Photo Post - St Boniface, Bunbury, Part 2

The chancel

The chancel at Bunbury is 14th century and so older than the nave. In the centre is an alabaster tomb (also 14th century) depicting Sir Hugh de Calveley, a major benefactor of the church. The graffiti you see is from the civil war period, when captured soldiers were kept here.

He funded a college of priests here; it’s often hard for us to imagine today, but most churches had multiple priests and other clerics in minor orders. The choir would have been made up of a mixture of clerics and boys. Not all the clerics would make it to being ordained priest; some would leave, some would remain in minor orders and be married. But where there were a lot of people attached to the church, like this one, the chancels in the medieval period were often large.