a place to wait, out of the rain
My husband and I love to go for drives in the countryside, and we often turn these trips into ‘expeditions for collection’. For example, in 1992, we began a project to see all the covered bridges in the province; of the more than 60 covered bridges in New Brunswick, we have ‘collected’ about three-quarters. Recently, we began a quest to see as many waterfalls as possible (the state of my arthritic knees puts the emphasis on the ‘as possible’).
This spring, we set out with a very reasonable goal, to see the three lychgates at Anglican churches in the Diocese of Fredericton (all of the Parishes in New Brunswick are located in the one Diocese). This idea came from a short article in the New Brunswick Anglican in 1997 by Frank Morehouse (‘Only three lych gates remain in the diocese’). The three lychgates are at St. Anne’s Chapel in Fredericton, St. James Church in Ludlow, and St. Paul’s Church in Hampton.
Lychgates are an architectural remnant of past practice, dating back to the 13th century. They were used as a part of the funeral service, a place for the priest to meet the body of the deceased on its way to burial, and a shelter for the pall bearers to stand out of the rain. The word lychgate comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lych meaning corpse.
A typical lychgate is made of wood, and consists of a roof supported by a framework of two or more posts, and a gate hung from the framework. Lychgates usually stand at the entrance to the church property or the graveyard. They can be architecturally ornate.
Today the lychgate is a picturesque feature of the churchyard, but they also create habitat for wild life. Spiders tuck their webs in the rafters of the structure where they are safe from wind and rain. The shingled roof of a lychgate is often a place where lichens and mosses can grow without competition from other plants.
Our collection of lychgates at Anglican churches in New Brunswick is complete. We found the lychgate in Fredericton on a rainy day in April…
lychgate at St. Anne's Chapel in Fredericton, on a rainy day
… the Ludlow lychgate on a hillside in early July…
- lychgate at St. James Church, Ludlow
lychgate at St. Paul's Church, Hampton... green lichen on the lychgate roof and orange lichen on the stone wall
a place to wait, out of the rain
~
as if the rain matters
all of us drenched in tears
best for this to be
a grey day
heaven opened
for two way passage
~
the Sentences encourage me
to lift my eyes
and in the rafters of the lychgate a spider
spinning its web
~
as if it were a tale that is told
about a roof that protected me
the sun shall not burn thee by day,
neither the moon by night
neither the rain
~
(quotations in the poem are from The Book of Common Prayer, ‘The Order for the Burial of the Dead’, Canada, 1962)
© Jane Tims 2011
nichepoetryandprose 
I couldn’t help but feel I had heard about “Lychgates” somewhere else. Then it occurred to me after reading your poem. It’s mentioned in a videogame called “Dungeon Seige” and one of the evil characters is the “Lych King”. Didn’t know there was such a thing as Lych Gates. Like how you incorporated the spider observation and the The Book of Common Prayer in your poem.
~Denis
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JD
September 3, 2011 at 8:38 pm
Yes, because of the origin of the word (meaning corpse) it is used, sometimes hidden, in our modern words. Jane
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jane tims
September 4, 2011 at 8:03 am