A church porch is a room-like structure at a
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...
's main entrance. A porch protects from the weather to some extent. Some porches have an outer door, others a simple gate, and in some cases the outer opening is not closed in any way.
The porch at
St Wulfram's Church, Grantham, like many others of the period, has a room above the porch. It once provided lodging for the priest, but now houses the
Francis Trigge Chained Library. Such a room is sometimes called a parvise which spelt as
parvis
A parvis or parvise is the open space in front of and around a cathedral or Church (building) , church, especially when surrounded by either colonnades or porticoes, as at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It is thus a church-specific type of forec ...
normally means an open space or colonnade in front of a church entrance.
In
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...
and
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
the porch of a church is often called by names meaning weaponhouse. It used to be believed that visitors stored their
weapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...
s there because of a prohibition against carrying weapons into the
sanctuary
A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred space, sacred place, such as a shrine, protected by ecclesiastical immunity. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This seconda ...
, or into houses in general; this is now considered apocryphal by most accepted sources, and the weaponhouse is considered more likely to have functioned as a guardroom or armoury to store weapons in case of need.
Examples
Image:St Wulfram, Grantham, porch.JPG, St Wulfram's Grantham, England: The church porch which houses the chained library
Image:Church of St Guthlac, Little Ponton - South porch.jpg, Church Porch with lattice gate, intended mainly to prevent birds nesting in the porch. St Guthlac, Little Ponton (England)
Image:Billingshurst church porch.JPG, Billingshurst Church, England
Image:Keutschach Pfarrkirche hll Georg und Bartholomaeus 09062006 01.jpg, Keutschach am See Church, Austria
Image:Oesterlars Kirke Bornholm Denmark entrance.jpg, Ă˜sterlars Church, Denmark
File:West portal and portion of west gallery.jpg, Porch of the Tolchkovo Church, Russia
See also
*
Lychgate
A lychgate (from Old English ''līc'', corpse) or resurrection gate is a covered gateway found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style churchyard. Examples also exist outside the British Isles in places such as Newfoundland, the ...
References
External links
*
Church architecture
Rooms
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