View allAll Photos Tagged Combing
Combs church wasn't open on the Wednesday that I visited. There was a phone number listed, but I was a bit pushed for time and was keen to get to Badley, which I hadn't visited before. So I had to make do. Combs sits on its own in fields south of Stowmarket. The church is quite large, and the setting is enjoyable, on a slight rise backed by trees. The tower is Decorated, as is the chancel. The rest of the church is Perpendicular.
This tiny, delicate shell (Murex Pecten) is called a Mermaid's Comb or Venus Comb for an obvious reason.
These beautiful Edo Period (1603-1868) combs are on display at the Takatsuki Castle Ruin Historical Museum in Takatsuki, Osaka.
Oahu, Hawaii
Ctenophores are the largest non-colonial animals that use cilia ("hairs") as their main method of locomotion. Most species have eight strips, called comb rows, that run the length of their bodies and bear comb-like bands of cilia, called "ctenes," stacked along the comb rows so that when the cilia beat, those of each comb touch the comb below. The name "ctenophora" means "comb-bearing".
St Mary, Combs, Suffolk
Combs is a large parish, and although there is a remote, pretty village that takes its name up in the hills, the bulk of the population of the parish is down in the housing estate of Combs Ford in suburban Stowmarket. Consequently, this church is often busy with baptisms and weddings, and can reckon on a goodly number of the faithful on a Sunday morning.
St Mary is on the edge of the housing estate, but the setting is otherwise profoundly rural: you reach it along a doglegging lane from the top of Poplar Hill, and the last few hundred yards is along a narrow track which ends in the wide graveyard. The church is set on low ground, hills rising away to north and south, and the effect, on looking down at it, is of a great ship at rest in harbour.
With its grand tower, aisles and clerestories this is a perfect example of a 15th Century Suffolk church in all its glory. In the 1930s, Cautley found the main entrance through the south porch, a grand red brick affair of the late 15th century. It has since been bricked up, and entrance is through the smaller north porch, which faces the estate. The gloom of the north porch leads you into a tall, wide open space, full of light, as if the morning had followed you in from outside. If you had been here ten years ago, the first striking sight would have been the three great bells on the floor at the west end. They represented the late medieval and early modern work of three of East Anglia's great bell-founding families, the Brayers of Norwich and the Graye and Darbie families of Ipswich. The largest dates from the mid-15th century, and was cast by Richard Brayser. Its inscription invokes the prayers of St John the Baptist. The other two come from either side of the 17th century Commonwealth; that by Miles Graye would have been a sonorous accompaniement to Laudian piety, while John Darbie's would have rung in the Restoration. It was fascinating to be able to see them at such close quarters, but they have now been rehung in the tower.
Stretching eastwards is the range of 15th century benches with their predominantly animal bench ends, some medieval and some clever Victorian copies, probably by the great Henry Ringham. The effect is similar to that at Woolpit a few miles to the west. The hares are my favourites. One is medieval, the other Ringham's work. They seems alert and wary, as though they might bolt at any moment. Clearly, the medieval artist had seen a hare, but lions were creatures of his imagination.
The great glory of this church, however, is the range of 15th century glass towards the east end of the south aisle. It was collected together in this corner of the church after the factory explosion that wrecked most of Stowmarket and killed 28 people in August 1871. The east window and most easterly south window contain figures from a Tree of Jesse, a family tree of Christ. Old Testament prophets and patriarchs mix with kings, most of them clearly labelled: Abraham and his son Isaac wait patiently near the top, and Solomon and David are also close companions.
This second window also contains two surviving scenes from the Seven Works of Mercy, 'give food to the hungry' and 'give water to the thirsty'. But the most remarkable glass here consists of scenes from the life and martyrdom of St Margaret. We see her receiving God's blessing as she tends her sheep (who graze on, apparently unconcerned). We see her tortured while chained to the castle wall. We see her about to be boiled in oil, and most effectively in a composite scene at once being eaten by a dragon and escaping from it.
Under the vast chancel arch is the surviving dado of the late 14th/early 15th Century roodscreen, a substantial structure carved and studded with ogee arches beneath trefoiled tracery, the carvings in the spandrels gilded. At the other end of the church, the font is imposing in the cleared space of the west end. It is contemporary with the roodscreen, and the suggestion is that we are seeing a building that is not far off being all of a piece: the fixtures and fittings of a new building roughly a century before the Reformation.
A period of history not otherwise much represented here is that of the early Stuarts, but a brass inscription of 1624 reset on a wall had echoes of Shakespeare: Fare well, deare wife, since thou art now absent from mortalls sight. One of those moments when the human experience transcends the religious tussles of those days.
Outside in the graveyard, two other memorials caught my eye. One dates from 1931, and remembers My Beloved Sweetheart Stan... who died in Aden aged 22 years. Not far off, a small headstone of the late 17th Century records that Here Restesth ye body of Mary, ye wife of Tho. Love Coroner with two still born Children. I stood in the quiet of the graveyard, looking across to the suburbs of the busy town of Stowmarket, and I felt the heartbeat, the connection down the long Combs Ford centuries.
Behind me, there was something rather curious. Although this is a big graveyard, the church is set hard against the western edge of it. Because of this, a processional way was built through the base of the tower by the original builders, as at Ipswich St Lawrence and Stanton St John. This would have allowed medieval processions to circumnavigate the church on consecrated ground. The way here has since been blocked in, and is used as storage space. A surviving stoup inside shows that, through this processional way, the west door was the main entrance to the church in medieval times, when this building was the still point of the people's turning world.
Armed with just my D200 and 35mm lens I visited a local boot sale near Colchester in Essex to get some character shots - I wasn't disappointed !
Nikon D200
Nikon 35mm F1.8 lens
F7.1 @ 1/350 second exposure
ISO100
The honeybees manufacture wax and blend it with another product that they create from collected tree and plant resins called propolis, this mixture is then used to form a strong bond capable of attaching the comb to a branch and supporting the weight of all the bees, nectar, pollen, brood and the fragile honeycomb itself.
Jessi Combs at the Lincoln Welder booth in Las Vegas.
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St Mary, Combs, Suffolk
Combs is a large parish, and although there is a remote, pretty village that takes its name up in the hills, the bulk of the population of the parish is down in the housing estate of Combs Ford in suburban Stowmarket. Consequently, this church is often busy with baptisms and weddings, and can reckon on a goodly number of the faithful on a Sunday morning.
St Mary is on the edge of the housing estate, but the setting is otherwise profoundly rural: you reach it along a doglegging lane from the top of Poplar Hill, and the last few hundred yards is along a narrow track which ends in the wide graveyard. The church is set on low ground, hills rising away to north and south, and the effect, on looking down at it, is of a great ship at rest in harbour.
With its grand tower, aisles and clerestories this is a perfect example of a 15th Century Suffolk church in all its glory. In the 1930s, Cautley found the main entrance through the south porch, a grand red brick affair of the late 15th century. It has since been bricked up, and entrance is through the smaller north porch, which faces the estate. The gloom of the north porch leads you into a tall, wide open space, full of light, as if the morning had followed you in from outside. If you had been here ten years ago, the first striking sight would have been the three great bells on the floor at the west end. They represented the late medieval and early modern work of three of East Anglia's great bell-founding families, the Brayers of Norwich and the Graye and Darbie families of Ipswich. The largest dates from the mid-15th century, and was cast by Richard Brayser. Its inscription invokes the prayers of St John the Baptist. The other two come from either side of the 17th century Commonwealth; that by Miles Graye would have been a sonorous accompaniement to Laudian piety, while John Darbie's would have rung in the Restoration. It was fascinating to be able to see them at such close quarters, but they have now been rehung in the tower.
Stretching eastwards is the range of 15th century benches with their predominantly animal bench ends, some medieval and some clever Victorian copies, probably by the great Henry Ringham. The effect is similar to that at Woolpit a few miles to the west. The hares are my favourites. One is medieval, the other Ringham's work. They seems alert and wary, as though they might bolt at any moment. Clearly, the medieval artist had seen a hare, but lions were creatures of his imagination.
The great glory of this church, however, is the range of 15th century glass towards the east end of the south aisle. It was collected together in this corner of the church after the factory explosion that wrecked most of Stowmarket and killed 28 people in August 1871. The east window and most easterly south window contain figures from a Tree of Jesse, a family tree of Christ. Old Testament prophets and patriarchs mix with kings, most of them clearly labelled: Abraham and his son Isaac wait patiently near the top, and Solomon and David are also close companions.
This second window also contains two surviving scenes from the Seven Works of Mercy, 'give food to the hungry' and 'give water to the thirsty'. But the most remarkable glass here consists of scenes from the life and martyrdom of St Margaret. We see her receiving God's blessing as she tends her sheep (who graze on, apparently unconcerned). We see her tortured while chained to the castle wall. We see her about to be boiled in oil, and most effectively in a composite scene at once being eaten by a dragon and escaping from it.
Under the vast chancel arch is the surviving dado of the late 14th/early 15th Century roodscreen, a substantial structure carved and studded with ogee arches beneath trefoiled tracery, the carvings in the spandrels gilded. At the other end of the church, the font is imposing in the cleared space of the west end. It is contemporary with the roodscreen, and the suggestion is that we are seeing a building that is not far off being all of a piece: the fixtures and fittings of a new building roughly a century before the Reformation.
A period of history not otherwise much represented here is that of the early Stuarts, but a brass inscription of 1624 reset on a wall had echoes of Shakespeare: Fare well, deare wife, since thou art now absent from mortalls sight. One of those moments when the human experience transcends the religious tussles of those days.
Outside in the graveyard, two other memorials caught my eye. One dates from 1931, and remembers My Beloved Sweetheart Stan... who died in Aden aged 22 years. Not far off, a small headstone of the late 17th Century records that Here Restesth ye body of Mary, ye wife of Tho. Love Coroner with two still born Children. I stood in the quiet of the graveyard, looking across to the suburbs of the busy town of Stowmarket, and I felt the heartbeat, the connection down the long Combs Ford centuries.
Behind me, there was something rather curious. Although this is a big graveyard, the church is set hard against the western edge of it. Because of this, a processional way was built through the base of the tower by the original builders, as at Ipswich St Lawrence and Stanton St John. This would have allowed medieval processions to circumnavigate the church on consecrated ground. The way here has since been blocked in, and is used as storage space. A surviving stoup inside shows that, through this processional way, the west door was the main entrance to the church in medieval times, when this building was the still point of the people's turning world.
While I was pulling frames from the beehives I felt compelled to stop for a minute and take a few photos. I removed about a hundred frames over the last two weekends. Most will be spun in the extractor to produce liquid honey but some will be cut into squares for comb honey and others will be cut and placed in pint size wide mouth jars and then filled with honey to produce what's called chunk honey. A little something for everyone who loves 100% pure natural honey.
Found this floating over the drop-off. Had slight fluttering movement along its edges but wasn't really swimming. Although it looks gelatinous, it was actually somewhat solid and not particularly flexible.
On Sunday, we went to the Long Beach Aquarium. Their jellyfish displays are spectacular. It was difficult getting a shot due to both the low light and the ridiculous amount of people that were milling around.
The lights on the jellyfish turn on and off in such a way that it looks like the lights are running up and down their spines [? Don't know what else to call them!] It was an amazing display.
A cool comb jelly. The little multicolored comb thingies looked electrified and pulsated due to light refraction as it floated by.
Comb
Now the comb is jagged-toothed
As stalagmites, and the rivets
Leach haloes of rust into the bone.
She held it, whorled and white
And beautiful, and stripped
Her glorious hair of lice, shook
It like a mane, transfixed
A flea between her fingernails,
And flirted. Earth piled in
On it, compacted over centuries.
Fleas and lice died in soil.
Time knocked out the teeth.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2012. Inspired by an Anglo Saxon comb (6th Century, from Wallingford), fashioned out of bone, now on display in the Vale and Downland Museum, Wantage.