the devil strangling a boy, who is then revived by St Nicholas.

I'm not sure whether this window was in the church when it was besieged, as another window is testimony to the destruction then wrought:

The 'Hillesden miracle' is the stain behind this statue of the Virgin Mary, which is said to represent the Virgin itself and be irremovable by scrubbing or painting. Rather a nice testimony for a church which is a great survivor.