St Martin, Nacton, Suffolk

 

Nacton is one of a number of lovely villages in close proximity to Ipswich. And it really is close to town - I live near the centre of Ipswich and I can cycle out to Nacton church in twenty minutes. The village is scattered in a valley, with two great houses, Broke Hall and Orwell Park.

 

There are a couple of exciting 1960s modernist buildings as well, although the village does have the unenviable reputation of not having had a pub for a couple of centuries, thanks to the temperance tendencies of not just one but two major landowning families in the parish. Technically, the vast Shepherd and Dog on Felixstowe Road is within the bounds of Nacton parish, but it is not the kind of pub I expect many villagers would make the effort to get to when the smashing Ship Inn at neighbouring Levington is closer and more convivial.

 

The two great families were the Vernons and the Brokes. St Martin is in the grounds of Orwell Park, and a gateway in the wall shows where the Vernons used to come to divine service, but the Brokes must have arrived by road. Orwell Park today is a private school, and Broke Hall has been divided into flats, but St Martin still retains the memory of the great and the good of both families.

 

Externally, St Martin gives no indication of the early 20th Century treasures in store within. It only takes the sun to go in, and that rendered tower ends up looking like a grain silo, the colour of cold porridge. This is a pity, because on a sunny day there is something grand and imposing about it, especially with that pretty dormer window halfway along the nave roof. It gives a pleasing Arts and Crafts touch to the austerity of a building which was almost entirely rebuilt between 1906 and 1908 by Charles Hodgson Fowler. They'd actually been two dormers, and Fowler retained that on the south side. They had been installed in the 1870s by a budding medievalist, but there had been an earlier going-over by Diocesan architect Richard Phipson in 1859. Mortlock tells us that Fowler added the aisle, the organ chamber and vestry, the porch and the east window. The roofs and floors were also replaced. The small south transept survived from the earlier restoration, largely because it forms a memorial chapel to the Broke family of Broke Hall. Grand memorials record their miltary deeds, including captaining the Shannon when it captured the Chespeake during the American War of Independence.

The medieval font also survives, and is a good one, although perhaps a bit recut. Around the bowl, angels bearing carved shields alternate with symbols of the four evangelists.The wild men are striking, and the smiling lions are reminiscent of those you often find on Norfolk fonts of this type.

 

There are two image niches in one of the window embrasures, but otherwise this is almost entirely a Victorian and Edwardian interior, full of Brokes and Vernons. Their greatest legacy to St Martin has been the large range of stained glass which ultimately gives St Martin its character. It is interesting to compare the church to St Peter at Levington, a mile or so off. There, the church is simple and rustic; the difference that the money spent here has made is accentuated by a visit to both. But St Martin has been given a sober gravitas, a self-confidence that falls short of triumphalism.

 

There are some fragments of medieval glass surviving, including a fine shield of the Instruments of the Passion which may or may not have come from this church originally, But the glass in Fowler's north aisle is the star of the show. At the west end is a finely drawn 1913 Adoration of the Shepherds and Magi by Burlison & Grylls. The shepherds are lifted directly from the late 15th Century Portinari altarpiece by Hugo van der Goes, today in the Uffizi gallery in Florence. The use of images from Northern European old masters was common practice for the workshop. To the east of it is a rather less successful window by By Christopher Powell, and believed to be his only work in Suffolk, depicting the three figures of the Sower, the Good Shepherd and St Martin. It is interesting to compare it with his similar window at Dersingham in Norfolk.

 

Next along is a memorial to the Pretyman family. Herbert Pretyman died in 1891, and when Fowler's aisle was complete in 1906 his widow installed the central light, a typically predestrian image of St George by Clayton & Bell. However, the two figures that flank it, St Michael as Victory and St Raphaeil (but actually St Gabriel, surely?) as Peace are something else again, tremendous images installed in 1920 to give thanks for the safe return of two Pretyman sons from the horror of the First World War. The angels are wise and triumphant, their feathered wings flamboyant. No one seems to know who they are by (it certainly isn't Clayton & Bell) and it would be interesting to know.

 

To the east again is a lancet of the Blessed Virgin and child by Kempe under the guiding hand of Walter Tower, and the Kempe/Tower partnership was also responsible for the east window, a not entirely successful collection of workshop cartoons of the crucifixion and Old Testament prophets. Beside it on the south side of the chancel is the earliest modern glass in the church, two post-resurrection scenes by William Wailes. The only other 19th Century window is on the south side of the nave, a chaotic assemblage of heraldic symbols from Broke family marriages, showing arms and crests over the generations. It dates from the 1860s, and is by Clayton & Bell.

 

When the church reopened in 1908, people were said to be delighted by the Anglo-catholic mood of the time which had been injected into the building. Outside, their ancestors lie beneath headstones that have been eroded and smoothed clean by the salty air that comes from the great river beyond the school. Hardly any of the 18th and early 19th century inscriptions are legible now. One exception is to a man who died in the middle years of the 19th century who fought at Traffalgar. This is as clearly read now as it was when Arthur Mee came this way in the 1930s.

A Grade I listed building in Hurst, Berkshire.

 

Description:

Parish Church. Early C13, rebuilt externally C19 by W. Fellows Prynne.

 

Mainly flint with stone dressings, tile roof. Consists of chancel, north and south chapels, nave, aisles, south porch and west tower.

 

The tower of 1612, brick, has three stages moulded stone strings, battlemented parapet and central cupola with ogee roof and wrought iron weather vane.

 

Chancel restored and refurbished 1903, roof original, restored, the beam above rood screen supports four panels of carved wood tracery

 

Nave, restored 1876, has a 3 bay transitional north arcade, centre pier of 2 diameters, the lower and larger has a scalloped top, the upper a plain cap. Other piers have scalloped caps.

 

Nave roof has collar purlin with arch braces and moulded crown posts. Roof to both aisles similar, restored. North aisle has three Early English lancet windows in rebuilt walling. South aisle mainly C19.

 

Across the chancel opening and the aisles, a C17 carved screen including to lower part arms of James I.

 

Pulpit also early C17 and adjoining is a wrought iron hour glass holder dated 1636.

 

The font is late Decorated with panelled octagonal bowl, ogee tracery, small corner shafts each supporting an angel under angle on base of clustered shafts standing on 2 stone steps.

 

MONUMENTS

North wall of Chancel:- An elaborate wall monument to Henry Barker of Hurst died 1651.

South wall of Chancel:- A large marble oval panel to Robert Palmer died 1757.

North wall of North Chapel:- A tall panelled plinth to Lady Margaret Savile died 1631, widow of Sir Henry Savile, Provost of Eton, founder of the Savilion professorships at Oxford. A brass to Alice died 1600, daughter of Richard Ward, wife of Thomas Harrison. Below a brass to Richard Kippax died 1625, one time examiner in the Starr Chamber.

South wall of North Chapel:- Large wall monument to Sir Richard and Lady Harrison, 1683. The altar of the chapel is flanked by good C17 and Cl8 tablets and cartouches.Set in the floor are six C17 tombstones.

At the west end of the north aisle is an altar tomb with black marble top to Richard Bigg of Haineshill died 1677.

Aloe (also written Aloë) is a genus containing over 650 species of flowering succulent plants. The most widely known species is Aloe vera, or "true aloe". It is called this because it is cultivated as the standard source for assorted pharmaceutical purposes. Other species, such as Aloe ferox, are also cultivated or harvested from the wild for similar applications.

 

The APG IV system (2016) places the genus in the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Asphodeloideae. Within the subfamily it may be placed in the tribe Aloeae. In the past, it has been assigned to the family Aloaceae (now included in the Asphodeloidae) or to a broadly circumscribed family Liliaceae (the lily family). The plant Agave americana, which is sometimes called "American aloe", belongs to the Asparagaceae, a different family.

 

The genus is native to tropical and southern Africa, Madagascar, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, and various islands in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius, Réunion, Comoros, etc.). A few species have also become naturalized in other regions (Mediterranean, India, Australia, North and South America, Hawaiian Islands, etc.).

 

The genus name Aloe is derived from the Arabic word alloeh, meaning "bitter and shiny substance" or from Hebrew אוהלים ahalim, plural of אוהל ahal.

 

Most Aloe species have a rosette of large, thick, fleshy leaves. Aloe flowers are tubular, frequently yellow, orange, pink, or red, and are borne, densely clustered and pendant, at the apex of simple or branched, leafless stems. Many species of Aloe appear to be stemless, with the rosette growing directly at ground level; other varieties may have a branched or unbranched stem from which the fleshy leaves spring. They vary in color from grey to bright-green and are sometimes striped or mottled. Some aloes native to South Africa are tree-like (arborescent).

 

The APG IV system (2016) places the genus in the family Asphodelaceae, subfamily Asphodeloideae. In the past it has also been assigned to the families Liliaceae and Aloeaceae, as well as the family Asphodelaceae sensu stricto, before this was merged into the Asphodelaceae sensu lato.

 

The circumscription of the genus has varied widely. Many genera, such as Lomatophyllum, have been brought into synonymy. Species at one time placed in Aloe, such as Agave americana, have been moved to other genera. Molecular phylogenetic studies, particularly from 2010 onwards, suggested that as then circumscribed, Aloe was not monophyletic and should be divided into more tightly defined genera. In 2014, John Charles Manning and coworkers produced a phylogeny in which Aloe was divided into six genera: Aloidendron, Kumara, Aloiampelos, Aloe, Aristaloe and Gonialoe.

 

Species

Over 600 species are accepted in the genus Aloe, plus even more synonyms and unresolved species, subspecies, varieties, and hybrids. Some of the accepted species are:

 

Aloe aculeata Pole-Evans

Aloe africana Mill.

Aloe albida (Stapf) Reynolds

Aloe albiflora Guillaumin

Aloe arborescens Mill.

Aloe arenicola Reynolds

Aloe argenticauda Merxm. & Giess

Aloe bakeri Scott-Elliot

Aloe ballii Reynolds

Aloe ballyi Reynolds

Aloe brevifolia Mill.

Aloe broomii Schönland

Aloe buettneri A.Berger

Aloe camperi Schweinf.

Aloe capitata Baker

Aloe comosa Marloth & A.Berger

Aloe cooperi Baker

Aloe corallina Verd.

Aloe dewinteri Giess ex Borman & Hardy

Aloe erinacea D.S.Hardy

Aloe excelsa A.Berger

Aloe ferox Mill.

Aloe forbesii Balf.f.

Aloe helenae Danguy

Aloe hereroensis Engl.

Aloe inermis Forssk.

Aloe inyangensis Christian

Aloe jawiyon S.J.Christie, D.P.Hannon & Oakman ex A.G.Mill.

Aloe jucunda Reynolds

Aloe khamiesensis Pillans

Aloe kilifiensis Christian

Aloe maculata All.

Aloe marlothii A.Berger

Aloe mubendiensis Christian

Aloe namibensis Giess

Aloe nyeriensis Christian & I.Verd.

Aloe pearsonii Schönland

Aloe peglerae Schönland

Aloe perfoliata L.

Aloe perryi Baker

Aloe petricola Pole-Evans

Aloe polyphylla Pillans

Aloe rauhii Reynolds

Aloe reynoldsii Letty

Aloe scobinifolia Reynolds & Bally

Aloe sinkatana Reynolds

Aloe squarrosa Baker ex Balf.f.

Aloe striata Haw.

Aloe succotrina Lam.

Aloe suzannae Decary

Aloe thraskii Baker

Aloe vera (L.) Burm.f.

Aloe viridiflora Reynolds

Aloe wildii (Reynolds) Reynolds

 

In addition to the species and hybrids between species within the genus, several hybrids with other genera have been created in cultivation, such as between Aloe and Gasteria (× Gasteraloe), and between Aloe and Astroloba (×Aloloba).

 

Aloe species are frequently cultivated as ornamental plants both in gardens and in pots. Many aloe species are highly decorative and are valued by collectors of succulents. Aloe vera is used both internally and externally on humans as folk or alternative medicine. The Aloe species is known for its medicinal and cosmetic properties. Around 75% of Aloe species are used locally for medicinal uses. The plants can also be made into types of special soaps or used in other skin care products (see natural skin care).

 

Numerous cultivars with mixed or uncertain parentage are grown. Of these, Aloe 'Lizard Lips' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

 

Aloe variegata has been planted on graves in the belief that this ensures eternal life.

 

Historical use of various aloe species is well documented. Documentation of the clinical effectiveness is available, although relatively limited.

 

Of the 500+ species, only a few were used traditionally as herbal medicines, Aloe vera again being the most commonly used species. Also included are A. perryi and A. ferox. The Ancient Greeks and Romans used Aloe vera to treat wounds. In the Middle Ages, the yellowish liquid found inside the leaves was favored as a purgative. Unprocessed aloe that contains aloin is generally used as a laxative, whereas processed juice does not usually contain significant aloin.

 

Some species, particularly Aloe vera, are used in alternative medicine and first aid. Both the translucent inner pulp and the resinous yellow aloin from wounding the aloe plant are used externally for skin discomforts. As an herbal medicine, Aloe vera juice is commonly used internally for digestive discomfort.

 

According to Cancer Research UK, a potentially deadly product called T-UP is made of concentrated aloe, and promoted as a cancer cure. They say "there is currently no evidence that aloe products can help to prevent or treat cancer in humans".

 

Aloin in OTC laxative products

On May 9, 2002, the US Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule banning the use of aloin, the yellow sap of the aloe plant, for use as a laxative ingredient in over-the-counter drug products. Most aloe juices today do not contain significant aloin.

 

According to W. A. Shenstone, two classes of aloins are recognized: (1) nataloins, which yield picric and oxalic acids with nitric acid, and do not give a red coloration with nitric acid; and (2) barbaloins, which yield aloetic acid (C7H2N3O5), chrysammic acid (C7H2N2O6), picric and oxalic acids with nitric acid, being reddened by the acid. This second group may be divided into a-barbaloins, obtained from Barbados Aloe, and reddened in the cold, and b-barbaloins, obtained from Aloe Socotrina and Zanzibar Aloe, reddened by ordinary nitric acid only when warmed or by fuming acid in the cold. Nataloin (2C17H13O7·H2O) forms bright-yellow scales, barbaloin (C17H18O7) prismatic crystals. Aloe species are used in essential oils as a safety measure to dilute the solution before they are applied to the skin.

 

Aloe perryi, A. barbadensis, A. ferox, and hybrids of this species with A. africana and A. spicata are listed as natural flavoring substances in the US government Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Aloe socotrina is said to be used in yellow Chartreuse.

 

Aloe rubrolutea occurs as a charge in heraldry, for example in the Civic Heraldry of Namibia.

Der Dom zu Halle ist das älteste noch vorhandene Kirchengebäude in der Altstadt von Halle. Hier residierten die Erzbischöfe von Magdeburg für lange Zeit als Landesherren der Stadt. Die Kirche war ursprünglich eine vom Bettelorden der Dominikaner 1271 gegründete und um 1330 vollendete Klosterkirche. Ab etwa 1520 ließ der Magdeburger Erzbischof, Kardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg, die Kirche äußerlich umgestalten (Giebelkranz vor dem Dach) und schließlich 1523 als Stiftskirche des Magdeburger Erzbistums neu weihen. Durch alle diese Veränderungen der alten Klosterkirche entstand ein Gesamtkunstwerk im Stile der Spätgotik und Frührenaissance. Wohl schon seitdem wurde die Kirche, zunächst nur im Volksmund, „Dom“ genannt. 1883 bis 1896 wurde der Innenraum in der damals üblichen Art einer Regotisierung erneuert.

 

Halle Cathedral is the oldest still existing church building in the historic city centre. The archbishops of Magdeburg resided here for a long time as rulers of the city. The church was originally a monastery church founded by the mendicant order of the Dominicans in 1271 and completed around 1330. From around 1520 the Archbishop of Magdeburg, Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, ordered the church to be redesigned externally (gable wreath in front of the roof) and finally consecrated it in 1523 as the collegiate church of the Magdeburg archbishopric. All these changes to the old monastery church resulted in a unique work of art in the style of the late Gothic and early Renaissance. Probably already since then the church, at first only in the vernacular, was called "Cathedral". From 1883 to 1896, the interior was renovated in the then customary way of Gothic Revival.

 

It's been some time coming, but finally the replacements for the FJ08 batch of Volvo B9TL's with Yorkshire Coastliner are arriving, and from December 12 2016 the new buses rolled out into service. As a repeat of history back from 2003, the Coastliner order is a tag-on to an order made for Harrogate and District's route 36 - however an improvement from 2003-4 is that the Coastliner buses are specified to just as high a standard if not better.

This order of B5TL's consists of ten vehicles to fully replace 411-420, and the order is worth just over £2.3Million; the engines comply to Euro 6 standard which means these buses emit less pollution in terms of particulate matter than a small diesel hatchback car (and studies have proven this). Each bus has a gross vehicle weight of 18t and is 11.5m long and 4.4m heigh.

In famous Transdev style, the plan for 411-420 has changed at the 11th hour and 59th minute: rather than going to keighley the company has decided not to renew the lease and so those will leave the group as a whole.

Externally the buses have been given an entirely new livery in the current Transdev style as also seen in York on the Cityzap and Little Explorers buses, along with a new logo and the motto "Yorkshire's Amazing Day Out", as everything is amazing apparently, and are also fitted with crystal white destinations throughout which are connected to an automatic 'next stop' internal announcement system. Each bus is given a unique rear advertisement to promote somewhere along the route, taking up the space previously used for the route map which has now been shifted to the side panels above the lower deck windows and has been simplified - which is proving controversial for some as the 'map' is deemed not to be geographically correct (placing Leeds north of York) yet the curvy nature of the map is appealing to others.

 

And then there were five... Volvo B5TL Wright Eclipse Gemini 3 (with the jaunty-angled 'Stealth' frontage) BT66 MVR is taking the 1630 840 departure to Thornton Dale and is seen at York Peasholme Green on its first day of service, this journey is now regularly assigned a Gemini 3 (with a very odd exception once or twice). Although the bus is officially numbered 3633 I have also added the 'correct' fleetnumber of 434 in the title as this was the original fleetnumber that was supposed to have been allocated to this vehicle when it was ordered - it may yet get the correct fleetnumber, as the BD11-plate Gemini 2's when first delivered had a 4-digit fleetnumber yet Malton didn't like it and so reverted the buses to have the correct fleetnumbers still used on them now.

I enjoyed Tea time at the Wood County Historical Society with these gals.Enjoyed a nice feast,Tea, and an entertaining book reading.

 

No look ,arm extended,externally flashed,slightly cropped.

Perfect pic of everyone of them! Would have framed it a bit better if I had any idea how well it was going to work. Oh well.

The Chief Medical Officer of the Northwest 200's Vauxhall Astra and a Doctors motorbike.

 

Best viewed Large / On Black.

 

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More emergency vehicles here. More doctors cars here. Note that a lot of my emergency photos are private for various reasons. Send me a Flickr mail if you want to see them.

 

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This photo is Copyright 2012 by Calvert Photography and may not be downloaded, stored, edited, manipulated, externally hosted, embedded, transmitted or used in any way without my permission.

 

Larger size without watermarks is available to license upon request.

 

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For rare & interesting vehicles see this set.

1957 GMC TDH-4512

In a General Motors Coach

BC Electric Railway

Transit museum society

 

B C Electric 730 Fully restored externally; interior converted to mobile theatre and historic display

 

The General Motors TDH-4512 was a 35 foot Old Look transit bus built from 1953 to 1959 in the United States.

 

3263 units were built for United States and Canadian operators.

  

Pulicaria dysenterica is a perennial growing to 2ft by 2ft. Here it is growing in a new plantation area within the 'Wild Wood'.

 

It is in flower from August to September, and the seeds ripen from September to October.

 

The flowers are hermaphrodite and are pollinated by Bees, flies, or self-fertilised.

 

The plant is self-fertile. It prefers moist or wet soil.

  

The bruised leaves have a soap-like smell. They are astringent and can be used in the treatment of dysentery. The root is also astringent and used in the treatment of dysentery.

 

A paste of the plant is applied externally to wounds, so, fairly useful to have to hand, eh?

The days drag and the weeks fly by.

 

It has been a grim week at work, and yet the weekend is here once again.

 

The cold snap is still here; thick frosts and icy patches, but Sunday afternoon storms will sweep in from the west and temperatures will soar by day to 13 degrees.

 

But for now it is cold, and colder at nights, the wood burner makes the living room toasty warm, though the rest of the house seems like a fridge in comparison.

 

Even though we went to bed at nine, we slept to nearly half seven, which meant we were already later than usual going to Tesco.

 

We had a coffee first, then got dressed and went out into the winter wonderland.

 

Tesco was more crowded mainly because we were an hour later. There were no crackers for cheese, a whole aisle empty of cream crackers and butter wafers.

 

There is only so much food you can eat even over Christmas, so the cracker-shortage won't affect us, we have two Dundee cakes, filling for two lots of mince pies and pastry for five lots of sausage rolls.

 

We won't starve.

 

We buy another bag of stuff for the food bank, try to get two weeks of stuff so we wont need to go next weekend, just to a farm shop for vegetables, and the butcher for the Christmas order, though on the 25th we are going out for dinner to the Lantern.

 

Back home for fruit, then bacon butties and another huge brew. Yes, smoked bacon is again in short supply, with just the basic streaky smoked available, but we're not fussy, so that does the trick.

 

Also, Jools picked up her inhalers for her cough, and so, we hope, the road to recovery begins.

 

What to do with the day?

 

Although a walk would have been good, Jools can do no more than ten minutes in freezing conditions before a coughing fits starts, so a couple of churches to revisit and take more shots of.

 

First on the list was St Leonard in Upper Deal. A church I have only have been inside once. As it was just half ten, there should have been a chance it was open, but no. We parked up and I walked over the road to try the porch door, but it was locked.

 

No worries, as the next two would certainly be open.

 

Just up the road towards Canterbury is Ash.

 

Ash is a large village that the main roads now bypass its narrow streets, and buses call not so frequently.

 

The church towers over the village, its spire piercing the grey sky. We park beside the old curry hours than burned down a decade ago, is now a house and no sign of damage.

 

indeed the church was open, though the porch door was closed, it opened with use of the latch, and the inner glass door swung inwards, revealing an interior I had forgotten about, rich Victorian glass let in the weak sunlight, allowing me to take detailed shots. It was far better and more enjoyable than I remembered.

 

Once I took 200 or so shots, we went back to the car, drove back to the main road, and on to Wingham, where the church there, a twin of Wingham, would also be open too.

 

And it was.

 

The wardens were just finishing trimming the church up, and putting out new flowers, it was a bustle of activity, then one by one they left.

 

got my shots, and we left, back to the car and to home, though we did stop at he farm shop at Aylsham, and all we wanted was some sweet peppers for hash.

 

We went in and there was the bakery: I bought two sausage rolls, four small pork pies and two Cajun flavours scotch eggs. We got cider, beer, healthy snacks (we told ourselves) and finally found the peppers.

 

Three peppers cost £50!

 

Then back home, along the A2.

 

And arriving back home at one. We feasted on the scotch eggs and two of the pork pies.

 

Yummy.

 

There was the third place play off game to watch on the tellybox, the Football league to follow on the radio. We lit the woodburner and it was soon toasty warm.

 

At half five, Norwich kicked off, and hopes were high as Blackburn had not beaten us in over a decade.

 

And, yes you guessed it, Norwich lost. Played poorly, and in Dad's words, were lucky to get nil.

 

Oh dear.

 

Oh dear indeed.

 

We have Christmas cake for supper, and apart from the football, as was well with the world.

 

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An enormous church, picturesquely set at an angle of the village street. It owes its size to the fact that it supported a college of priests in the Middle Ages. During the sixteenth century it was substantially rebuilt, but the north aisle was not replaced, reducing the church to the odd shape we see today. The unusual pillars which divide the nave from the south aisle are of timber, not stone as a result of lack of money. At the end of the south aisle is the Oxenden chapel, which contains that family's excellent bull's head monument. The contemporary metalwork screens and black and white pavements add great dignity to this part of the building. By going through a curved passage from the chapel you can emerge in the chancel, which is dominated by a stone reredos of fifteenth-century date. This French construction was a gift to the church in the 1930s and while it is not good quality carving, is an unusual find in a Kent church.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Wingham

 

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hortly after 1280AD Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury established a college of priests at Wingham, with a provost and six canons. From 1286 the priests lived in the attractive timber-framed house opposite St Mary's church. The college accounts for the size of the church, which seems enormous considering the present size of Wingham itself.

 

There was a cruciform church here before the college was established, but that building was remodelled around 1290, leaving us several excellent Geometric Gothic windows. A south porch and tower were added around 1400. The porch is curious in that there are two stories externally, but internally only one. There are many reminders of the church's past, however; the arch between the south transept and south nave aisle is late Norman, as is a blocked arch on the west wall of the north transept.

 

By the early 16th century the nave was in poor condition. A local brewer named George Ffogarde of Canterbury was granted a license to raise money for its repair. Having a considerable sum of money for church repair, the unscrupulous brewer absconded with the funds, embezzling £224, a huge sum for the time. The missing funds may explain why the nave was rebuilt using cheaper timber posts to support the arcades, rather than more costly stone.

 

The octagonal timber posts are of chestnut wood, topped by a crown-post timber roof. Sometime before the mid-19th century the timbers were encased in plaster to resemble Doric columns, but thankfully the plaster has been stripped off and we can appreciate the timber! The nave was rebuilt in the late 16th century, diminishing its footprint and leaving behind some rather odd features, like an external piscina on what was originally the easternmost pier of the nave arcade. Another odd touch is provided by the north transept, remodelled with wood frames in the Georgian period. I'm not sure I can call to mind another essentially medieval church with wooden-framed windows!

 

In the chancel is a lovely 14th century triple-seat sedilia and piscina. The chancel and nave are separated by a 15th century screen, now truncated, with blank panels which must have once boasted painted figures of saints. But the real treasure in the chancel is a series of ten 14th century misericords. Six of the misericord carvings are simply decorative, with floral or foliage designs. Two show animals; one appears to be a horse, another a donkey. The final two carvings are the most interesting; one shows a woman in a wimple, the other a Green Man peering out from a screen of foliage.

 

Behind the altar is a lovely 15th century reredos, brought here from Troyes in France. The reredos is in two sections, the upper section depicting the Passion of Christ, the lower showing the Last Supper and the Adoration of the Kings. There are small fragments of rather attractive 14th century grisailles glass in the chancel windows, and near the font are a number of surviving medieval floor tiles.

 

The interior is full of monuments to the Oxenden and Palmer families. The finest of these are to be found in the north transept chapel. On the east wall of the chapel is a memorial to Sir Nicholas Palmer (d. 1624). The memorial was designed by Nicholas Stone and shows effigies of Palmer and his wife under Corinthian columns and an open pediment. On the north wall is the monument to a later Thomas Palmer (d. 1656) with a bust of the deceased, now somewhat the worse for wear. A tablet to Streynsham Master (d. 1718) is on the south chapel wall, and has a fairly typical pair of skulls at the base of the tablet, wreathed in olive branches.

 

The most extravagant and eye-catching memorial in the church, however, is to be found in the north transept chapel, which is guarded by ornate wrought-iron screens. In the centre of the chapel is an ebullient obelisk, dated 1682, commemorating the Oxenden family. This free-standing obelisk, possibly designed by Arnold Quellin, is of white stone, with exquisite fruit and flowers cascading down each side, with large black ox heads at each angle of the base. The base is embellished with four putti (cherubic 'infants'). The effect is quite extraordinary; most people will either love it or hate it (I loved it). Also in the south transept is a wall tablet to Charles Tripp (d. 1624).

Other monuments worth mentioning include a 14th century tomb recess in the south aisle wall and a number of 15th century indents in the chancel floor which once contained memorial brasses to canons.

 

The church is set within a large walled enclosure, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. Unusually, the churchyard wall has been listed Grade-II by the Department of the Environment for its historical interest.

 

www.britainexpress.com/counties/kent/churches/wingham.htm

 

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WINGHAM

IS the next adjoining parish south-westward from Ash, situated for the most part in the upper half hundred of the same name, and having in it the boroughs of Wingham-street, Deane, Twitham, and Wenderton, which latter is in the lower half hundred of Wingham.

 

WINGHAM is situated in a healthy pleasant country, the greatest part of it is open uninclosed arable lands, the soil of which, though chalky, is far from being unfertile. The village, or town of Wingham, is nearly in the middle of the parish, having the church and college at the south-west part of it; behind the latter is a field, still called the Vineyard. The village contains about fifty houses, one of which is the court-lodge, and is built on the road leading from Canterbury to Sandwich, at the west end of it runs the stream, called the Wingham river, which having turned a corn-mill here, goes on and joins the Lesser Stour, about two miles below; on each side the stream is a moist tract of meadow land. Near the south boundary of the parish is the mansion of Dene, situated in the bottom, a dry, though dull and gloomy habitation; and at the opposite side, next to Staple, the ruinated mansion of Brook, in a far more open and pleasant situation. To the northward the parish extends a considerable way, almost as far as the churches of Preston and Elmstone. The market, granted anno 36 king Henry III. as mentioned hereafter, if it ever was held, has been disused for a number of years past; though the market-house seems yet remaining. There are two fairs held yearly here, on May 12, and November 12, for cattle and pedlary.

 

In 1710 there was found on the court-lodge farm, by the plough striking against it, a chest or coffin, of large thick stones, joined together, and covered with a single one at the top. At the bottom were some black ashes, but nothing else in it. The ground round about was searched, but nothing else was sound.

 

Henry de Wengham, a person of great note and extraordinary parts, and much in favour with Henry III. was born here, who in 1255 made him lord chancellor. In 1259, he was elected bishop of Winchester, which he resused, but towards the latter end of the same year he was chosen bishop of London, being still chancellor, and was consecrated the beginning of the year following. He died in 1262, and was buried in his own cathedral. He bore for his arms, Gules, a heart between two wings, displayed, or.

 

WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. eldest son of Sir William Cowper, bart. of Ratling-court, in Nonington, having been made lord-keeper of the great seal in 1705, was afterwards by letters patent, dated Dec. 14, 1706, created lord Cowper, baron Cowper of Wingham; and in 1709, was declared lord chancellor. After which, anno 4 George I. he was created earl Cowper and viscount Fordwich, in whose descendants these titles have continued down to the right hon. Peter-Lewis-Francis Cowper, the fifth and present earl Cowper, viscount Fordwich and baron of Wingham. (fn. 1)

 

The MANOR OF WINGHAM was part of the antient possessions of the see of Canterbury, given to it in the early period of the Saxon heptarchy, but being torn from it during the troubles of those times, it was restored to the church in the year 941, by king Edmund, his brother Eadred, and Edwin that king's son. (fn. 2) Accordingly it is thus entered, under the general title of the archbishop's possessions, taken in the survey of Domesday:

 

In the lath of Estrei, in Wingeham hundred, the archbishop himself holds Wingeham in demesne. It was taxed at forty sulings in the time of king Edward the Consessor, and now for thirty-five. The arable land is . . . . . . In demesne there are eight carucates, and four times twenty and five villeins, with twenty borderers having fifty-seven carucates. There are eight servants, and two mills of thirty-four sulings. Wood for the pannage of five hogs, and two small woods for fencing. In its whole value, in the time of king Edward the Consessor, it was worth seventy-seven pounds, when he received it the like, and now one hundred pounds. Of this manor William de Arcis holds one suling in Fletes, and there be has in demesne one carucate, and four villeins, and one knight with one carucate, and one fisbery, with a saltpit of thirty pence. The whole value is forty shillings. Of this ma nor five of the archbishop's men hold five sulings and an half and three yokes, and there they have in demesne eight carucates, and twenty-two borderers, and eight servants. In the whole they are worth twenty-one pounds.

 

In the 36th year of king Henry III. archbishop Boniface obtained the grant of a market at this place. The archbishops had a good house on this manor, in which they frequently resided. Archbishop Baldwin, in king Henry II.'s reign, staid at his house here for some time during his contention with the monks of Christ-church, concerning his college at Hackington. Archbishop Winchelsea entertained king Edward I. here in his 23d year, as did archbishop Walter Reynolds king Edward II. in his 18th year. And king Edward III. in his 5th year, having landed at Dover, with many lords and nobles in his train, came to Wingham, where he was lodged and entertained by archbishop Meopham. And this manor continued part of the see of Canterbury till archbishop Cranmer, in the 29th year of king Henry VIII. exchanged it with the king for other premises. After which it continued in the crown till king Charles I. in his 5th year, granted the scite, called Wingham court, with the demesne lands of the manor, to trustees, for the use of the city of London. From whom, by the direction of the mayor and commonalty, it was conveyed, at the latter end of that reign, to Sir William Cowper, knight and baronet, in whose descendants it has continued down to the right hon. Peter-Francis Cowper, earl Cowper, who is the present owner of it. (fn. 3)

 

BUT THE MANOR ITSELF, with the royalties, profits of courts, &c. remained still in the crown. Since which, the bailiwic of it, containing the rents and pro fits of the courts, with the fines, amerciaments, reliess, &c. and the privilege of holding the courts of it, by the bailiff of it, have been granted to the family of Oxenden, and Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, is now in possession of the bailiwic of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.

 

TRAPHAM is a mansion in this parish, which was formerly in the possession of a family of the same name, who resided at it, but after they were extinct it passed into that of Trippe, who bore for their arms, Gules, a chevron, or, between three borses heads erased, sable, bridled, collared and crined of the second; (fn. 4) and John Tripp, esq. resided here in queen Elizabeth's reign, as did his grandson Charles, who seems to have alienated it to Sir Christopher Harflete, of St. Stephen's, whose son Tho. Harflete, esq. left an only daughter and heir Afra, who carried it in marriage to John St. Leger, esq. of Doneraile, in Ireland, descended from Sir Anthony St. Leger, lord deputy of Ireland in Henry VIII.'s reign, and they joined in the alienation of it to Brook Bridges, esq of the adjoining parish of Goodneston, whose descendant Sir Brook Wm. Bridges, bart. of that place, is the present owner of it.

 

The MANOR OF DENE, situated in the valley, at the southern boundary of this parish, was antiently the inheritance of a family who took their surname from it, and held it by knight's service of the archbishop, in king Edward I's reign, but they seem to have been extinct here in that of king Edward III. After which it passed into the family of Hussey, who bore for their arms, Per chevron, argent and vert, three birds counterchanged; and then to Wood, before it came by sale into the family of Oxenden, who appear to have been possessed of it at the latter end of Henry VI.'s reign, about which time they had become by marriage, owners of Brook and other estates in this parish. The family of Oxenden have been resident in this county from the reign of king Edward III. Solomon Oxenden, being the first mentioned in the several pedigrees of it, whose near relation Richard Oxenden was prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, in that reign; in this name and family of Oxenden, whose arms were Argent, a chevron, gules, between three oxen, sable, armed, or; which coat was confirmed to the family by Gyan, king at arms, anno 24 Henry VI. this manor and seat continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, of Dene, who was on May 8, 1678, created a baronet, whose youngest grandson Sir George Oxenden, bart. succeeding at length to the title on the death of his eldest brother Sir Henry, resided at Dene, where he died in 1775, having served in parliament for Sandwich, and been employed in high offices in administration, and leaving behind him the character of a compleat gentleman. He married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheirs of Edward Dunck, esq. of Little Wittenham, in Berkshire, by whom he had two sons, of whom George, the second, was made by will heir to the estate of Sir Basil Dixwell, bart. of Brome, on his death, s. p. and changed his name to Dixwell as enjoined by it, but died soon afterwards likewise, s. p. and that estate came at length to his eldest brother Henry, who succeeded his father in the title of Baronet. He married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Sir George Chudleigh, bart. of Devonshire, since deceased, by whom he has issue Henry Oxenden, esq. of Madekyn, in Barham, who married Mary, one of the daughters of Col. Graham, of St. Laurence, near Canterbury, by whom he has issue. Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. now resides at Brome, and is the present possessor of this manor and seat, as well as the rest of his father's estates in this parish. (fn. 5) Lady Hales, widow of Sir Thomas Pym Hales, bart. of Bekesborne, now resides in it.

 

TWITHAM, now usually called Twittam, is a hamlet in this parish, adjoining to Goodneston, the principal estate in which once belonged to a family of that name, one of whom Alanus de Twitham is recorded as having been with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, who bore for his arms, Semee of crosscroslets, and three cinquesoils, argent, and held this estate in Twitham, of the archbishop, and they appear to have continued possessed of it in the 3d year of king Richard II. Some time after which it came into the possession of Fineux, and William Fineux sold it anno 33 Henry VIII. to Ingram Wollet, whose heirs passed it away to one of the family of Oxenden, of Wingham, in whose descendants it has continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, the present possessor of it.

 

On the foundation of the college of Wingham, archbishop Peckham, in 1286, endowed the first diaconal prebend in it, which he distinguished by the name of the prebend of Twitham, with the tithes of the lands of Alanus de Twitham, which he freely held of the archbishop there in Goodwynestone, at Twytham. (fn. 6)

 

BROOK is an estate in this parish, situated northward from Twitham, which was formerly the estate of the Wendertons, of Wenderton, in this parish, in which it remained till by a female heir Jane, it went in marriage to Richard Oxenden, gent. of Wingham, who died in 1440, and was buried in Wingham church, in whose name and family it continued down to Henry Oxenden, of Brook, who left two daughters and coheirs, of whom Mary married Richard Oxenden, of Grays Inn, barrister-at-law, fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart, who afterwards, on his wife's becoming sole heiress of Brook, possessed it, and resided here. He left Elizabeth his sole daughter and heir, who carried it in marriage to Streynsham Master, esq. a captain in the royal navy, the eldest surviving son of James Master, esq. of East Langdon, who died some few days after his marriage; upon which she became again possessed of it in her own right, and dying in 1759, s. p. gave it by will to Henry Oxenden, esq. now Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, and he is the present owner of it.

 

WENDERTON is a manor and antient seat, situated northward from Wingham church, eminent, says Philipott, for its excellent air, situation, and prospect, which for many successive generations had owners of that surname, one of whom, John de Wenderton, is mentioned in Fox's Martyrology, as one among other tenants of the manor of Wingham, on whom archbishop Courtnay, in 1390, imposed a penance for neglecting to perform some services due from that manor. In his descendants this seat continued till John Wenderton, of Wenderton, in the 1st year of Henry VIII. passed it away to archbishop Warham, who at his decease in 1533, gave it to his youngest brother John Warham, whose great-grandson John, by his will in 1609, ordered this manor to be sold, which it accordingly soon afterwards was to Manwood, from which name it was alienated, about the middle of the next reign of king Charles I. to Vincent Denne, gent. who resided here, and died in 1642, s. p. whose four nieces afterwards became by will possessed of it, and on the partition of their estates, the manor and mansion, with part of the lands since called Great Wenderton, was allotted to Mary, the youngest of them, who afterwards married Vincent Denne, sergeant-at-law, and the remaining part of it, which adjoins to them, since called Little Wenderton, to Dorothy, the third sister, afterwards married to Roger Lukin, gent. of London, who soon afterwards sold his share to Richard Oxenden, esq. of Brook, from one of which family it was sold to Underdown, by a female heir of which name, Frances, it went in marriage to John Carter, esq. of Deal, the present owner of it.

 

BUT GREAT WENDERTON continued in the possession of Sergeant Denne, till his death in 1693, when Dorothy, his eldest daughter and coheir, carried it in marriage to Mr. Thomas Ginder, who bore Argent, on a pale, sable, a cross fuchee, or, impaling azure, three lions heads, or; as they are on his monument. He resided at it till his death in 1716, as did his widow till her decease in 1736, when it came to her nephew Mr. Thomas Hatley, who left two daughters his coheirs, the eldest surviving of whom, Anne, carried it in marriage, first to Richard Nicholas, esq. and then successively to Mr. Smith and Mr. James Corneck, of London, and Mrs. Corneck, the widow of the latter, is the present possessor of it.

 

At the boundary of this parish, adjoining to Preston and Ash, lies THE MANOR OF WALMESTONE, usually called Wamston, which was antiently part of the possessions of the family of Septvans, one of whom, Robert de Septvans, held it in king Edward II.'s reign, of the archbishop; whose descendant Sir William de Septvans died possessed of it in the 25th year of that reign. (fn. 7) How long it continued in this name I have not found; but at the beginning of king Edward IV.'s reign it was become the property of William Bonington, of Canterbury, who died in 1463, and directed it by his will to be sold. After which it became, about the latter end of king Henry VIII.'s reign, the property of Walter Hendley, esq. the king's attorney-general, who left three daughters his coheirs, and they joined in the sale of it to Alday, who alienated it to Benedict Barnham, esq. alderman of London, one of whose daughters and coheirs, Elizabeth, carried it in marriage to Mervin Touchet, earl of Castlehaven, who being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, was executed anno 7 Charles I. Soon after which this manor seems to have been divided, and one part of it, since called Little Walmestone, in which was included the manor and part of the demesne lands, passed from his heirs to the Rev. John Smith, rector of Wickham Breaus, who having founded a scholarship at Oxford, out of the lands of it, presently afterwards sold it to Solly, of Pedding, in which name it continued till Stephen Solly, gent. of Pedding, and his two sons, John and Stephen, in 1653, joined in the conveyance of it to Thomas Winter, yeoman, of Wingham, in which name it remained for some time. At length, after some intermediate owners, it was sold to Sympson, and John Sympson, esq. of Canterbury, died possessed of it in 1748, leaving his wife surviving, who held it at her decease, upon which it came to her husband's heir-atlaw, and it is now accordingly in the possession of Mr. Richard Simpson.

 

BUT GREAT WALMESTONE, consisting of the mansion-house, with a greater part of the demesne lands of the manor, was passed away by the heirs of the earl of Castlehaven to Brigham, and Mr. Charles Brigham, of London, in the year 1653, sold it to William Rutland, of London, who left two daughters his coheirs, of whom Mary married John Ketch, by whom she had a sole daughter Anne, who afterwards at length became possessed of it, and carried it in marriage to Samuel Starling, gent. of Worcestershire, who in 1718, conveyed it, his only son Samuel joining in it, to Thomas Willys, esq. of London, afterwards created a baronet. After which it passed in the same manner, and in the like interests and shares, as the manor of Dargate, in Hernehill, down to Matthew, Robert and Thomas Mitchell, the trustees for the several uses to which this, among other estates belonging to the Willis's, had been limited; and they joined in the sale of it, in 1789, to Mr. William East, whose son, Mr. John East, of Wingham, is the present owner of it.

 

ARCHBISHOP KILWARBY intended to found a college in this church of Wingham, but resigning his archbishopric before he could put his design in practice, archbishop Peckham, his successor, in the year 1286, perfected his predecessor's design, and founded A COLLEGE in this church, for a provost, whose portion, among other premises, was the profits of this church and the vicarage of it, and six secular canons; the prebends of which he distinguished by the names of the several places from whence their respective portions arose, viz. Chilton, Pedding, Twitham, Bonnington, Ratling, and Wimlingswold. The provost's lodge, which appears by the foundation charter to have before been the parsonage, was situated adjoining to the church-yard; and the houses of the canons, at this time called Canon-row, opposite to it. These latter houses are, with their gardens and appurtenances, esteemed to be within the liberty of the town and port of Hastings, and jurisdiction of the cinque ports. This college was suppressed in the 1st year of king Edward VI. among others of the like sort, when the whole revenue of it was valued at 208l. 14s. 3½d. per annum, and 193l. 2s. 1d. clear; but Leland says, it was able to dispend at the suppression only eighty-four pounds per annum. Edward Cranmer, the last master, had at the dissolution a pension of twenty pounds per annum, which he enjoyed in 1553. (fn. 8)

 

After the dissolution of the college, the capital mansion, late belonging to the provost, remained in the crown till king Edward VI. in his 7th year, granted the scite of it, with the church appropriate of Wingham, and all tithes whatsoever arising within the parish, and one acre of glebe-land in it, to Sir Henry Palmer, subject to a payment of twenty pounds annually to the curate or vicar of it.

 

The Palmers of Wingham were descended from a very antient one at Angmerin, in Suffex, who bore for their arms, Or, two bars, gules, each charged with three tresoils of the field, in chief, a greyhound, currant, sable. In the seventh descent from Ralph Palmer, esq. of that place, in king Edward II.'s reign, was descended Sir Edward Palmer, of Angmerin, who left three sons, born on three successive Sundays, of whom John, the eldest, was of Sussex, which branch became extinct in queen Elizabeth's reign; Sir Henry, the second son, was of Wingham; and Sir Thomas, the youngest, was beheaded in queen Mary's reign. Sir Henry Palmer, the second son, having purchased the grant of the college of Wingham, as before-mentioned, made it the seat of his residence, as did his son Sir Thomas Palmer, who was sheriff anno 37 Elizabeth, and created a baronet in 1621. He so constantly resided at Wingham, that he is said to have kept sixty Christmases, without intermission, in this mansion, with great hospitality. He had three sons, each of whom were knighted. From the youngest of whom, Sir James, descended the Palmers, of Dauney, in Buckinghamshire, who upon the eldest branch becoming extinct, have succeeded to the title of baronet; and by his second wife he had Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemain. Sir Thomas Palmer, the eldest of the three brothers, died in his father's life-time, and left Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, heir to his grandfather; in whose descendants, baronets, of this place, this mansion, with the parsonage of Wingham appropriate, continued down to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, who died possessed of it in 1723, having had three wives; by the first he had four daughters; by the second he had a son Herbert, born before marriage, and afterwards a daughter Frances; the third was Mrs. Markham, by whom he had no issue; and she afterwards married Thomas Hey, esq. whom she likewise survived. Sir Thomas Palmer, by his will, gave this seat, with the parsonage appropriate and tithes of Wingham, inter alia, after his widow's decease, to his natural son Herbert Palmer, esq. above-mentioned, who married Bethia, fourth daughter of Sir Thomas D'Aeth, bart. of Knolton. He died in 1760, s. p. and by will devised his interest in the reversion of this seat, with the parsonage, to his wife Bethia, for her life, and afterwards to his sister Mrs. Frances Palmer, in tail. But he never had possession of it, for lady Palmer furvived him, on whose death in 1763, Mrs. Bethia Palmer, his widow, became entitled to it, and afterwards married John Cosnan, esq. who died in 1773. She survived him, and resided here till her death in 1789. In the intermediate time, Mrs. Frances Palmer having barred the entail made by her natural brother Herbett above-mentioned, died, having devised the see of this estate, by her will in 1770, to the Rev. Thomas Hey, rector of Wickhambreaux, and his heirs, being the eldest son of the last lady Palmer by her last husband. Mr. Hey accordingly, on the death of Mrs. Cosnan, who died s. p. succeeded to this seat and estate. He married first Ethelreda, eldest daughter and coheir of dean Lynch, since deceased, by whom he has no surviving issue; and secondly, Mrs. Pugett, widow of Mr. Puget, of London. He now resides in this seat of Wingham college, having been created D. D. and promoted to a prebend of the church of Rochester.

 

Charities.

JOHN CHURCH, yeoman, of this parish, in 1604, gave 1cl. to the poor, to distribute yearly at Easter, 10s. to the poor for the interest of it.

 

HECTOR DU MONT, a Frenchman, born in 1632, gave the silver cup and patten for the holy communion.

 

SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, president for the East-India Company at Surat, in 1660, gave the velvet cushion and pulpitcloth.

 

JOHN RUSHBEACHER, gent. of this parish, in 1663, gave five acres of land in Woodnesborough, the rents to be annually distributed to ten of the meaner sort of people of Wingham, not receiving alms of the parish, now of the yearly value of 4l.

 

SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, above-mentioned, in 1682, gave 500l. for the repairing and beautifying this church, and the Dene chancel.

 

SIR JAMES OXENDEN, knight and baronet, of Dene, founded and endowed a school in this parish with 16l. per annum for ever, for teaching twenty poor children reading and writing, now in the patronage of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.

 

RICHARD OXENDEN, esq. of Brook, in 1701, gave an annuity of 4l. for ever, to the minister, for the reading of divine service and preaching a sermon, in this church, on every Wednesday in Lent, and on Good Friday; and he at the same time gave 20s. yearly for ever, to be distributed, with the consent of the heirs of the Brook estate, to eight poor people, who should be at divine service on Easter-day, to be paid out of the lands of Brook, now vested in Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.

 

THOMAS PALMER, esq. of St. Dunstan's in the East, London, gave 300l for the repairing, adorning and beautifying the great chancel of this church.

 

MRS. ELIZABETH MASTER, esq. relict of Strensham Master, of Brook, in 1728, gave the large silver flaggon; and MRS. SYBILLA OXENDEN, spinster, of Brook, at the same time gave a large silver patten for the communion.

 

Besides the above benefactions, there have been several lesser ones given at different times in money, both to the poor and for the church. All which are recorded in a very handsome table in the church, on which are likewise painted the arms of the several benefactors

 

There are about forty poor constantly relieved, and casually twenty.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.

 

The church, which is exempt from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a handsome building, consisting of two isles and three chancels, having a slim spire steeple at the west end, in which is a peal of eight bells and a clock. The church consists of two isles and three chancels. The former appear to have been built since the reformation; the latter are much more antient. It is handsome and well built; the pillars between the isles, now cased with wood, are slender and well proportioned. The outside is remarkably beautiful in the flint-work, and the windows throughout it, were regular and handsomely disposed, superior to other churches, till later repairs destroyed their uniformity. The windows were formerly richly ornamented with painted glass, the remains of which are but small. In the south window, in old English letters, is Edward Warham, gentill . . . . of making this window . . . . and underneath the arms of Warham. In the north isle is a brass tablet for Christopher Harris, curate here, and rector of Stourmouth, obt. Nov. 24, 1719. Over the entrance from this isle into the high chancel, is carved on the partition, the Prince of Wales's badge and motto. In the south wall is a circular arch, plain, seemingly over a tomb. A monument for T. Ginder, gent. obt. 1716. In the south east window the arms of Warham. A memorial for Vincent Denne, gent. of Wenderton, obt. 1642. In the high chancel are seven stalls on each side. On the pavement are several stones, robbed of their brasses, over the provosts and religious of the college. A stone, coffin-shaped, and two crosses pomelle, with an inscription round in old French capitals, for master John de Sarestone, rector, ob. XII Kal. May MCCLXXI. Several monuments and memorials for the family of Palmer. The south chancel is called the Dene chancel, belonging to that seat, under which is a vault, in which the family of Oxenden, owners of it, are deposited. In the middle, on the pavement, is a very costly monument, having at the corners four large black oxens beads, in allusion to their name and arms. It was erected in 1682. On the four tablets on the base is an account of the family of Oxenden, beginning with Henry, who built Denehouse, and ending with Dr. Oxenden, dean of the arches, who died in 1704. There are monuments in it likewise for the Trippes. The north chancel is called the Brook chancel, as belonging to that seat, in which are monuments for the Oxendens and Masters's of this seat. This chancel is shut out from the church, and is made use of as a school-room, by which means the monuments are much desaced, and the gravestones, from the filth in it, have become wholly obliterated. On one of these stones was a brass plate, now gone, for Henry Oxenden, esq. who built Dene, obt. 1597.

 

Elizabeth, daughter of the marquis of Juliers, and widow of John, son of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, after being solemnly veiled a nun, quitted her prosession, and was clandestinely married to Sir Eustace de Danbrichescourt, in a chapel of the mansion-house of Robert de Brome, a canon of this collegiate church, in 1360; for which she and her husband were enjoined different kinds of penance during their lives, which is well worth the reading, for the uncommon superstitious mockery of them. (fn. 9)

 

At the time of the reformation, the church was partly collegiate, and partly parochial. The high chancel, separated from the rest of the church by a partition, served for the members of the college to perform their quire service in. The two isles of the church were for the parishioners, who from thence could hear the quire service; and in the north isle was a roodlost, where one of the vicars went up and read the gospel to the people. At which time, I find mention of a parish chancel likewise.

 

The church of Wingham formerly comprehended not only this parish, but those likewise of Ash, Goodnestone, Nonington, and Wimlingswold; but archbishop Peckham, in 1282, divided them into four distinct parochial churches, and afterwards appropriated them to his new-founded college of Wingham, with a saving to them of certain portions which the vicars of them were accustomed to receive. The profits of this church and the vicarage of it, together with the parsonage-house, being thus appropriated and allotted to the provost, as part of his portion and maintenance, the archbishop, in order that the church should be duly served, by his foundation charter, ordered, that the provost and canons should each of them keep a vicar who should constantly serve in it. In which state it continued till the suppression of the college, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. when it came, among the rest of the revenues of the college, into the hands of the crown, where this parsonage appropriate, to which was annexed, the nomination of the perpetual curate serving in this church, remained till it was granted by king Edward VI. in his 7th year, to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. Since which it has continued in like manner, together with the scite of the college, as has been already mentioned, to the Rev. Dr. Hey, who is the present possessor of this parsonage, together with the patronage of the perpetual curacy of the church of Wingham.

 

In 1640 the communicants here were three hundred and sixty-one.

 

¶The curacy is endowed with a stipend of twenty pounds per annum, paid by the owner of the parsonage, and reserved to the curate in the original grant of the college by king Edward VI. and with four pounds per annum, being the Oxenden gift before mentioned; besides which, the stipend of the resident curate, and his successors, was increased in 1797, by a liberal benefaction made by the Rev. Dr. Hey, of one hundred pounds per annum, clear of all deductions, to be paid out of the parsonage, and of a house, garden, and piece of pasture land adjoining, for the curate's use, both which were settled by him on trustees for that purpose.

 

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Parijs - Paris

Frankrijk - France

February 2018

 

- The ultimate combination of speed and elegance in its day

- Delivered new to the USA

- Recent extensive refurbishment by Frank Dale & Stepsons

- Registered in the UK

 

Introduced in the autumn of 1959, the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II and Bentley S2 appeared externally unchanged from their Silver Cloud and S-Type predecessors, though their performance was considerably enhanced by the new 6.230 cc aluminium-alloy V8 engine. 'The Bentley S2, with its sister Rolls-Royce models, gives high-speed travel in silence and luxury, while the driver and passengers enjoy the sense of well being that only British craftsmanship can give. The V8 engine, with its flashing acceleration, certainly contributes to the result and is a definite step forward in Rolls-Royce technique,' enthused Autosport. There were few significant changes to the running gear, though power-assisted steering was now standard and the manual gearbox had been dropped, Rolls-Royce's own four-speed automatic transmission being the sole offering.

 

Built in 'S2' form from the autumn of 1959, Continental version of the Bentley remained, as ever, exclusively a coachbuilt car. The firms of H J Mulliner, Park Ward, James Young, and Hooper (with a solitary example) all offered bodies on the Continental S2 chassis, which differed from the standard version by virtue of its four-leading-shoe front brakes, shorter radiator and, up to chassis number 'BC99BY', higher gearing. Of these four, James Young, and Hooper would soon cease coachbuilding, leaving only Mulliner and Park Ward to carry on a noble tradition.

 

Chassis number 'BC119LCZ' is an example of Park Ward's influential 'straight through wing' body style; it is one of 124 bodied in this fashion by Park Ward, and one of only 61 original left-hand drive cars. This Continental was delivered new to Rolls-Royce Inc in New York, USA where it was sold via J S Inskip Inc to its first owner: Gordon P Kelley of Chicago, Illinois. Copy chassis cards on file record that the car was originally finished in Dawn Blue with light blue hood and matching interior, and left the factory equipped with electric windows and aerial, power operated convertible hood, and Sundym glass. Only one other owner is listed on the chassis cards: an Adrian West of Morrisville, Vermont (from April 1971).

 

In more recent years the car returned to Europe where it formed part of a small private collection in Holland. Renowned marque specialists, Frank Dale & Stepsons have recently brought this handsome motor car up to showroom condition, with mechanical and electrical preparation as and where necessary, coachwork restoration, chrome restoration, a new hood and headlining, woodwork restoration, and new carpets (bills available). Now presenting and driving beautifully, this superb Bentley Continental comes with a complete small tool kit and is ready for pleasurable summer motoring to the Côte d'Azur and other such delightful destinations.

Tomb of Sir John Giffard (d.1613) & his Wife; One of four impressive tombs in the chancel at Brewood. The tomb chest features the figures of their sixteen children.

 

St Mary & St Chad's at Brewood (pronounced 'Brood') is very grand building in warm red sandstone with a soaring west steeple, though externally at least the nave appears largely Victorian, especially the eccentric outer south aisle with it's sequence of gables (echoing a lost medieval feature apparently); The chancel is clearly Early English, with lancets aplenty.

 

Within it is a large, cavernous space, the eye is drawn to the chancel with it's reredos and tombs, and the odd arrangement in the south aisles with their extra arcade. Here are two fonts, a simple post-Reformation one and a 'more correct' Victorian one which seems to have been demoted. Nearby is late medieval incised slab, sadly more worn, and a charming mid 17th century coloured wall monument to the Moreton family with miniature couples & children facing each other.

 

The real gem here however is the collection of Giffard tombs in the chancel, alabaster effigies galore, mid 16th century to early 17th, with a twosome and threesome on each side of the chancel respectively, and an extensive array of weepers (most of them appear to be shrouded babies on the earliest tomb, all surreally shown the same size as the few children who survived into adulthood).

 

This is a highly rewarding church, and happily, unlike many in this area, is kept open and welcoming to visitors.

Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad Class LO-6B 87764 at Cicero, Illinois on an unknown day in March 1981, Kodachrome by Chuck Zeiler. The following is from Burlington Route Historical Society's publication, Burlington Bulletin 20 COVERED HOPPERS, edited by Hol Wagner:

 

The other 50 Airslide cars of 4,180 cubic-foot capacity, classed LO-6B and numbered 87750 - 87799, were built in January 1966 and differed in a number of details from their 1964 and 1965 predecessors. First, though not visible, they were divided internally into two separate compartments. Externally, they had somewhat different vertical end bracing and, consequently, different hand brake mounting arrangements. They were also the only Q Airslides with the registered trade name stenciled on the cars - in the upper left-hand corner.

St George, Stowlangtoft, Suffolk

 

Given that our parish churches almost without exception underwent restorations in the 19th Century, it should be obvious that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian vision of the medieval. Even when the actual furnishings and fittings are medieval, the whole piece is still a Victorian conception.

 

Inevitably, the question arises of what was there before the restoration and what wasn't. The obvious answer is that we must assume that nothing is as it first appears.

 

A prime example of a church that assumes a continuity that may not actually be the truth is here in the flat fields between Woolpit and Ixworth. This part of Suffolk can be rather bleak in winter, but in summer the churchyard here is verdant and golden, as beautiful a place as any in the county. The church is large, and yet unusually narrow. It sits on a mound that has been cut down on one side by the road. In the churchyard you'll find the well-known memorial to the art critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, killed in a car crash in 1990.

 

In the churchyard wall there is what appears to be broken medieval window tracery, which is worth noticing, for hereby hangs a tale.

 

St George is one of the great Suffolk churches. Although it may externally appear a little severe, and is by no means as grand as Blythburgh, Long Melford and the rest, it is a treasure house of the medieval inside. Unusually for a church of its date, it was all rebuilt in one go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular windows are not yet full of the 'walls of glass' confidence that the subsequent century would see. The tracery appears to have been repaired, and possibly even renewed, which may explain the tracery in the churchyard wall. However, it doesn't take much to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but decorated. So it may be that the broken tracery is from the original church that the late 14th century church replaced. But the wall itself isn't medieval, so where had it been all those years? Is it possible that the current window tracery is not medieval at all?

 

Stowlangtoft church featured in Simon Jenkins' book England's Thousand Best Churches, which sends plenty of visitors to its locked door, and may help stave off the inevitable for a while, for there is no real congregation here any more and the church is moribund. Regular services are held across the fields at Pakenham, and St George is now only used on special occasions. The key is kept across the road, where the very nice lady told me in February 2018 that the church is now headed for redundancy. It seems likely that care of it will be conveyed into the hands of the Churches Conservation Trust.

 

You step in through the chancel door (the lock here is very awkward, but do persevere) and if you are anything like me you will head straight down to the west end where you will find the font. Likethe window tracery, it asks some questions. Unusually, it features a Saint on seven of the panels, Christ being on the westwards face. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it shows are familiar cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and less commonly St George. The cult of St George was at its height in the early years of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it certainly isn't looking its best. But I think there is more going on here than meets the eye. Fonts were plastered over in Elizabethan times, and only relief that stood proud of the plaster was mutilated. These are all shallow reliefs, and I do not think they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at least, this stonework appears weathered. I wonder if this font was removed from the church, probably in the mid-17th century, and served an outdoor purpose until it was returned in the 19th century.

 

The story of this church in the 19th century is well-documented. In 1832, as part of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy visited, and was pleased to find that the church was at last undergoing repair. The chancel had been roofless, and the nave used for services. A new Rectory was being built. Who was the catalyst behind all this? His name was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector here for almost the middle forty years of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a good friend of John Henry Newman, the future Cardinal, and they often corresponded on the subject of the pre-Reformation ordering of English churches. It is interesting to think how, at this seminal moment, Rickards might have informed the thought of the Oxford Movement. Sadly, when Newman became a Catholic, Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.

 

During the course of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards transformed Stowlangtoft church. He got the great Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and complete the marvellous set of bench ends - Ringham did the same thing at Woolpit, a few miles away. Ringham's work is so good that it is sometimes hard for the inexperienced eye to detect it. However, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals here, and the weirder stuff is all medieval, and probably dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft's bench ends is partly the sheer quantity - there are perhaps 60 carvings - but also that there are several unique subjects.

 

The carvings appear to be part of the same group as Woolpit and Tostock - you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull playing a harp, the bird with a man's head, from similar carvings elsewhere. And then hopefully that little alarm bell in your heard should start to go "Hmmmm....." because some of the carvings here are clearly not from the same group. It is hard to believe that the mermaid and the owl, for example, are from the same workshop, or even from the same decade. The benches themselves are no clue, as it was common practice in the 19th century to replace medieval bench ends on modern benches, or on medieval benches, or even on modern benches made out of medieval timber (as happened at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards found some of these bench ends elsewhere? Could he have been the kind of person to do a thing like that?

 

Well, yes he could. As Roy Tricker recalls, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley's church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is East Anglian. Rickards acquired it after finding it in storage in Ipswich docks. It presumably came from one of the Ipswich churches. In the ferment of the great 19th century restoration of our English churches, there was loads of medieval junk lying around, much of it going begging. But was Samuel Rickards the kind of person to counterfeit his church's medieval inheritance?

 

Well, yes he probably was. The faux-medieval roundels in the windows of the nave are clearly not medieval at all, but were in fact the work of the young Lucy Rickards, daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. Some are clearly to the young girl's design, and Pevsner notes that others are copied from medieval manuscript illustrations in the British Museum, although the Holy Kinship and Presentation in the Temple roundels at least are very close copies of the Flemish roundels of the same subjects in Nowton church on the other side of Bury St Edmunds.

 

Truly medieval is the vast St Christopher wall-painting still discernible on the north wall. It was probably one of the last to be painted. The bench ends are medieval, of course, as is the fine rood-screen dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval figure glass in the upper tracery of some of the windows, including St Agnes holding a lamb and four Old Testament prophets. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard's commission, and the work of William White. What can Rickards have been thinking of? But we step through into the chancel, and suddenly the whole thing moves up a gear. For here are some things that are truly remarkable.

 

In a county famous for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft's chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. Behind the rood screen dado is Suffolk's most complete set of return stalls. Most striking are the figures that form finials to the stall ends. They are participants in the Mass, including two Priests, two servers and two acolytes. The figure of the Priest at a prayer desk must be one of the best medieval images in Suffolk, and Mortlock thought the stalls the finest in England.

 

The benches that face eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are wonderful things: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and crowned heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. Between the seats are weird oriental faces.

 

Now, you know what I am going to ask next. How much of this is from this church originally? It all appears medieval work, and there is no reason to believe it might not have been moved elsewhere in the church when the chancel was open to the elements. What evidence have we got?

 

Firstly, we should notice that the only other Suffolk church with such a large number of medieval misericords of this quality is just a mile away, at Norton. I don't ask you to see this as significant, merely to notice it in passing. Secondly, I am no carpenter, but it does look to me as though two sets of furnishings have been cobbled together; the stalls that back on to the screen appear to have been integrated into the larger structure of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south walls.

 

However, if you look closely at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche families. The Ashfield arms also appear on the rood screen, and the Ashfields were the major donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on balance I am inclined to think that the greater part of the stall structure was in this church originally from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Well, I don't know. But I think they have to be considered as part of the same set as those at Norton. In which case they may have come from the same church, which may have been this one, but may not have been. Almost certainly, the stalls at Norton did not come from Norton church, and folklore has it that they were originally in the quire of Bury Abbey.

 

Other remarkable things in St George include FE Howard's beautiful war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the opposite corner of the nave Hugh Easton's unexpectedly gorgeous St George, which serves the same purpose. He's not an artist I usually admire, but it is as good as his work at Elveden. Back up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was apparently exhibited at, and acquired from, the Great Exhibition of 1851.

 

But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of course, most famous for the Flemish carvings that flank the rather heavy altarpiece. They were given to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Hall, who allegedly found them in an Ixworth junk shop. They show images from the crucifixion story, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides suggest. They date from the 1480s, and were almost certainly the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked during the French Revolution. The carvings were once brightly painted, and piled up in a block rather than spread out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches above them, are 19th century.

 

One cold winter's night in January 1977, a gang of thieves broke into this locked church and stole them. Nothing more was seen or heard of them until 1982, when they were discovered on display in an Amsterdam art gallery. Their journey had been a convoluted one. Taken to Holland, they were used as security for a loan which was defaulted upon. The new owner was then burgled, and the carvings were fenced to an Amsterdam junk dealer. They were bought from his shop, and taken to the museum, which immediately identified them as 15th century carvings. They put them on display, and a Dutch woman who had read about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.

 

The parish instituted legal proceedings to get them back. An injunction was taken out to stop the new owner removing them from the museum. The parish lost the case, leaving them with a monstrous legal bill, but the story has a happy ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their purchase from the owner, paid off the legal bills, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Apparently this was all at vast cost, but the businessman gave the gift in thanks for Britain's liberation of Holland from the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.

 

Today, the carvings are fixed firmly in place and alarmed, so they won't be going walkabout again. But a little part of me wonders if they really should be here at all. Sure, they are medieval, but they weren't here originally, and they weren't even in England originally. Wouldn't it be better if they were displayed somewhere safer, where people could pay to see them, and provide some income for the maintenance of the church building? And then, whisper it, when St George is taken on by the CCT they might even be able to leave it open.

 

Barbican Estate - Architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon - 1969 - 1980

The Barbican Estate in London is one of the largest examples of the Brutalist style and represents a utopian ideal for inner-city living. This post-war complex was designed in the 1950s by British firm Chamberlin, Powell and Bon – a team of three young architects who had recently established their reputation by winning the 1951 design competition for the nearby Golden Lane Estate. With its coarse concrete surfaces, elevated gardens and trio of high-rise towers, the Barbican Estate offered a new vision for how high-density residential neighbourhoods could be integrated with schools, shops and restaurants, as well world-class cultural destinations. The architects – Peter Chamberlin, Geoffry Powell and Christoph Bon – sought to create a complex that created a clear distinction between private, community and public domains, but that also allowed pedestrians as much priority as cars.

The site had been left almost entirely demolished by bombing during the second world war, so the architects were tasked with developing an entire city plot from scratch. Designs were finalised in 1959, construction extended through the 60s and 70s, and the complex was officially opened by the queen in 1982. The basis for the design came from a vision for a podium, a car-free realm raised up over the city's busy streets to allow visitors and residents to explore the site on foot. Brick pathways indicate different routes, while landscaped gardens and lakes offer a pleasant outlook for residents. Flats were distributed between three 43-storey towers – known as Shakespeare, Cromwell and Lauderdale – and a series of 13 seven-storey blocks. Aimed at young professionals, the residences feature simple layouts with compact kitchens and bathrooms. Balconies branch off bedrooms and studies, as well as living rooms, and give the towers their unique profiles. Externally, the raw concrete surfaces were bush-hammered to reveal the rough texture of the aggregate.

With the Corporation of London as a client, the project was intended to create a mixed society of residents, but the change in politics brought in during Margaret Thatcher's term as Britain's prime minister inevitably led to the majority of homes being sold to private owners and landlords. These days the address is highly sought after, with properties selling for as much as £4 million.

Looking externally quite rough after the removal of its overall advertising vinyls,balloon 723 was launched back into the heritage pool over the 130 anniversary weekend after 2 years of store....here is runs around the turning circle at Little Bispham before returning south to the Pleasure Beach on 27th Sept 15

St John the Baptist, Harringworth, Northamptonshire

 

Part three.

 

And so to church-exploring again, a day in which our hero takes a bicycle ride into Rutland and north Northamptonshire. He rides two ridges either side of the great Welland Vale, meets an eccentric churchwarden, sees double, frightens a horse, has his head turned by a young American lady, witnesses the longest railway viaduct in the British Isles, has another incident with a lady over wheelie bins and climbs hills no man of his age should be expected to climb.

 

From Tixover and Duddington I headed south, turning off the busy Kettering road onto a quiet, steep lane that took me past Tixover church again, but this time on the other side of the river. I climbed up and up, and soon I could see far across the river to the impossibly pretty church and village of Barrowden in Rutland, and then down and down to Wakerley church.

 

This is a redundant church, A CCT church, a BIG church, one of the biggest of the day, with a tall tower and spire, aisles, clerestories, transepts, a big five-light east window. It stands some way to the east of Wakerley village, and most villagers probably live closer to Barrowden church across the river. Wakerley church is an elaboration of what must have been a huge Norman church, and the great survival is the chancel arch, carved with knotwork around knights going into battle, knights attacking a castle, knights fighting dragons and other mythical beasts, and so on. They are similar to the carvings at Castor in Cambridgeshire, which is not so very far away.

 

High up in the nave roof are some primitive bosses, one of which appears to show the Warning Against Gossip, two old women holding their rosaries as if at their devotions, but actually gossiping about their neighbours, to the enjoyment of the big black devil that stands behind them. I've seen this Warning several times in wall paintings, but never before in carved form.

 

As I was pottering about, a young American woman in a fluorescent running top came in. She was very enthusiastic. It turned out she lived locally, and was a church enthusiast. She gave me chapter and verse on all the best local churches. Trouble was, they all seemed to be on the other side of the river in Rutland. My plan had been to stay on the Northamptonshire side of the river for most of my ride and clock up my 50th Northants church, but when she described Stoke Dry to me I was sold, and changed my plans completely. I would carry on the three mile lane to Harringworth, but then cross the Welland into Rutland for the rest of the journey.

 

I thanked her and headed on, climbing higher and higher onto the ridge through lonely woods and then out into the open with stunning views into the vale below. I could see Harringworth church off in the distance, and beyond it the spectacular 90-arch railway viaduct which crosses the vale from one ridge to the other. It was raining down there, and I headed into drizzle and then, as the hill descended rapidly, into the rain itself.

 

Harringworth is the tourist centre for the Vale, pretty stone cottages, a couple of pubs, teashops and even a craft gallery. The church is set back beyond the houses of the main street. It is another big church, with a spired tower, aisles and clerestories. Externally it looked substantially restored in the 19th Century, and so it proved inside, though it was not without interest, including a raised and railed south aisle with a vaulted 17th Century mausoleum beneath it.

 

I came out, and the rain had stopped. I crossed over the Welland and under the viaduct into Rutland. I ignored Seaton for the moment, and headed westwards on a fairly wide but typically empty road in the general direction of Stoke Dry. Ahead of me I could hear noises that sounded a bit like a distant group of deep-throated washing machines. They got louder, and suddenly a cavalcade of Harley Davidsons flew into view, led by a bearded chap with a large flag flying from the back of his top box. There were about fifty of them altogether. I've never felt the urge to get on a motorbike, but they were a magnificent sight.

 

To be continued.

 

If you stare at them for a while, you MIGHT notice the cowling looks a little different. Other than that, Rev 1.2 (bottom) and Rev 1.3 (top) are identical externally. Under the skin, though, are several large differences.

 

I think this is the last evolution of the Vega. It's been a long time coming. Unless I get some massive feedback to change something, I'm done fiddling with it without having built it myself.

These are the Primal Deities that make up the Monsgnarl Pantheon, a group of evil deities that has maintained a firm domination of the Omega Octant planet Proolycoles, and its humanoids, the Huplegrars, for all of recorded history, back to before the Relative Calendar was invented. These deities are particularly malicious, ruthless and corruptive, as well as ancient, and there are five main ones, one representing each class of Primal Deity. These five were all present at the Pantheon's formation, and are the only deities who have consistently been part of it ever since. Other Primal Deities have joined the Monsgnarl Pantheon at various points in time, but all of them end up either leaving or being vanquished after some time. Currently, the Pantheon consists of only the main five, and has been this way for over a century. All attempts to retake planet Proolycoles from them, even those involving angels, have failed. The planet and its inhabitants, which are now severely and irreversibly corrupted, are now considered beyond help, and the "Monsgnarls" (as the deities are sometimes called) remain an active and significant threat to the rest of the Prime Galaxy, though they do not currently control any other planets in the same way they do Proolycoles.

 

• Dif'Elarah: The Elemental–Class deity among the group. Dif'Elarah is an electricity and lightning–based extra–corporeal being that identifies itself as female, though "she" exhibits few to no stereotypically feminine traits and is not associated with sexuality (which most "female" Primal Deities are), actually being the least perverted of the Monsgnarls. Her form stands nearly twenty feet tall, and is partially extra–corporeal and partially sub–corporeal. The sub–corporeal portions of her body are those that appear to be made of blue electric energy, and which are semi–amorphous; the ends of her "arms" can take the forms of either "hands" with multiple "fingers" or singular daggers of energy. Sparking bolts of lightning constantly spout and fume from the top and sides of her head, and her whole body rests upon a floating vortex of red–hot electricity. Physical contact with any part of her body is hazardous to one's health and is not advised. Dif'Elarah has the ability to dissipate into thin air and reappear within seconds at any point of her choosing within several miles. She can also transfer her essence into clouds, of which there are lots floating around the skies of Proolycoles at all times, which she then takes control over and induces the phenomenon of lightning in. She frequently commandeers clouds either to strike people down (something that only divine beings have the right to do), or to clear out patches of land for use as agricultural fields or sites for buildings, in a practice reminiscent of the ancient agricultural technique of "slash–and–burn". Dif'Elarah is considered the "guardian" of the planet Proolycoles from intruders who wish to overthrow the Monsgnarls, and whom she strikes down from the clouds (although she has also been known to do this to Huplegrars who are either "nonbelievers" or are otherwise considered liabilities, and possibly to random Huplegrars simply for fun), and also the goddess of agriculture, even though she is still a destructive force rather than a creative one even when she helps clear out fields. The durability value of Dif'Elarah's body is 15,000.

 

• Mias'Cento: The Mage–Class deity among the group. Mias'Cento is "male", and has a very humanoid form almost resembling that of the Aspimean, and a headpiece that represents the "head" of this facsimile of a mortal body. He has four independently–floating arms, although the lower pair could alternatively and easily be seen as representing legs. Instead of his entire headpiece being organic and vulnerable, the only truly living part of Mias'Cento's body is the exposed "brain" within his head. He speaks in a mischievous–sounding and moderately high–pitched voice, which emits through the grinning "teeth" on his upper–upper body, despite him having another, separate set of "teeth" immediately above these. Of course, neither are actually used for eating, which a Primal Deity is "above" the need to do. The purple glow surrounding the floating parts that make up his body is particularly bright and strong.

Mias'Cento's voice is indicative of his type of personality, but does not convey the extreme nature of this personality: he is a malicious trickster and prankster who often goes around casting harmful spells upon unsuspecting Huplegrars, most of which alter the bodies of their victims in some way, usually permanently. The effects of such spells range from non–beneficial mutations and severe scarring to (sometimes deadly) sickness and even transformation into inanimate objects (in which case the victim's consciousness remains alive within the object they have been turned into, only being released when the object is destroyed to a sufficient extent). Despite the horrific nature of some of these spells, to be changed by Mias'Cento is considered an "honor" by the Huplegrars. He even has a spell that can turn Huplegrars into other humanoid races, though the effects of this particular spell are temporary, and even then it is one of the hardest spells for the deity to cast, as it is so drastic and complex. Note that the greater the preexisting influence of Primal Deities on an individual, the more vulnerable they are to Mias'Cento's magic; since the Huplegrars are so utterly dominated by the Monsgnarls, he can do practically whatever he wants to them, but it is much harder for him to affect non–Huplegrars, and those who are closest to God are virtually immune.

To compensate for his openly antagonistic nature towards his own subjects, Mias'Cento is very open to granting "wishes" in exchange for favors and offerings that are less substantial than what most other wish–granting deities would demand for the same services.

Mias'Cento has been quoted several times as saying that he knows a dark secret relating to humanoids in general, and he laughs out loud whenever he mentions this. However, he has never revealed to anyone else, including his fellow deities, exactly what this alleged secret is.

Mias'Cento's (or rather, his brain's) durability value is 15,000 (making it one tough freaking brain!). This durability value is the same as Dif'Elarah's, and the two are fairly evenly–matched in other areas as well.

 

• Set'Ibutal: The Guardian–Class deity among the group. Set'Ibutal is extremely masculine and is one of the most distinctly humanoid Primal Deities ever, having a full, grounded body with both arms and legs. His form stands more than twenty feet tall, and is hunchbacked. Unlike most Guardian–Class deities, Set'Ibutal does more than just going around looking for challengers who seek to claim his artifact, the Gnarly Sword of Bursting, a large two–handed blade that, in addition to being supernaturally sharp and durable, sometimes creates small, controlled explosions upon impact with a foe's body. He is the leader of Proolycoles' warrior caste, which is equivalent to a military, and personally puts all Huplegrar warriors, who are assigned to that caste at birth based on being the most physically fit and promising among the population's infants by Junt'Vubis, through a rigorous, harsh and sometimes deadly training regime starting at the tender age of just four years. Set'Ibutal teaches them to be pitiless, vicious and brutally pragmatic in battle, and makes them push their bodies beyond their natural limits in order to build them up to great strength. Were he an angel and had more compassion, he would probably be the universe's greatest personal trainer. However, as it is he is evil and cruel like the other Monsgnarls, and frequently ends up getting his subjects killed, which he feels no remorse for, believing that they deserved to die for being weak and failing to live up to their destiny as warriors, and teaching his other subjects to think in the same way. At the age of fourteen, every young Huplegrar warrior who has survived all of Set'Ibutal's torturous training over ten whole years must face one more, final test from him to earn freedom and the respect and honor of being a full–fledged warrior: facing the deity in combat. During these fights, which are fought unarmed by both participants, Set'Ibutal deliberately uses only a fraction of his true power, and ends the fight when his opponent and subject has either fared well enough against him and landed enough blows to prove their worthiness, or is dead. Less than half of all Huplegrars who are assigned to the warrior caste survive all of Set'Ibutal's training; the majority of those who don't die during the final test of fighting him.

Set'Ibutal also personally leads all fully–qualified warriors who have survived his training during times of actual war, which are rare on Proolycoles, but which he actually, personally fights in when they do happen.

When he is not busy training warrior youth or fighting off planetary intruders, Set'Ibutal seeks those who believe themselves powerful and worthy enough to challenge him in full–out combat to the death, in which the deity does not hold back, over the Gnarly Sword of Bursting. He has "died" seven times, being defeated in one–on–one combat by freakishly powerful Huplegrar warriors who then claimed his artifact six of those times, and being slain by angels, who were later overpowered and killed by the other Monsgnarls and their forces, the other time. Like other Guardian–Class deities, Set'Ibutal is reborn when the individual who has defeated him and inherited his weapon dies and their soul becomes part of his consciousness. When he was killed by angels, said angels actually destroyed the Gnarly Sword of Bursting, hoping that doing so would vanquish the deity completely. However, he and his sword resurrected three years, two cycles and sixteen days later. This was subsequently discovered to be the "respawn time" for all Guardian–Class deities whose artifacts and bodies are both destroyed.

Set'Ibutal's durability value is 20,000.

 

• Junt'Vubis: The Serpentine–Class deity among the group, the leader of the Monsgnarl Pantheon, and also, appropriately, the most powerful Monsgnarl. Junt'Vubis is very large and heavy, and has a corporeal, organic form rather than one made of enchanted, possessed stone. He was always a Serpentine–Class deity, and never an Idol. He resides at all times in his throne room at the top of a 200–foot–tall golden–plated ziggurat that was built for him over a millennium ago at the center of the Huplegrars' capital city of Yeppus, which was also constructed under the Serpentine's supervision. Physically, Junt'Vubis is noted for the peculiar position in which he sits upon his belly, and for his very long, blue–haired neck. He has four arms, the lower pair of which has hands on both ends, and six symbolic dead insect wings on his back. His main power is telekinesis; in this very picture he is shown levitating several stones with the power of one arm, but that does not even begin to adequately illustrate the extent of his powers. If he wanted, Junt'Vubis could lift the entire golden structure atop which he sits into the air, tearing it out of the ground in which it is deeply and securely rooted. He can also telekinetically move living things and their body parts, both external and internal, and can indeed cause the internal organs of any normal humanoid within several miles of him to explode on a whim. Junt'Vubis can speak both externally and telepathically, and he has complete knowledge of every single word in both the English and Proolignarlish languages.

He is effectively the emperor of planet Proolycoles. All newborn Huplegrars are brought to him to be judged and placed into one of six castes: slave, peasant, citizen, aristocrat, prince or warrior. The first five of these castes are linear ranks, in order from lowest to highest, while the "warrior" caste is special. Any child that Junt'Vubis deems unfit for even the "slave" caste is devoured by him on the spot, being swallowed whole and dissolved instantaneously by his stomach acids, which are exponentially stronger than those of any mortal being. It has been suggested by multiple sources that he sometimes eats babies not because he actually considers them unfit to live, but because he likes to do so and/or because they are particularly satiating to his supernatural hunger. Aside from infants, Junt'Vubis also eats many other "foods", including both actual foods and inedible objects. Five meals are delivered to him daily by his personal slaves.

Junt'Vubis possesses a durability value of about 40,000. It would be accurate to call him the single most infamous Primal Deity in the Nava–Verse.

 

• Ness'Qilob: The Idol–Class deity among the group. Ness'Qilob is considered the weakest of the main five, and is certainly the dumbest. It is also the only completely genderless Monsgnarl, and the only one with Tikis: Frustration, Hunger and Violation. Its body is decorated mainly in greenish and purplish colors, and it has four tentacles coming out of its sides which serve as "arms", can extend and stretch to several times their natural length, and have millions of microscopic feelers on them. Its offensive abilities include laser beams of strength on par with the most advanced current humanoid–made energy weapons.

Ness'Qilob's "house" is a silver–plated altar in the center of a forest just to the West of Yeppus. A pathway has been cleared out through this forest leading up to said altar, where the Idol loiters around most of the day, often wandering off into other parts of the forest to eat the animals and chew on the trees. Huplegrars occasionally give or leave it offerings, which are absorbed into the deity's essence via route of consumption through its large, gapingly open mouth. Sometimes, random objects, usually food, come back up out of the mouth for people to take after multiple offerings are placed into the mouth at once. However, these objects are always of lesser value than the things that Ness'Qilob was just given.

Ness'Qilob is, as mentioned above, not very smart. It lacks the devious cunning and comprehensive, obscure knowledge that most Primal Deities possess, instead being a simple creature with simple, carnal desires that is content to act as a mere servant to Junt'Vubis, who uses it as a pet and enforcer. Its altar was deliberately built so that it would be just within the range of Junt'Vubis' telepathy, allowing him to summon Ness'Qilob at his leisure. The leader of the Monsgnarls frequently calls to it and orders it to bring him seemingly random things that he wants but which are located far away and would be difficult for his Huplegrar servants to fetch (not that they wouldn't be willing to try). Ness'Qilob is particularly ideal for fetching unusual things because of its photographic knowledge and memory of Proolycoles' entire layout, including where various things can generally be found, despite otherwise being lacking in the mental area. In exchange for doing him these periodic favors, Junt'Vubis gives Ness'Qilob free access to all female Huplegrars among the slave caste, and allows it to molest them with its tentacles, which they usually enjoy due to their own innate perversion which is a result of the Monsgnarls' general corruption. Surprisingly, Ness'Qilob only takes advantage of this privilege occasionally, rather than all the time.

Ness'Qilob has a durability value of 18,000.

takeshiyamada.weebly.com/

 

The Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus americanus) of Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York – This unique sea-dwelling rabbit, which is actually a close relative of the sea lion, was officially discovered and investigated by Henry Hudson when he first visited this land to colonize the area by order of the Dutch government. It was named New Amsterdam -- today’s New York City. This island was named after he saw the beach covered with strange swimming wild rabbits. The word “Coney Island” means “wild rabbit island” in Dutch (originally Conyne Eylandt, or Konijneneiland in modern Dutch spelling). Sea rabbits were also referred mermaid rabbit, merrabbit, rabbit fish or seal rabbit in the natural history documents in the 17th century. The current conservation status, or risk of extinction, of the sea rabbit is Extinct in the Wild.

 

This website features two species of sea rabbits, which have been taken care of by Dr. Takeshi Yamada (山田武司) at the Coney Island Sea Rabbit Repopulation Center, which is a part of the Marine biology department of the Coney Island University in Brooklyn, New York. They are – Coney Island Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus americanus) called “Seara” and Coney Island Tiger-striped Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus konjinicus) called “Stripes”.

 

The photographs and videos featured in this website chronicle adventures of the Coney Island sea rabbits and the world as seen by them. This article also documented efforts of Dr. Takeshi Yamada for bringing back the nearly extinct sea rabbits to Coney Island in the City of New York and beyond. Dr. Yamada produced a series of public lectures, workshops, original public live interactive fine art performances and fine art exhibitions about sea rabbits at a variety of occasions and institutions in the City of New York and beyond. Dr. Yamada is an internationally active educator, book author, wildlife conservationist and high profile artist, who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

 

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Sea Rabbit

 

Other Common Names: Coney Island Sea Rabbit, Beach Rabbit, Seal Rabbit, mer-rabbit, merrabbit, Atlantic Sea Rabbit.

 

Latin Name: Monafluffchus americanus

 

Origin: Atlantic coast of the United States

 

Description of the specimen: In the early 17th century’s European fur craze drove the fleet of Dutch ships to the eastern costal area of America. Then Holland was the center of the world just like the Italy was in the previous century. New York City was once called New Amsterdam when Dutch merchants landed and established colonies. Among them, Henry Hudson is probably the most recognized individual in the history of New York City today. “This small island is inhabited by two major creatures which we do not have in our homeland. The one creature is a large arthropod made of three body segments: the frontal segment resembles a horseshoe, the middle segment resembles a spiny crab and its tail resembles a sharp sword. Although they gather beaches here in great numbers, they are not edible due to their extremely offensive odor. Another creature which is abundant here, has the head of wild rabbit. This animal of great swimming ability has frontal legs resemble the webbed feet of a duck. The bottom half of the body resembles that of a seal. This docile rabbit of the sea is easy to catch as it does not fear people. The larger male sea rabbits control harems of 20 to 25 females. The meat of the sea rabbit is very tender and tasty.” This is what Hadson wrote in his personal journal in 1609 about the horseshoe crab and the sea rabbit in today’s Coney Island area of Brooklyn, New York. Sadly, just like the Dodo bird and the Thylacine, the sea rabbit was driven to extinction by the European settlers’ greed. When Dutch merchants and traders arrived here, sea rabbits were one of the first animals they hunted down to bring their furs to homeland to satisfy the fur craze of the time. To increase the shipment volume of furs of sea rabbit and beavers from New Amsterdam, Dutch merchants also started using wampum (beads made of special clam shells) as the first official currency of this country.

 

At the North Eastern shores of the United States, two species of sea rabbits were commonly found. They are Coney Island Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus americanus) and Coney Island Tiger-striped Sea Rabbit (Monafluffchus konjinicus). Sadly, due to their over harvesting in the previous centuries, their conservation status became “Extinct in the Wild” (ET) in the Red List Endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Currently, these sea rabbits are only found at breeding centers at selected zoos and universities such as Coney Island Aquarium and Coney Island University in Brooklyn, New York. The one shown in this photograph was named "Seara" and has been cared by Dr. Takeshi Yamada at Coney Island University.

 

The sea rabbit is one of the families of the Pinniped order. Pinnipeds (from Latin penna = flat and pes/pedis = foot) are sea-mammals: they are homeothermic (i.e having high and regulated inner temperature), lung-breathing (i.e dependant on atmospheric oxygen) animals having come back to semi aquatic life. As soon as they arrive ashore, females are caught by the nearest adult male. Males can maintain harems of about 20 females on average. Several hours to several days after arriving ashore, pregnant females give birth to eight to ten pups with a dark brown fur. As soon as birth occurs, the mother’s special smell and calls help her pups bond specifically to her. The mother stays ashore with her pup for about one week during which the pup gains weight. During the first week spent with her newborn, the mother becomes receptive. She will be impregnated by the bull, which control the harem. Implantation of the embryo will occur 3 months later, in March-April. During the reproductive period, the best males copulate with several tens females. To do so, males have to stay ashore without feeding in order to keep their territory and their harem. In mid-January, when the last females have been fecundated, males leave at sea to feed. Some of them will come back later in March-April for the moult. The other ones will stay at sea and will come back on Coney Island only in next November. After fecundation, the mother goes at sea for her first meal. At sea, mothers feed on clams, crabs, shrimps, fish (herring, anchovy, Pollock, capelin etc.) and squids. When she is back, the mother recovers her pups at the beach she left them. Suckling occurs after auditive and olfactory recognition had occured. In March-April, the dark brown fur is totally replaced by an adult-like light brownish grey fur during the moult that lasts 1-2 months. This new fur is composed by 2 layers. Externally, the guard fur is composed by flat hairs that recover themselves when wet. By doing so, they make a water-proof barrier for the under fur. The underfur retains air when the seal is dry. Because of isolating properties of the air, the underfur is the insulating system of the fur. In March-April, the fur of adults is partially replaced. First reproduction occurs at 1-yr old in females. Males are physiologically matures at 1 year old but socially matures at +2 years old.

 

NOTE: The name of Coney Island is commonly thought to be derived from the Dutch Konijn Eylandt or Rabbit Island as apparently the 17th century European settlers noted many rabbits running amuck on the island.

 

www.takeshiyamada.weebly.com/performances.html

 

www.takeshiyamada.weebly.com/sea-rabbit-center.html

 

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www.flickr.com/photos/searabbits23/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit22

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit021/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit20

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit19

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit18

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit17

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit16

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit15

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit14

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit13

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit12

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit11

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit10

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit9

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit8

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit7

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit6

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit5

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit4

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit3

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit2

 

www.flickr.com/photos/searabbit1

 

www.flickr.com/photos/diningwithsearabbits03

 

www.flickr.com/photos/diningwithsearabbits02

 

www.flickr.com/photos/diningwithsearabbits01

 

www.flickr.com/photos/yamadaimmortalized2/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/takeshiyamadaimmortalized/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/yamadabellhouse2014/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/museumofworldwonders3/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/museumofworldwonders2

 

www.flickr.com/photos/museumofworldwonders/

 

www.flickr.com/photos/takeshiyamadapaintings/

 

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For any questions, please email contact Takeshi Yamada, Art & Rogue Taxidermy, Museum of World Wonders, official website. www.takeshiyamada.weebly.com/

 

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www.takeshiyamada.weebly.com

 

For any questions, please contact Dr. Takeshi Yamada. His email address is posted in the chapter page (the last page or the first page).

 

(Updated April 7, 2015)

Bait Ur Rouf Mosque was designed by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum for a site in a densely populated neighbourhood of the Bangladeshi capital.

 

Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, Dhaka, Bangladesh by Marina Tabassum

The mosque sits on a raised plinth, which protects it from floodwater and creates a communal area for relaxing that also separates the building from the busy streetscape.

 

Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, Dhaka, Bangladesh by Marina Tabassum

Terracotta bricks used for the structure are left exposed internally and externally. They lend the building a character that references the architecture of nearby buildings, as well as religious architecture of the past.

The days drag and the weeks fly by.

 

It has been a grim week at work, and yet the weekend is here once again.

 

The cold snap is still here; thick frosts and icy patches, but Sunday afternoon storms will sweep in from the west and temperatures will soar by day to 13 degrees.

 

But for now it is cold, and colder at nights, the wood burner makes the living room toasty warm, though the rest of the house seems like a fridge in comparison.

 

Even though we went to bed at nine, we slept to nearly half seven, which meant we were already later than usual going to Tesco.

 

We had a coffee first, then got dressed and went out into the winter wonderland.

 

Tesco was more crowded mainly because we were an hour later. There were no crackers for cheese, a whole aisle empty of cream crackers and butter wafers.

 

There is only so much food you can eat even over Christmas, so the cracker-shortage won't affect us, we have two Dundee cakes, filling for two lots of mince pies and pastry for five lots of sausage rolls.

 

We won't starve.

 

We buy another bag of stuff for the food bank, try to get two weeks of stuff so we wont need to go next weekend, just to a farm shop for vegetables, and the butcher for the Christmas order, though on the 25th we are going out for dinner to the Lantern.

 

Back home for fruit, then bacon butties and another huge brew. Yes, smoked bacon is again in short supply, with just the basic streaky smoked available, but we're not fussy, so that does the trick.

 

Also, Jools picked up her inhalers for her cough, and so, we hope, the road to recovery begins.

 

What to do with the day?

 

Although a walk would have been good, Jools can do no more than ten minutes in freezing conditions before a coughing fits starts, so a couple of churches to revisit and take more shots of.

 

First on the list was St Leonard in Upper Deal. A church I have only have been inside once. As it was just half ten, there should have been a chance it was open, but no. We parked up and I walked over the road to try the porch door, but it was locked.

 

No worries, as the next two would certainly be open.

 

Just up the road towards Canterbury is Ash.

 

Ash is a large village that the main roads now bypass its narrow streets, and buses call not so frequently.

 

The church towers over the village, its spire piercing the grey sky. We park beside the old curry hours than burned down a decade ago, is now a house and no sign of damage.

 

indeed the church was open, though the porch door was closed, it opened with use of the latch, and the inner glass door swung inwards, revealing an interior I had forgotten about, rich Victorian glass let in the weak sunlight, allowing me to take detailed shots. It was far better and more enjoyable than I remembered.

 

Once I took 200 or so shots, we went back to the car, drove back to the main road, and on to Wingham, where the church there, a twin of Wingham, would also be open too.

 

And it was.

 

The wardens were just finishing trimming the church up, and putting out new flowers, it was a bustle of activity, then one by one they left.

 

got my shots, and we left, back to the car and to home, though we did stop at he farm shop at Aylsham, and all we wanted was some sweet peppers for hash.

 

We went in and there was the bakery: I bought two sausage rolls, four small pork pies and two Cajun flavours scotch eggs. We got cider, beer, healthy snacks (we told ourselves) and finally found the peppers.

 

Three peppers cost £50!

 

Then back home, along the A2.

 

And arriving back home at one. We feasted on the scotch eggs and two of the pork pies.

 

Yummy.

 

There was the third place play off game to watch on the tellybox, the Football league to follow on the radio. We lit the woodburner and it was soon toasty warm.

 

At half five, Norwich kicked off, and hopes were high as Blackburn had not beaten us in over a decade.

 

And, yes you guessed it, Norwich lost. Played poorly, and in Dad's words, were lucky to get nil.

 

Oh dear.

 

Oh dear indeed.

 

We have Christmas cake for supper, and apart from the football, as was well with the world.

 

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An enormous church, picturesquely set at an angle of the village street. It owes its size to the fact that it supported a college of priests in the Middle Ages. During the sixteenth century it was substantially rebuilt, but the north aisle was not replaced, reducing the church to the odd shape we see today. The unusual pillars which divide the nave from the south aisle are of timber, not stone as a result of lack of money. At the end of the south aisle is the Oxenden chapel, which contains that family's excellent bull's head monument. The contemporary metalwork screens and black and white pavements add great dignity to this part of the building. By going through a curved passage from the chapel you can emerge in the chancel, which is dominated by a stone reredos of fifteenth-century date. This French construction was a gift to the church in the 1930s and while it is not good quality carving, is an unusual find in a Kent church.

 

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Wingham

 

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hortly after 1280AD Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury established a college of priests at Wingham, with a provost and six canons. From 1286 the priests lived in the attractive timber-framed house opposite St Mary's church. The college accounts for the size of the church, which seems enormous considering the present size of Wingham itself.

 

There was a cruciform church here before the college was established, but that building was remodelled around 1290, leaving us several excellent Geometric Gothic windows. A south porch and tower were added around 1400. The porch is curious in that there are two stories externally, but internally only one. There are many reminders of the church's past, however; the arch between the south transept and south nave aisle is late Norman, as is a blocked arch on the west wall of the north transept.

 

By the early 16th century the nave was in poor condition. A local brewer named George Ffogarde of Canterbury was granted a license to raise money for its repair. Having a considerable sum of money for church repair, the unscrupulous brewer absconded with the funds, embezzling £224, a huge sum for the time. The missing funds may explain why the nave was rebuilt using cheaper timber posts to support the arcades, rather than more costly stone.

 

The octagonal timber posts are of chestnut wood, topped by a crown-post timber roof. Sometime before the mid-19th century the timbers were encased in plaster to resemble Doric columns, but thankfully the plaster has been stripped off and we can appreciate the timber! The nave was rebuilt in the late 16th century, diminishing its footprint and leaving behind some rather odd features, like an external piscina on what was originally the easternmost pier of the nave arcade. Another odd touch is provided by the north transept, remodelled with wood frames in the Georgian period. I'm not sure I can call to mind another essentially medieval church with wooden-framed windows!

 

In the chancel is a lovely 14th century triple-seat sedilia and piscina. The chancel and nave are separated by a 15th century screen, now truncated, with blank panels which must have once boasted painted figures of saints. But the real treasure in the chancel is a series of ten 14th century misericords. Six of the misericord carvings are simply decorative, with floral or foliage designs. Two show animals; one appears to be a horse, another a donkey. The final two carvings are the most interesting; one shows a woman in a wimple, the other a Green Man peering out from a screen of foliage.

 

Behind the altar is a lovely 15th century reredos, brought here from Troyes in France. The reredos is in two sections, the upper section depicting the Passion of Christ, the lower showing the Last Supper and the Adoration of the Kings. There are small fragments of rather attractive 14th century grisailles glass in the chancel windows, and near the font are a number of surviving medieval floor tiles.

 

The interior is full of monuments to the Oxenden and Palmer families. The finest of these are to be found in the north transept chapel. On the east wall of the chapel is a memorial to Sir Nicholas Palmer (d. 1624). The memorial was designed by Nicholas Stone and shows effigies of Palmer and his wife under Corinthian columns and an open pediment. On the north wall is the monument to a later Thomas Palmer (d. 1656) with a bust of the deceased, now somewhat the worse for wear. A tablet to Streynsham Master (d. 1718) is on the south chapel wall, and has a fairly typical pair of skulls at the base of the tablet, wreathed in olive branches.

 

The most extravagant and eye-catching memorial in the church, however, is to be found in the north transept chapel, which is guarded by ornate wrought-iron screens. In the centre of the chapel is an ebullient obelisk, dated 1682, commemorating the Oxenden family. This free-standing obelisk, possibly designed by Arnold Quellin, is of white stone, with exquisite fruit and flowers cascading down each side, with large black ox heads at each angle of the base. The base is embellished with four putti (cherubic 'infants'). The effect is quite extraordinary; most people will either love it or hate it (I loved it). Also in the south transept is a wall tablet to Charles Tripp (d. 1624).

Other monuments worth mentioning include a 14th century tomb recess in the south aisle wall and a number of 15th century indents in the chancel floor which once contained memorial brasses to canons.

 

The church is set within a large walled enclosure, dating to the 16th and 17th centuries. Unusually, the churchyard wall has been listed Grade-II by the Department of the Environment for its historical interest.

 

www.britainexpress.com/counties/kent/churches/wingham.htm

 

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WINGHAM

IS the next adjoining parish south-westward from Ash, situated for the most part in the upper half hundred of the same name, and having in it the boroughs of Wingham-street, Deane, Twitham, and Wenderton, which latter is in the lower half hundred of Wingham.

 

WINGHAM is situated in a healthy pleasant country, the greatest part of it is open uninclosed arable lands, the soil of which, though chalky, is far from being unfertile. The village, or town of Wingham, is nearly in the middle of the parish, having the church and college at the south-west part of it; behind the latter is a field, still called the Vineyard. The village contains about fifty houses, one of which is the court-lodge, and is built on the road leading from Canterbury to Sandwich, at the west end of it runs the stream, called the Wingham river, which having turned a corn-mill here, goes on and joins the Lesser Stour, about two miles below; on each side the stream is a moist tract of meadow land. Near the south boundary of the parish is the mansion of Dene, situated in the bottom, a dry, though dull and gloomy habitation; and at the opposite side, next to Staple, the ruinated mansion of Brook, in a far more open and pleasant situation. To the northward the parish extends a considerable way, almost as far as the churches of Preston and Elmstone. The market, granted anno 36 king Henry III. as mentioned hereafter, if it ever was held, has been disused for a number of years past; though the market-house seems yet remaining. There are two fairs held yearly here, on May 12, and November 12, for cattle and pedlary.

 

In 1710 there was found on the court-lodge farm, by the plough striking against it, a chest or coffin, of large thick stones, joined together, and covered with a single one at the top. At the bottom were some black ashes, but nothing else in it. The ground round about was searched, but nothing else was sound.

 

Henry de Wengham, a person of great note and extraordinary parts, and much in favour with Henry III. was born here, who in 1255 made him lord chancellor. In 1259, he was elected bishop of Winchester, which he resused, but towards the latter end of the same year he was chosen bishop of London, being still chancellor, and was consecrated the beginning of the year following. He died in 1262, and was buried in his own cathedral. He bore for his arms, Gules, a heart between two wings, displayed, or.

 

WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. eldest son of Sir William Cowper, bart. of Ratling-court, in Nonington, having been made lord-keeper of the great seal in 1705, was afterwards by letters patent, dated Dec. 14, 1706, created lord Cowper, baron Cowper of Wingham; and in 1709, was declared lord chancellor. After which, anno 4 George I. he was created earl Cowper and viscount Fordwich, in whose descendants these titles have continued down to the right hon. Peter-Lewis-Francis Cowper, the fifth and present earl Cowper, viscount Fordwich and baron of Wingham. (fn. 1)

 

The MANOR OF WINGHAM was part of the antient possessions of the see of Canterbury, given to it in the early period of the Saxon heptarchy, but being torn from it during the troubles of those times, it was restored to the church in the year 941, by king Edmund, his brother Eadred, and Edwin that king's son. (fn. 2) Accordingly it is thus entered, under the general title of the archbishop's possessions, taken in the survey of Domesday:

 

In the lath of Estrei, in Wingeham hundred, the archbishop himself holds Wingeham in demesne. It was taxed at forty sulings in the time of king Edward the Consessor, and now for thirty-five. The arable land is . . . . . . In demesne there are eight carucates, and four times twenty and five villeins, with twenty borderers having fifty-seven carucates. There are eight servants, and two mills of thirty-four sulings. Wood for the pannage of five hogs, and two small woods for fencing. In its whole value, in the time of king Edward the Consessor, it was worth seventy-seven pounds, when he received it the like, and now one hundred pounds. Of this manor William de Arcis holds one suling in Fletes, and there be has in demesne one carucate, and four villeins, and one knight with one carucate, and one fisbery, with a saltpit of thirty pence. The whole value is forty shillings. Of this ma nor five of the archbishop's men hold five sulings and an half and three yokes, and there they have in demesne eight carucates, and twenty-two borderers, and eight servants. In the whole they are worth twenty-one pounds.

 

In the 36th year of king Henry III. archbishop Boniface obtained the grant of a market at this place. The archbishops had a good house on this manor, in which they frequently resided. Archbishop Baldwin, in king Henry II.'s reign, staid at his house here for some time during his contention with the monks of Christ-church, concerning his college at Hackington. Archbishop Winchelsea entertained king Edward I. here in his 23d year, as did archbishop Walter Reynolds king Edward II. in his 18th year. And king Edward III. in his 5th year, having landed at Dover, with many lords and nobles in his train, came to Wingham, where he was lodged and entertained by archbishop Meopham. And this manor continued part of the see of Canterbury till archbishop Cranmer, in the 29th year of king Henry VIII. exchanged it with the king for other premises. After which it continued in the crown till king Charles I. in his 5th year, granted the scite, called Wingham court, with the demesne lands of the manor, to trustees, for the use of the city of London. From whom, by the direction of the mayor and commonalty, it was conveyed, at the latter end of that reign, to Sir William Cowper, knight and baronet, in whose descendants it has continued down to the right hon. Peter-Francis Cowper, earl Cowper, who is the present owner of it. (fn. 3)

 

BUT THE MANOR ITSELF, with the royalties, profits of courts, &c. remained still in the crown. Since which, the bailiwic of it, containing the rents and pro fits of the courts, with the fines, amerciaments, reliess, &c. and the privilege of holding the courts of it, by the bailiff of it, have been granted to the family of Oxenden, and Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, is now in possession of the bailiwic of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.

 

TRAPHAM is a mansion in this parish, which was formerly in the possession of a family of the same name, who resided at it, but after they were extinct it passed into that of Trippe, who bore for their arms, Gules, a chevron, or, between three borses heads erased, sable, bridled, collared and crined of the second; (fn. 4) and John Tripp, esq. resided here in queen Elizabeth's reign, as did his grandson Charles, who seems to have alienated it to Sir Christopher Harflete, of St. Stephen's, whose son Tho. Harflete, esq. left an only daughter and heir Afra, who carried it in marriage to John St. Leger, esq. of Doneraile, in Ireland, descended from Sir Anthony St. Leger, lord deputy of Ireland in Henry VIII.'s reign, and they joined in the alienation of it to Brook Bridges, esq of the adjoining parish of Goodneston, whose descendant Sir Brook Wm. Bridges, bart. of that place, is the present owner of it.

 

The MANOR OF DENE, situated in the valley, at the southern boundary of this parish, was antiently the inheritance of a family who took their surname from it, and held it by knight's service of the archbishop, in king Edward I's reign, but they seem to have been extinct here in that of king Edward III. After which it passed into the family of Hussey, who bore for their arms, Per chevron, argent and vert, three birds counterchanged; and then to Wood, before it came by sale into the family of Oxenden, who appear to have been possessed of it at the latter end of Henry VI.'s reign, about which time they had become by marriage, owners of Brook and other estates in this parish. The family of Oxenden have been resident in this county from the reign of king Edward III. Solomon Oxenden, being the first mentioned in the several pedigrees of it, whose near relation Richard Oxenden was prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, in that reign; in this name and family of Oxenden, whose arms were Argent, a chevron, gules, between three oxen, sable, armed, or; which coat was confirmed to the family by Gyan, king at arms, anno 24 Henry VI. this manor and seat continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, of Dene, who was on May 8, 1678, created a baronet, whose youngest grandson Sir George Oxenden, bart. succeeding at length to the title on the death of his eldest brother Sir Henry, resided at Dene, where he died in 1775, having served in parliament for Sandwich, and been employed in high offices in administration, and leaving behind him the character of a compleat gentleman. He married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and coheirs of Edward Dunck, esq. of Little Wittenham, in Berkshire, by whom he had two sons, of whom George, the second, was made by will heir to the estate of Sir Basil Dixwell, bart. of Brome, on his death, s. p. and changed his name to Dixwell as enjoined by it, but died soon afterwards likewise, s. p. and that estate came at length to his eldest brother Henry, who succeeded his father in the title of Baronet. He married Margaret, daughter and coheir of Sir George Chudleigh, bart. of Devonshire, since deceased, by whom he has issue Henry Oxenden, esq. of Madekyn, in Barham, who married Mary, one of the daughters of Col. Graham, of St. Laurence, near Canterbury, by whom he has issue. Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. now resides at Brome, and is the present possessor of this manor and seat, as well as the rest of his father's estates in this parish. (fn. 5) Lady Hales, widow of Sir Thomas Pym Hales, bart. of Bekesborne, now resides in it.

 

TWITHAM, now usually called Twittam, is a hamlet in this parish, adjoining to Goodneston, the principal estate in which once belonged to a family of that name, one of whom Alanus de Twitham is recorded as having been with king Richard I. at the siege of Acon, in Palestine, who bore for his arms, Semee of crosscroslets, and three cinquesoils, argent, and held this estate in Twitham, of the archbishop, and they appear to have continued possessed of it in the 3d year of king Richard II. Some time after which it came into the possession of Fineux, and William Fineux sold it anno 33 Henry VIII. to Ingram Wollet, whose heirs passed it away to one of the family of Oxenden, of Wingham, in whose descendants it has continued down to Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, the present possessor of it.

 

On the foundation of the college of Wingham, archbishop Peckham, in 1286, endowed the first diaconal prebend in it, which he distinguished by the name of the prebend of Twitham, with the tithes of the lands of Alanus de Twitham, which he freely held of the archbishop there in Goodwynestone, at Twytham. (fn. 6)

 

BROOK is an estate in this parish, situated northward from Twitham, which was formerly the estate of the Wendertons, of Wenderton, in this parish, in which it remained till by a female heir Jane, it went in marriage to Richard Oxenden, gent. of Wingham, who died in 1440, and was buried in Wingham church, in whose name and family it continued down to Henry Oxenden, of Brook, who left two daughters and coheirs, of whom Mary married Richard Oxenden, of Grays Inn, barrister-at-law, fourth son of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart, who afterwards, on his wife's becoming sole heiress of Brook, possessed it, and resided here. He left Elizabeth his sole daughter and heir, who carried it in marriage to Streynsham Master, esq. a captain in the royal navy, the eldest surviving son of James Master, esq. of East Langdon, who died some few days after his marriage; upon which she became again possessed of it in her own right, and dying in 1759, s. p. gave it by will to Henry Oxenden, esq. now Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, and he is the present owner of it.

 

WENDERTON is a manor and antient seat, situated northward from Wingham church, eminent, says Philipott, for its excellent air, situation, and prospect, which for many successive generations had owners of that surname, one of whom, John de Wenderton, is mentioned in Fox's Martyrology, as one among other tenants of the manor of Wingham, on whom archbishop Courtnay, in 1390, imposed a penance for neglecting to perform some services due from that manor. In his descendants this seat continued till John Wenderton, of Wenderton, in the 1st year of Henry VIII. passed it away to archbishop Warham, who at his decease in 1533, gave it to his youngest brother John Warham, whose great-grandson John, by his will in 1609, ordered this manor to be sold, which it accordingly soon afterwards was to Manwood, from which name it was alienated, about the middle of the next reign of king Charles I. to Vincent Denne, gent. who resided here, and died in 1642, s. p. whose four nieces afterwards became by will possessed of it, and on the partition of their estates, the manor and mansion, with part of the lands since called Great Wenderton, was allotted to Mary, the youngest of them, who afterwards married Vincent Denne, sergeant-at-law, and the remaining part of it, which adjoins to them, since called Little Wenderton, to Dorothy, the third sister, afterwards married to Roger Lukin, gent. of London, who soon afterwards sold his share to Richard Oxenden, esq. of Brook, from one of which family it was sold to Underdown, by a female heir of which name, Frances, it went in marriage to John Carter, esq. of Deal, the present owner of it.

 

BUT GREAT WENDERTON continued in the possession of Sergeant Denne, till his death in 1693, when Dorothy, his eldest daughter and coheir, carried it in marriage to Mr. Thomas Ginder, who bore Argent, on a pale, sable, a cross fuchee, or, impaling azure, three lions heads, or; as they are on his monument. He resided at it till his death in 1716, as did his widow till her decease in 1736, when it came to her nephew Mr. Thomas Hatley, who left two daughters his coheirs, the eldest surviving of whom, Anne, carried it in marriage, first to Richard Nicholas, esq. and then successively to Mr. Smith and Mr. James Corneck, of London, and Mrs. Corneck, the widow of the latter, is the present possessor of it.

 

At the boundary of this parish, adjoining to Preston and Ash, lies THE MANOR OF WALMESTONE, usually called Wamston, which was antiently part of the possessions of the family of Septvans, one of whom, Robert de Septvans, held it in king Edward II.'s reign, of the archbishop; whose descendant Sir William de Septvans died possessed of it in the 25th year of that reign. (fn. 7) How long it continued in this name I have not found; but at the beginning of king Edward IV.'s reign it was become the property of William Bonington, of Canterbury, who died in 1463, and directed it by his will to be sold. After which it became, about the latter end of king Henry VIII.'s reign, the property of Walter Hendley, esq. the king's attorney-general, who left three daughters his coheirs, and they joined in the sale of it to Alday, who alienated it to Benedict Barnham, esq. alderman of London, one of whose daughters and coheirs, Elizabeth, carried it in marriage to Mervin Touchet, earl of Castlehaven, who being convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors, was executed anno 7 Charles I. Soon after which this manor seems to have been divided, and one part of it, since called Little Walmestone, in which was included the manor and part of the demesne lands, passed from his heirs to the Rev. John Smith, rector of Wickham Breaus, who having founded a scholarship at Oxford, out of the lands of it, presently afterwards sold it to Solly, of Pedding, in which name it continued till Stephen Solly, gent. of Pedding, and his two sons, John and Stephen, in 1653, joined in the conveyance of it to Thomas Winter, yeoman, of Wingham, in which name it remained for some time. At length, after some intermediate owners, it was sold to Sympson, and John Sympson, esq. of Canterbury, died possessed of it in 1748, leaving his wife surviving, who held it at her decease, upon which it came to her husband's heir-atlaw, and it is now accordingly in the possession of Mr. Richard Simpson.

 

BUT GREAT WALMESTONE, consisting of the mansion-house, with a greater part of the demesne lands of the manor, was passed away by the heirs of the earl of Castlehaven to Brigham, and Mr. Charles Brigham, of London, in the year 1653, sold it to William Rutland, of London, who left two daughters his coheirs, of whom Mary married John Ketch, by whom she had a sole daughter Anne, who afterwards at length became possessed of it, and carried it in marriage to Samuel Starling, gent. of Worcestershire, who in 1718, conveyed it, his only son Samuel joining in it, to Thomas Willys, esq. of London, afterwards created a baronet. After which it passed in the same manner, and in the like interests and shares, as the manor of Dargate, in Hernehill, down to Matthew, Robert and Thomas Mitchell, the trustees for the several uses to which this, among other estates belonging to the Willis's, had been limited; and they joined in the sale of it, in 1789, to Mr. William East, whose son, Mr. John East, of Wingham, is the present owner of it.

 

ARCHBISHOP KILWARBY intended to found a college in this church of Wingham, but resigning his archbishopric before he could put his design in practice, archbishop Peckham, his successor, in the year 1286, perfected his predecessor's design, and founded A COLLEGE in this church, for a provost, whose portion, among other premises, was the profits of this church and the vicarage of it, and six secular canons; the prebends of which he distinguished by the names of the several places from whence their respective portions arose, viz. Chilton, Pedding, Twitham, Bonnington, Ratling, and Wimlingswold. The provost's lodge, which appears by the foundation charter to have before been the parsonage, was situated adjoining to the church-yard; and the houses of the canons, at this time called Canon-row, opposite to it. These latter houses are, with their gardens and appurtenances, esteemed to be within the liberty of the town and port of Hastings, and jurisdiction of the cinque ports. This college was suppressed in the 1st year of king Edward VI. among others of the like sort, when the whole revenue of it was valued at 208l. 14s. 3½d. per annum, and 193l. 2s. 1d. clear; but Leland says, it was able to dispend at the suppression only eighty-four pounds per annum. Edward Cranmer, the last master, had at the dissolution a pension of twenty pounds per annum, which he enjoyed in 1553. (fn. 8)

 

After the dissolution of the college, the capital mansion, late belonging to the provost, remained in the crown till king Edward VI. in his 7th year, granted the scite of it, with the church appropriate of Wingham, and all tithes whatsoever arising within the parish, and one acre of glebe-land in it, to Sir Henry Palmer, subject to a payment of twenty pounds annually to the curate or vicar of it.

 

The Palmers of Wingham were descended from a very antient one at Angmerin, in Suffex, who bore for their arms, Or, two bars, gules, each charged with three tresoils of the field, in chief, a greyhound, currant, sable. In the seventh descent from Ralph Palmer, esq. of that place, in king Edward II.'s reign, was descended Sir Edward Palmer, of Angmerin, who left three sons, born on three successive Sundays, of whom John, the eldest, was of Sussex, which branch became extinct in queen Elizabeth's reign; Sir Henry, the second son, was of Wingham; and Sir Thomas, the youngest, was beheaded in queen Mary's reign. Sir Henry Palmer, the second son, having purchased the grant of the college of Wingham, as before-mentioned, made it the seat of his residence, as did his son Sir Thomas Palmer, who was sheriff anno 37 Elizabeth, and created a baronet in 1621. He so constantly resided at Wingham, that he is said to have kept sixty Christmases, without intermission, in this mansion, with great hospitality. He had three sons, each of whom were knighted. From the youngest of whom, Sir James, descended the Palmers, of Dauney, in Buckinghamshire, who upon the eldest branch becoming extinct, have succeeded to the title of baronet; and by his second wife he had Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemain. Sir Thomas Palmer, the eldest of the three brothers, died in his father's life-time, and left Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, heir to his grandfather; in whose descendants, baronets, of this place, this mansion, with the parsonage of Wingham appropriate, continued down to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. of Wingham, who died possessed of it in 1723, having had three wives; by the first he had four daughters; by the second he had a son Herbert, born before marriage, and afterwards a daughter Frances; the third was Mrs. Markham, by whom he had no issue; and she afterwards married Thomas Hey, esq. whom she likewise survived. Sir Thomas Palmer, by his will, gave this seat, with the parsonage appropriate and tithes of Wingham, inter alia, after his widow's decease, to his natural son Herbert Palmer, esq. above-mentioned, who married Bethia, fourth daughter of Sir Thomas D'Aeth, bart. of Knolton. He died in 1760, s. p. and by will devised his interest in the reversion of this seat, with the parsonage, to his wife Bethia, for her life, and afterwards to his sister Mrs. Frances Palmer, in tail. But he never had possession of it, for lady Palmer furvived him, on whose death in 1763, Mrs. Bethia Palmer, his widow, became entitled to it, and afterwards married John Cosnan, esq. who died in 1773. She survived him, and resided here till her death in 1789. In the intermediate time, Mrs. Frances Palmer having barred the entail made by her natural brother Herbett above-mentioned, died, having devised the see of this estate, by her will in 1770, to the Rev. Thomas Hey, rector of Wickhambreaux, and his heirs, being the eldest son of the last lady Palmer by her last husband. Mr. Hey accordingly, on the death of Mrs. Cosnan, who died s. p. succeeded to this seat and estate. He married first Ethelreda, eldest daughter and coheir of dean Lynch, since deceased, by whom he has no surviving issue; and secondly, Mrs. Pugett, widow of Mr. Puget, of London. He now resides in this seat of Wingham college, having been created D. D. and promoted to a prebend of the church of Rochester.

 

Charities.

JOHN CHURCH, yeoman, of this parish, in 1604, gave 1cl. to the poor, to distribute yearly at Easter, 10s. to the poor for the interest of it.

 

HECTOR DU MONT, a Frenchman, born in 1632, gave the silver cup and patten for the holy communion.

 

SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, president for the East-India Company at Surat, in 1660, gave the velvet cushion and pulpitcloth.

 

JOHN RUSHBEACHER, gent. of this parish, in 1663, gave five acres of land in Woodnesborough, the rents to be annually distributed to ten of the meaner sort of people of Wingham, not receiving alms of the parish, now of the yearly value of 4l.

 

SIR GEORGE OXENDEN, above-mentioned, in 1682, gave 500l. for the repairing and beautifying this church, and the Dene chancel.

 

SIR JAMES OXENDEN, knight and baronet, of Dene, founded and endowed a school in this parish with 16l. per annum for ever, for teaching twenty poor children reading and writing, now in the patronage of Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.

 

RICHARD OXENDEN, esq. of Brook, in 1701, gave an annuity of 4l. for ever, to the minister, for the reading of divine service and preaching a sermon, in this church, on every Wednesday in Lent, and on Good Friday; and he at the same time gave 20s. yearly for ever, to be distributed, with the consent of the heirs of the Brook estate, to eight poor people, who should be at divine service on Easter-day, to be paid out of the lands of Brook, now vested in Sir Henry Oxenden, bart.

 

THOMAS PALMER, esq. of St. Dunstan's in the East, London, gave 300l for the repairing, adorning and beautifying the great chancel of this church.

 

MRS. ELIZABETH MASTER, esq. relict of Strensham Master, of Brook, in 1728, gave the large silver flaggon; and MRS. SYBILLA OXENDEN, spinster, of Brook, at the same time gave a large silver patten for the communion.

 

Besides the above benefactions, there have been several lesser ones given at different times in money, both to the poor and for the church. All which are recorded in a very handsome table in the church, on which are likewise painted the arms of the several benefactors

 

There are about forty poor constantly relieved, and casually twenty.

 

THIS PARISH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.

 

The church, which is exempt from the archdeacon, is dedicated to St. Mary. It is a handsome building, consisting of two isles and three chancels, having a slim spire steeple at the west end, in which is a peal of eight bells and a clock. The church consists of two isles and three chancels. The former appear to have been built since the reformation; the latter are much more antient. It is handsome and well built; the pillars between the isles, now cased with wood, are slender and well proportioned. The outside is remarkably beautiful in the flint-work, and the windows throughout it, were regular and handsomely disposed, superior to other churches, till later repairs destroyed their uniformity. The windows were formerly richly ornamented with painted glass, the remains of which are but small. In the south window, in old English letters, is Edward Warham, gentill . . . . of making this window . . . . and underneath the arms of Warham. In the north isle is a brass tablet for Christopher Harris, curate here, and rector of Stourmouth, obt. Nov. 24, 1719. Over the entrance from this isle into the high chancel, is carved on the partition, the Prince of Wales's badge and motto. In the south wall is a circular arch, plain, seemingly over a tomb. A monument for T. Ginder, gent. obt. 1716. In the south east window the arms of Warham. A memorial for Vincent Denne, gent. of Wenderton, obt. 1642. In the high chancel are seven stalls on each side. On the pavement are several stones, robbed of their brasses, over the provosts and religious of the college. A stone, coffin-shaped, and two crosses pomelle, with an inscription round in old French capitals, for master John de Sarestone, rector, ob. XII Kal. May MCCLXXI. Several monuments and memorials for the family of Palmer. The south chancel is called the Dene chancel, belonging to that seat, under which is a vault, in which the family of Oxenden, owners of it, are deposited. In the middle, on the pavement, is a very costly monument, having at the corners four large black oxens beads, in allusion to their name and arms. It was erected in 1682. On the four tablets on the base is an account of the family of Oxenden, beginning with Henry, who built Denehouse, and ending with Dr. Oxenden, dean of the arches, who died in 1704. There are monuments in it likewise for the Trippes. The north chancel is called the Brook chancel, as belonging to that seat, in which are monuments for the Oxendens and Masters's of this seat. This chancel is shut out from the church, and is made use of as a school-room, by which means the monuments are much desaced, and the gravestones, from the filth in it, have become wholly obliterated. On one of these stones was a brass plate, now gone, for Henry Oxenden, esq. who built Dene, obt. 1597.

 

Elizabeth, daughter of the marquis of Juliers, and widow of John, son of Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent, after being solemnly veiled a nun, quitted her prosession, and was clandestinely married to Sir Eustace de Danbrichescourt, in a chapel of the mansion-house of Robert de Brome, a canon of this collegiate church, in 1360; for which she and her husband were enjoined different kinds of penance during their lives, which is well worth the reading, for the uncommon superstitious mockery of them. (fn. 9)

 

At the time of the reformation, the church was partly collegiate, and partly parochial. The high chancel, separated from the rest of the church by a partition, served for the members of the college to perform their quire service in. The two isles of the church were for the parishioners, who from thence could hear the quire service; and in the north isle was a roodlost, where one of the vicars went up and read the gospel to the people. At which time, I find mention of a parish chancel likewise.

 

The church of Wingham formerly comprehended not only this parish, but those likewise of Ash, Goodnestone, Nonington, and Wimlingswold; but archbishop Peckham, in 1282, divided them into four distinct parochial churches, and afterwards appropriated them to his new-founded college of Wingham, with a saving to them of certain portions which the vicars of them were accustomed to receive. The profits of this church and the vicarage of it, together with the parsonage-house, being thus appropriated and allotted to the provost, as part of his portion and maintenance, the archbishop, in order that the church should be duly served, by his foundation charter, ordered, that the provost and canons should each of them keep a vicar who should constantly serve in it. In which state it continued till the suppression of the college, in the 1st year of king Edward VI. when it came, among the rest of the revenues of the college, into the hands of the crown, where this parsonage appropriate, to which was annexed, the nomination of the perpetual curate serving in this church, remained till it was granted by king Edward VI. in his 7th year, to Sir Thomas Palmer, bart. Since which it has continued in like manner, together with the scite of the college, as has been already mentioned, to the Rev. Dr. Hey, who is the present possessor of this parsonage, together with the patronage of the perpetual curacy of the church of Wingham.

 

In 1640 the communicants here were three hundred and sixty-one.

 

¶The curacy is endowed with a stipend of twenty pounds per annum, paid by the owner of the parsonage, and reserved to the curate in the original grant of the college by king Edward VI. and with four pounds per annum, being the Oxenden gift before mentioned; besides which, the stipend of the resident curate, and his successors, was increased in 1797, by a liberal benefaction made by the Rev. Dr. Hey, of one hundred pounds per annum, clear of all deductions, to be paid out of the parsonage, and of a house, garden, and piece of pasture land adjoining, for the curate's use, both which were settled by him on trustees for that purpose.

 

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol9/pp224-241

Holy Family and St Michael, Kesgrave, Ipswich, Suffolk

 

A new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

There are ages of faith which leave their traces in splendour and beauty, as acts of piety and memory. East Anglia is full of silent witnesses to tides which have ebbed and flowed. Receding, they leave us in their wake great works from the passing ages, little Norman churches which seem to speak a language we can no longer understand but which haunts us still, the decorated beauty of the 14th Century at odds with the horrors of its pestilence and loss, the perpendicular triumph of the 15th Century church before its near-destruction in the subsequent Reformation and Commonwealth, the protestant flowering of chapels and meeting houses in almost all rural communities, and most obvious of all for us today the triumphalism of the Victorian revival.

 

But even as tides recede, piety and memory survive, most often in quiet acts and intimate details. The catholic church of Holy Family and St Michael at Kesgrave is one of their great 20th Century treasure houses.

 

At the time of the 1851 census of religious worship, Kesgrave was home to just 86 people, 79 of whom attended morning service that day, giving this parish the highest percentage attendance of any in Suffolk. However, they met half a mile up the road at the Anglican parish church of All Saints, and the current site of Holy Family was then far out in the fields. In any case, it is unlikely that any of the non-attenders was a Catholic. Today, Kesgrave is a sprawling eastern suburb of Ipswich, home to about 10,000 people. It extends along the A12 corridor all the way to Martlesham, which in turn will take you pretty much all the way to Woodbridge without seeing much more than a field or two between the houses.

 

Holy Family was erected in the 1930s, and serves as a chapel of ease within the parish of Ipswich St Mary. However, it is still in private ownership, the responsibility of the Rope family, who, along with the Jolly family into which they married, owned much of the land in Kesgrave that was later built on.

 

The growth of Kesgrave has been so rapid and so extensive in these last forty years that radical expansions were required at both this church and at All Saints, as well as to the next parish church along in the suburbs at Rushmere St Andrew. All of these projects are interesting, although externally Holy Family is less dramatic than its neighbours. It sits neatly in its trim little churchyard, red-brick and towerless, a harmonious little building if rather a curious shape, of which more in a moment. Beside it, the underpass and roundabout gives it a decidedly urban air. But this is a church of outstanding interest, as we shall see.

 

It was good to come back to Kesgrave. As a member of St Mary's parish I generally attended mass at the parish's other church, a couple of miles into town, but I had been here a number of times over the years, either to mass or just to wander around and sit for a while. These days, you generally approach the church from around the back, where you'll find a sprawling car park typical of a modern Catholic church. To the west of the church are Lucy House and Philip House, newly built for the work of the Rope family charities. Between the car park and the church there there is a tiny, formal graveyard, with crosses remembering members of the Rope and Jolly families.

 

Access to the church is usually through a west door these days, but if you are fortunate enough to enter through the original porch on the north side you will have a foretaste of what is to come, for to left and right are stunning jewel-like and detailed windows depicting St Margaret and St Theresa on one side and St Catherine and the Immaculate Conception on the other. Beside them, a plaque reveals that the church was built to the memory of Michael Rope, who was killed in the R101 airship disaster of 1930.

 

Blue Peter-watching boys like me, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, were enthralled by airships. They were one of those exciting inventions of a not-so-distant past which were, in a real sense, futuristic, a part of the 1930s modernist project that imagined and predicted the way we live now. And they were just so big. But they were doomed, because the hydrogen which gave them their buoyancy was explosive.

 

As a child, I was fascinated by the R101 airship and its disaster, especially because of that familiar photograph of its wrecked and burnt-out fuselage sprawled in the woods on a northern French hillside. It is still a haunting photograph today. The crash of the R101 put an end to airship development in the UK for more than half a century.

 

Of course, this is all ancient history now, but in the year 2001 I had the excellent fortune to be shown around Holy Family by Michael Rope's widow, Mrs Lucy Doreen Rope, née Jolly, who was still alive, and then in her nineties. She was responsible for the building of this church as a memorial to her husband. We paused in the porch so that I could admire the windows. "Do you like them?" Mrs Rope asked me. "Of course, my sister-in-law made them."

 

Her sister-in-law, of course, was Margaret Agnes Rope, who in the first half of the twentieth century was one of the finest of the Arts and Craft Movement stained glass designers. She studied at Birmingham, and then worked at the Glass House in Fulham with her cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, whose work is also here. But their work can be found in churches and cathedrals all over the world. What Mrs Rope did not tell me, and what I found out later, is that these two windows in the porch were made for her and her husband Michael as a wedding present.

 

Doreen Jolly and Michael Rope were married in 1929. Within a year, he was dead. Mrs Rope was just 23 years old.

 

The original church from the 1930s is the part that you step into. You enter to the bizarre sight of a model of the R101 airship suspended from the roof. The nave altar and tabernacle ahead are in the original sanctuary, and you are facing the liturgical east (actually south) of the original building, and what an intimate space this must have been before the church was extended. Red brick outlines the entrance to the sanctuary, and here are the three windows made by Margaret Rope for the original church. The first is the three-light sanctuary window, depicting the Blessed Virgin and child flanked by St Joseph and St Michael. Two doves sit on a nest beneath Mary's feet, while a quizzical sparrow looks on. St Michael has the face of Michael Rope. The inscription beneath reads Pray for Michael Rope who gave up his soul to God in the wreck of His Majesty's Airship R101, Beauvais, October 5th 1930.

 

Next, a lancet in the right-hand side of the sanctuary contains glass depicting St Dominic, with a dog running beneath his feet and the inscription Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare, ('to praise, to bless, to preach'). The third window is in the west wall of the church (in its day, the right hand side of the nave), depicting St Thomas More and St John Fisher, although at the time the window was made they had not yet been canonised. The inscription beneath records that the window was the gift of a local couple in thankfulness for their conversion to the faith for which the Blessed Martyrs Thomas More and John Fisher gave their lives. A rose bush springs from in front of the martyrs' feet.

 

By the 1950s, Holy Family was no longer large enough for the community it served, and it was greatly expanded to the east to the designs of the archtect Henry Munro Cautley. Cautley was a bluff Anglican of the old school, the retired former diocesan architect of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, but he would have enjoyed designing a church for such an intimate faith community, and in fact it was his last major project before he died in 1959. The original sanctuary was retained as a blessed sacrament chapel, and the church was turned ninety degrees to face east for the first time. The north and south sides of the new church received three-light Tudor windows in the style most beloved by Cautley, as seen also at his Ipswich County Library in Northgate Street, and the former Fosters (now Lloyds) Bank in central Cambridge.

 

Although the Rope family had farmed at Blaxhall near Wickham Market for generations, Margaret Rope herself was not from Suffolk at all, and nor was she at first a Catholic. She was born in Shrewsbury in 1882, the daughter of Henry Rope, a surgeon at Shrewsbury Infirmary, and a son of the Blaxhall Rope family. The largest collection of Margaret Rope's glass is in Shrewsbury Cathedral. When Margaret was 17, her father died. The family were received into the Catholic church shortly afterwards. A plaque was placed in the entrance to Shrewsbury Infirmary to remember her father. When the hospital was demolished in the 1990s, the plaque was moved to here, and now sits in the north aisle of the 1950s church. In her early days in London Margaret Rope designed and made the large east window at Blaxhall church as a memorial to her grandparents. It features her younger brother Michael, and is believed to be the only window that she ever signed.

 

In her early forties, Margaret Rope took holy orders and entered the Carmelite Convent at nearby Woodbridge, but continued to produce her stained glass work until the community moved to Quidenham in Norfolk, when poor health and the distances involved proved insurmountable. She died there in 1953, and so she never saw the expanded church. Her cartoons, the designs for her windows, are placed on the walls around Holy Family. Some are for windows in churches in Scotland and Wales, one for a window in the English College in Rome. Among them are the roundels for within the enclosure of Tyburn Convent in London. "They had to remove the windows there during the War", said Mrs Rope. "Of course, with me, you have to ask which war!"

 

Turning to the east, we see the new sanctuary with its high altar, completed in 1993 as part of a further reordering and expansion, which gave a large galilee porch, kitchen and toilets to the north side of the church. The window above the new sanctuary has three lights, and the two outer windows were made by Margaret Rope for the chapel of East Bergholt convent to the south of Ipswich. They remember the Vaughan family, into which Margaret Rope's sister had married, and in particular one member, a sister in the convent, to celebrate her 25 year jubilee.

 

The convent later became Old Hall, a famous commune. They depict the prophet Isaiah and King David.

 

The central light between them is controversial. Produced in the 1990s and depicting the risen Christ, it really isn't very good, and provides the one jarring note in the church. It is rather unfortunate that it is in such a prominent position. It is not just the quality of the design that is the problem. It lets in too much light in comparison with the two flanking lights. "The glass in my sister-in-law's windows is half an inch thick", Mrs Rope told me. "In the workshop at Fulham they had a man who came in specially to cut it for them". The glass in the modern light is simply too thin.

 

Despite the 1990s extension, and as so often in modern urban Catholic churches, Holy Family is already not really big enough, although it is hard to see that there could ever be another expansion. We walked along Munro Cautley's south aisle, and at that time the stations of the cross were simple wooden crosses. However, about three months after my conversation with Mrs Rope, the World Trade Centre in New York was attacked and destroyed, and among the three thousand people killed were two local Kesgrave brothers who were commemorated with a new set of stations in cast metal.

 

Here also is a 1956 memorial window by Margaret Rope's cousin, Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, to Mrs Rope's mother Alice Jolly, depicting the remains of the shrine at Walsingham and the Jolly family at prayer before it. Another MEA Rope window is across the church in the galilee, a Second World War memorial window, originally on the east side of the first church before Cautley's extension. It depicts three of the English Martyrs, Blessed Anne Lynne, Blessed Robert Southwell and Blessed John Robinson, as well as the shipwreck of Blessed John Nutter off of Dunwich, with All Saints church on the cliffs above.

 

The galilee is designed for families with young children to play a full part in mass, and is separated from the church by a glass screen. At the top of the screen is a small panel by Margaret Rope which is of particular interest because it depicts her and her family participating in the Easter vigil, presumably in Shrewsbury Cathedral. This is hard to photograph because it is on an internal window between two rooms.

 

A recent addition to the Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope windows here is directly opposite, newly installed on the south side of the nave. It was donated by her great-nephew. It depicts a nativity scene, the Holy Family in the stable at Bethlehem, an angel appearing to shepherds on the snowy hills beyond. It is perhaps her loveliest window in the church.

 

Finally, back across the church. Here, beside the brass memorial to Margaret Rope, is a window depicting the Blessed Virgin and child, members of the Rope family in the Candlemas procession beneath. The inscription reminds us to pray for the soul of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God, mistress of novices and stained glass artist, Monastery of the Magnificat of the Mother of God, Quidenham, Norfolk, entered Carmel 14th September 1923, died 6th December 1953. Sister Margaret of the Mother of God was, of course, Margaret Rope herself. She was buried in the convent at Quidenham, a Shrewsbury exile at rest in the East Anglian soil of her forebears. The design is hers, and the window was made by her cousin Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope.

 

Back in 2001, we were talking about the changing Church, and I asked Mrs Rope what she thought about the recently introduced practice of transferring Holy Days on to the nearest Sunday, so that the teaching of them was not lost. Mrs Rope approved, a lady clearly not stuck in the past. She had a passion for ensuring that the Faith could be shared with children. As we have seen, her church is designed so that young families can take a full part in the Mass. But she was sympathetic to the distractions of the modern age. "The world is so exciting for children these days", she said. "I think it must be difficult to bring them up with a sense of the presence of God." She smiled. "Mind you, my son is 70 now! And I do admire young girls today. They have such spirit!"

 

She left me to potter about in her wonderful treasure house. As I did so, I thought of medieval churches I have visited, which were similarly donated by the Mrs Ropes of their day, perhaps even for husbands who had died young. They not only sought to memorialise their loved ones, but to consecrate a space for prayer, that masses might be said for the souls of the dead. This was the Catholic way, a Christian duty. Before the Reformation, this was true in every parish in England. It remained true here at Kesgrave.

 

And finally, back outside to the small graveyard. Side by side are two crosses. One remembers Margaret Edith Aldrich Rope, artist, 1891-1988. The other remembers Lucy Doreen Rope, founder of this church, 1907-2003.

PSNI officers - armed with submachine guns - guard the entrance to the car park of Castle Court shopping centre, during a security alert in Belfast on St Patrick's day.

 

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Many more photos and videos coming soon.

 

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This photo is Copyright 2011 by Calvert Creative and may not be downloaded, stored, edited, manipulated, externally hosted, embedded, transmitted or used in any way without my permission.

 

Larger size without watermarks is available to license upon request.

St Paul's in Jarrow was the site of one of the most famous Anglo Saxon monasteries in England, famed as the residence of the Venerable Bede. The monastery was founded by Benedict Biscop in c681 and its church survives as the chancel of the present building (with a few later modifications). A few years later a second church (a larger building with aisles) was built on the site of the present nave which remained a separate building until the two were linked by the construction of what is now the lower half of the central tower in c800, but the upper half wasn't built until shortly after the Norman Conquest in 1072, and thus is still decidedly Anglo Saxon in design (the lower half of the structure wasn't originally intended to become a tower which accounts for its unusual rectangular design).

 

Following the Reformation the monastery was dissolved and St Paul's became a parish church. Substantial ruins of the old monastic buildings remain on the south side of the nave, mostly dating from the Norman period. The old Saxon nave had sadly fallen into disrepair by 1782 and was demolished; it was rebuilt in 1866 by George Gilbert Scott in a simplified early Gothic style with a north aisle. Externally the two halves have weathered harmoniously and the newer parts are less obvious.

 

Inside the church the eye is drawn to the ancient chancel beyond the mysterious space beneath the low arches of the tower. The original tiny window-openings remain in the side walls and one is even glazed with a roundel of Anglo Saxon glass excavated at the site and leaded into an abstract composition in more recent years, and is thus the oldest coloured glass to be seen in any British church. Further pieces from the site (including some leaded into more complete patterns and even a figure) can be seen at the nearby Bede Museum at Jarrow Hall a short walk to the north.

 

St Paul's is one of the most historic and ancient churches in the country and is well worth a visit. The church is open most days, though it is currently struggling to raise money for urgent repairwork to the ancient tower. Opening times are given on their website.

www.jarrowparish.info/our-churches-and-congregations/st-p...

 

For more on this fascinating ancient church see the link below:-

greatenglishchurches.co.uk/html/jarrow.html

Melbourne Central Activities District (CAD) Conservation Study 1985 survey images: approx 1200 Kodak colour negatives- B&W versions

GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDY

 

Statement of Significance

History

Warehouses, 302-306, 308 Flinders Lane

Built: 1886, 1909

Thomas J Crouch designed three three-storey warehouses on this site (302- 306) in 1886 for L Benjamin of Beehive Chambers (qv). His builder was Page McCulloch of Carlton. One Clarke owned another three-storey warehouse to the west of the group (1885). Connibere Grieve and Connibere (E W R Connibere, J Grieve and C W Connibere) occupied 304 from the mid 1890s, after a variety of tenants, acquiring it and the others (306- 308) by 1908. Nahum Barnet designed a steel-framed warehouse for Connibere at 301-311 Flinders Lane (1914) so it is likely that he was the architect for the added floor to 302- 306 and the reconstruction of 308 to five levels, in 1909.

With Connibere's departure, the remaining occupiers were united under the name Ferrando's Building, named after G Ferrando and Co., a soft goos merchant. Although Ferrando and Co. were still in occupation, now as olive oil importers, the building's name had become Leicester House by World War Two. The few major tenants included Harrington's photographic suppliers but the balance were smaller firms than had been before.

 

Description

Appearing to be from the late Victorian period and designed in a Medieval revival mode, the extension of the buildings has been matched to the 1886 levels of 302-306. Given the previous separate ownership and earlier date of 308, it is probable that it was a total reconstruction (rather than an addition) to match both facade and floor levels of 302-306 and, truly unite the buildings for one occupation.

Gothic detail is applied at the fourth level and Romanesque inspired foliated colonette and column capitals prevail elsewhere. Beyond these details the facades are ordered in the classical manner and the cornice and string moulds, bracketting and balustrading follow the Renaissance revival. The cemented details are as impressive as they are contradictory, complementing the intricate fenestration pattern of both facades. A previous study noted marble and panelling at the entry at 308 (1976).

 

Integrity

Generally externally original (302-306) the ground level is altered and the upper storey appears gutted (308).

 

Streetscape

The two buildings relate closely and contribute to the warehouse streetscape precinct adjoining.

 

Significance

An ornate, proficient and almost complete design with details derived from Italian medieval sources to provide an unusual elevation, distinct from the Italian Gothic of the Rialto and Olderfleet.

 

From the N&LR Website: BR Mk 1 Bullion Van (VXX) №889301 is a converted Brake Corridor Second (BSK) coach.

 

Originally built by Metro Cammell Ltd. in 1957 as №35021 it became №99201 upon conversion to a SLB Bullion Van and later the SLB TOPS code was changed to be VXX. A further renumbering to №889301 occurred in the late 1980s when the vehicle was allocated to MoD traffic, such as the secure movement of ammunition. At the same time the livery was changed from BR Corporate Blue/Grey to Army Green with oversized Railfreight Distribution sub-sector markings.

 

In 1965/6 BR decided to convert five (5) Mk1 BSK coaches for the transportation of bullion (in ordinary passenger services and later dedicated trains as well) as a result of a security review after the Great Train Robbery in 1963.

 

The conversion involved the internal fitting of a high security cage, radio communications equipment and high security glass. Externally, changes included the plating over most of the windows, fitment of heavy duty B5 bogies, corridor gangway connection removal and modifications to the roof such as the addition of two pods and the movement of the ventilators.

Source: livinghistories.newcastle.edu.au/nodes/view/46668

 

This photo appeared in the News, Volume 12, Number 20, November 10 to 24, 1986. The text was:

 

"BEYOND SCHOOL: increasing the opportunities for Aboriginal people in post-secondary education

 

The Aboriginal Education Conference held at the University on October 23 and 24 brought together over 100 Aboriginal Delegates, a majority of them Aboriginal, people mainly from throughout New South Wales and the Hunter Valley. Many of them were students, teachers and lectures from schools, TAFE, universities and colleges of advanced education who came to hear a number of distinguished Aboriginal educationists from other states discuss ways in which they are increasing opportunities for Aboriginal people to enter tertiary education and providing support for Aboriginal students.

 

Speakers included this year’s Boyer lecturer, Professor Eric Willmot, Head of the School of Education at the James Cook University, who argued the case for providing some exclusively Aboriginal schools while improving the quality of education for Aboriginal students in state schools.

 

The role that an Aboriginal community college can play in developing self-esteem, confidence and skills necessary to cope with tertiary education was outlined by Lillian Holt, Deputy Principal of the Aboriginal Community College, Adelaide

 

An overview of Aboriginal tertiary education in New South Wales was presented by Bob Morgan, President of the New South Wales Aboriginal Education Consultative Group. Barry Thorne outlined the role and direction of Technical and Further Education (TAFE) in Aboriginal education.

 

The training programmes in business administration offered at associate diploma, degree and postgraduate diploma level by the Aboriginal Task Force at the South Australian Institute of Technology were described by Sonny Flynn, Co-ordinator of the Task Force. This replaced a paper to have been given and in fact supplied by Veronica Arbon, on the Programmes, many of them offered externally, by the Aboriginal Studies and Education Centre, at the South Australian College of Advanced Education designed as the key centre for Aboriginal Studies in Australia. Copies of this paper and some others can be obtained from the Department of Community Programmes.

 

Eve Fesl, a linguist and Director of the Aboriginal Research Centre at Monash University, emphasised the urgent need for Aboriginal graduates. “White people are at the top of the power structure”, Mrs Fesl said “and unless Aboriginal professional people can attain some of these top position, white people will be making decisions about Aboriginal lives for the rest of our lives and for the generations to come”.

 

She stressed the need for Aboriginal teachers as well as training programmes in Aboriginal culture and history for all teachers. “We can have the best programmes in the world, but if the teachers are racist, the kids will drop out anyhow”. Aboriginal lawyers are also need. “We are now having to pay white lawyers and then having to try to get across to them what we want on land rights and our feelings on the land”.

 

There is need too, for Aboriginal political scientist. A National Aboriginal Conference established in accordance with Aboriginal traditional systems may have been far more appropriate than the NAC designed by Europeans. Similarly problems experienced by land councils and co-operatives and decision made by bodies dealing with Aboriginal funding illustrate the importance of training Aboriginal economists, accountants, and business administrators.

 

Aboriginal philosopher, historians and archaeologists are needed to approach their fields from an Aboriginal perspective; likewise Aboriginal psychologists and sociologists who can not only introduce an Aboriginal perspective, but may throw a new light on such issues as why so many white people in Australia have more race hated towards Aborigines than any other group and what makes many white teachers racist in the classroom.

 

Aboriginal women in Alice Springs have developed plans for an Aboriginal birth centre since a newly-built Alice Springs Hospital is seen as inappropriate to Aboriginal birthing customs. There is a need for Aboriginal doctors and nurses (and architects) with a perception of the different values in Aboriginal society.

 

Eve Fesl highlighted the problems faced by Aboriginal graduates in what she described as “Aboriginal industry”. White Anglo-Saxon males are still the decision-makers. When equity programmes are introduced often women are chosen who uphold the values of the men in power, “door keepers” who will keep out ant bright women who may threaten male values. White “experts” and some Aboriginal people in positions of authority feel threaten by Aboriginal graduates and sometimes work against them. There is a need to reassure them that tertiary education does not, as it is sometimes claimed, undermine Aboriginality.

 

The Monash Orientation Scheme (MOSA) established be Eve Fesl and outlined by the current Director, Isaac Brown, in fact was designed to reinforce Aboriginality while giving support to Aboriginal students and equipping them with skills. Isaac Brown described the difficulties faced by Aboriginal students in universities, which he described as “male dominated, conservative, enlist Anglo institutions with a strong middle class bias”. The aim of MOSA is to help Aboriginal students cope with another culture while enabling their own to develop and strengthen. Aboriginal students come to MOSA from all over Australia, many of them come from remote areas.

 

Aboriginal students are encouraged to explode their past and attempt to identify their original forbears. Going to university is not seen as being isolated from the community, but getting to know the Aboriginal community and becoming part of it. Students attend weekly lectures given by Aboriginal people from the community and are taken to sacred sites, Aboriginal health centres and to other Aboriginal organisations in the community.

 

In developing literacy and improving communication skills, use is made if the increasing number of Aboriginal authors and comparison and mad with English authors.

 

Numeracy is developed by building on the knowledge of the community from which the student comes. Mathematics was a part of Aboriginal culture in so far as it was needed. MOSA starts at that point.

 

Aboriginal students are presented often for the first time with an account of the violence of contact history and the denigration of their culture. This can produce a group of “angry, bitter, frustrated blacks’. MOSA tries however to develop positive attitudes and to show, according to Isaacs Brown, “what we can do to live alongside and within another culture without losing our own”.

 

Aboriginal student are vulnerable to a “shame job”, humiliation and a sense of failure, so the emphasis in MOSA is on building up confidence and reinforcing positive attitudes.

 

It is seen as essential that the Director be an Aboriginal person with the required level of education and experience and that the Director should be accessible and approachable at all times. The emphasis is on security, but not dependency. The enclave, located centrally, continues to be used by Aboriginal undergraduate students fro continuing support.

 

MOSA is a highly successful programme and is seen as a model to be followed by other tertiary institutions.

 

The Aboriginal Education Conference arose largely as a result of a recommendation from the committee established by Senate to increase opportunities and support for Aboriginal students. Although we have Aboriginal medical students at the University, there are only three other Aboriginal students studying here. The committee had made a number of recommendations to remedy this situation and the Conference presented a splendid opportunity to find out what is succeeding in other places before we embark on our programme.

 

It also provided an excellent chance to hear from Aboriginal people involved at all levels in education process in this area

 

A panel of local Aboriginal staff and students from schools and tertiary institutions discussed the educational situation for Aboriginal people in the Hunter Region. Some clearly defined areas which emerged during the Conference provided topics for workshop during part of the final day. Among recommendations arising from the workshops were the need for greater consultation with Aboriginal groups, especially by funding bodies, the need for improvements to the secondary school system and the need for support systems such as those outlined by visiting speakers.

 

Resources and organisations were provided by the University, CAE, TAFE, the Awabakal Aboriginal Co-operative ant the Commonwealth Department of Education and the New South Wales Department of Education. The Women’s Committee of the Awabakal Aboriginal Co-operative and the Hunter Aboriginal Children’s Service arranged child-minding facilities. The Conference was a truly co-operative effort which already promises some long-lasting benefits."

 

This image was scanned from a photograph in the University's historical photographic collection held by Cultural Collections at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.

 

If you have any information about this photograph, or would like a higher resolution copy, please contact us or leave a comment in the box below.

Stockings off. No I don't sleep with my make-up on but its difficult to resist a staged photograph before Jane is (only externally) washed away once again.

 

I have nothing new to share until next week so you will have to put up with a picture from the recent archive.

This was the second time I had visited St Vedast, the first time I just had my compact camera, this time I was fully tooled up.

 

St Vedast seems to me, like a quire without a church, the pews decked out like misericords, with the lamps for illuminating hymnsheets, has all the appearances of a quire. Then there is the black and white marble floor, the fantastic ceiling, all overlooked by a large gilded organ. Fnar.

 

It was tenty past nine, and I had the church to myself, whilst a few yards away outside, the rush hour traffic stacked up. Inside, all was peace and quiet.

 

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The Parish of St Vedast is known from the 12th century, and the church is traditionally claimed to have been established by 1170.

It has been altered, enlarged and restored many times and probably rebuilt at least twice, the last time by Christopher Wren, after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Having been completely burnt out during the Blitz of World War II, the church was restored under the direction of its Rector, Canon Mortlock, and a very influential Parochial Church Council that included Poet Laureate John Betjeman and master organ builder, Noel Mander.

 

The church is dedicated to a French saint, little known in Britain, who was Bishop of Arras in northern Gaul around the turn of the 6th century.

 

Vedast, who was called in Latin, Vedastus; in Norman, Vaast; in Walloon, Waast; and in French, GastSaint Vedast Vaast Vastes Fosteron, helped to restore the Christian Church in the region after decades of destruction by invading tribes during the late Roman empire and to convert Clovis, the Frankish king. Remembered for his charity, meekness and patience, he is buried at Arras cathedral.

 

His name in England has been corrupted from St Vaast, by way of Vastes, Fastes, Faster, Fauster and Forster to Foster, the name of the lane at the front of the church, and the reason that the official designation of the church is St Vedast-alias-Foster. St Vedast was venerated in particular by the Augustinian priors in the 12th century, and they may be responsible for the foundation of the few churches dedicated to him. Only one other church in England is currently dedicated to St Vedast, in Tathwell, Lincolnshire, a third parish in Norwich now being remembered only in a street name.

Some of the works and legends of St Vedast are celebrated in the stained glass windows of the church.

 

It has been suggested that the original church of St Vedast may have been founded by the Flemish community in London in the 12th or 13th century, possibly by a Flemish ancestor of Ralph d’Arras, who was the Sheriff of London in 1276.

The first church was probably quite small, but additions were made through the centuries. A chapel dedicated to St Dunstan was added in the 15th century, and other altars were added in the 16th century to Mary and to St Nicholas. By 1603, Stow in his Survey of London described St Vedast as ‘a fair church, lately rebuilt’.

Although no complete or accurate account survives for this early church, evidence of its construction can still be seen in the south wall of the church externally. Evidence of earlier openings for doors and windows, as well as the medieval stonework has been examined by archaeological survey and reported in London Archaeologist.

 

In 1614, St Vedast was enlarged by 20 feet thanks to a gift from the adjacent Saddlers’ company, and ‘beautified’ according to Stow’s Survey.

In 1635 the then Rector, James Batty, petitioned the Archbishop that a rail might be set up around the communion table as there are many “disorders and undecencies” among the parishioners when receiving the Blessed Sacrament. For his loyalty to King Charles I, Batty was “sequestered, plundered, forced to flee, and died” in 1642.

How the church may have suffered during the Civil Wars of the mid 17th century is unrecorded, but given that the Parliamentarians kept horses stabled in the chancel of nearby St Paul’s Cathedral, it is likely to have been badly affected. The current Rectors’ Board lists the years between 1643 and 1661 as under Foulke Bellers, a ‘Commonwealth Intruder’.

The disastrous Great Fire that swept through the City in September 1666 reached St Vedast on the third day. Afterwards, it was thought that although the roof, pews, pulpit and other fittings had been destroyed, the church could be repaired satisfactorily. It was therefore omitted from the original list of 50 churches to be rebuilt by Christopher Wren. B

 

y the 1690s, however, structural flaws must have become significant enough that rebuilding was begun. Records of those responsible for the detailed design and construction of the church are somewhat sketchy. Other than Wren, it is possible that Robert Hooke and/or Nicholas Hawksmoor were involved (the steeple is said to be particularly Hawksmoor-like), and master mason Edward Strong had been paid £3106:14:7 by the time the church was completed in 1699. He was responsible for the cherubs that grace the west front and bell tower, and for the dove in glory sculpture now situated at the east end of the south aisle.

 

Many of the minor changes that affected the church through the 18th century may not have been recorded, but we know that an organ was installed in 1773, and that heating was first introduced in 1790 – open stoves that were to be replaced in 1807 by a more satisfactory double fronted one.

Thomas Pelham Dale, Rector from 1847 to 1882, fell foul of the Public Worship Regulations Act of 1874 and was prosecuted for “ritualistic practices”. Although he gave up the practices in question for a time, he was brought before a court in 1880 and, for contempt, sent to Holloway prison.

The greatest change to the building in the 19th century was perhaps to the fenestration. A square headed window was removed in 1848 from the east end, along with the Dove in Glory sculpture by Strong above it. Twelve new stained glass windows were introduced in 1884, making the church much darker. Internal adjustments to pews, screens, pulpit and altar rails were made shortly afterwards.

 

On 29th December 1940, London was attacked by German air raids that dropped some 24,000 high explosive bombs and 100,000 incendiaries, mostly in the City. Although the Cathedral itself survived thanks to hundreds of volunteer firefighters, much of the area around St Paul’s was utterly destroyed.

As after the Great Fire of 1666, St Vedast was gutted and left a burnt out shell, with roof, pews, pulpit and fittings all ruined. As the structure of the church and its tower were deemed to be safe, plans to restore the church began in 1947. The work itself only started in 1953, under the auspices of its new Rector, Canon Mortlock, and the architect Stephen Dykes Bower. The post war Parochial Church Council that oversaw the work included Poet Laureate and conservation champion John Betjeman and the great organ builder Noel Mander.

 

To make the church a more appropriate layout for smaller 20th century congregations, Dykes Bower introduced collegiate style seating, and screened off the south aisle. New false walls were constructed within the east and south walls to make the church more rectangular, enabling a strong black and white patterned terrazzo floor to be laid. The ceiling was constructed to a pattern near that of the Wren original and finished with gold leaf and aluminium, donated by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths.

 

An adjacent plot along Foster Lane to the north, formerly the location of the Fountain pub, was purchased for the construction of a new Rectory, and a small secluded courtyard built between this Rectory and the former parish school (now the parish hall of St Vedast).

 

www.vedast.org.uk/about/

 

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The original church of St Vedast was founded before 1308 and was extensively repaired in the seventeenth century.[2]

 

Although the church was not completely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666,[3] it was restored by 1662 on parochial initiative. However, the church required substantial reconstruction by the office of Sir Christopher Wren between 1695 and 1701, with only small parts of the older building surviving to be incorporated,[3] most noticeably parts of the medieval fabric in the south wall which were revealed by cleaning in 1992–3. The three-tier spire, considered one of the most baroque of all the City spires, was added in 1709–12[4] at a cost of £2958, possibly to the designs of Nicholas Hawksmoor, whose correspondence with the churchwardens survives. The organ was built by Renatus Harris in 1731, originally for St Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange.

 

Wren's church was gutted a second time by firebombs during the London blitz([5]) of 1940 and 1941.[6] A proposal by Sir Hugh Casson to leave this and several other ruins as a war memorial was not implemented. The post-war restoration within the old walls was undertaken by Stephen Dykes Bower. He re-ordered the interior in a collegiate chapel style with seating down each side with a side chapel in the former South aisle, and squared the old walls which were not rectangular in plan so that the altar now faces the nave squarely. He made an almost imperceptible taper in the pews and floor pattern, to give a false perspective towards the altar, making the church look longer than it is. The architect also designed the richly decorated 17th-century-style plaster ceiling. He reused fittings from other destroyed City churches, including the richly carved pulpit from All Hallows Bread Street and the font and cover from St Anne and St Agnes. Dykes Bower commissioned the Whitefriars glass windows in the East End, showing scenes from the life of St Vedast. These windows are largely opaque to hide tall buildings behind and to disguise the fact that the East wall is a wedge in plan. The work was completed in 1962. An aumbry by the south chapel altar is by Bernard Merry and the organ is 1955 by Noel Mander, in the re-used 1731 Harris case.

 

Dykes Bower also built a small Parish Room to the North East of the church in 17th-century style and a Georgian-style rectory, adjacent to the church, on Foster Lane in 1959 – in the first floor room of which is an important mural by Hans Feibusch on the subject of Jacob and the Angel. A niche in the internal courtyard of the building contains a carved stone head[who?] by sculptor Jacob Epstein.[7]

 

The church is noted for its small but lively baroque steeple, its small secluded courtyard, stained glass, and a richly-decorated ceiling. It also has a set of six bells, cast in 1960, that are widely regarded[by whom?] as being the finest sounding six in London.[8]

 

The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.[9] The rectory was listed as a Grade II building on 15 July 1998.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Vedast_Foster_Lane

When you possess light within, you see it externally. ~Anaïs Nin

 

Just A random fun Light painting experiment with my friends...

St Mary, West Tofts, Norfolk

 

West Tofts church is one of the four churches of the Norfolk Battle Training Area and it can't generally be accessed by the public. But if that ever changed, it would receive plenty of visitors. This extraordinary building would be the focus of pilgrimages by church enthusiast, Pugin fans and casual visitors alike, who would all want to come and gawp in amazement. West Tofts was a typical small Breckland parish in a landscape of sandy heaths and pine woodlands. It's 14th Century church was augmented with a fine west tower in the 15th Century, and the donors had their names immortalised in flushwork around the base. You can see something similar a few miles off at Santon Downham in Suffolk. Not much happened after the Reformation until 1827, when Sir Richard Sutton purchased nearby Lynford Hall. A wealthy man, he expanded the estate by buying up the land in adjacent parishes, including Cranwich, Mundford, and this one, West Tofts. By the 1830s he owned all but four hundred acres of West Tofts parish. At this time, he paid for a restoration of West Tofts church, an early date, and intriguingly White's Norfolk Directory of 1844 tells us that it was beautified with stained glass about 15 years ago.

 

But the big changes were yet to come. In 1842, Sir Richard's wife Jane Mary died, and the family commissioned a mausoleum transept to be built on the south side of the nave. They engaged the services of the most notable architect of the day, Augustus Welby Pugin. This was completed in 1846. Then, in 1849, Richard Sutton's son Augustus was made rector of West Tofts, and embarked on a rebuilding on what Pevsner described as a remarkably ambitious scale. Pugin's brief was a complete transformation of West Tofts church, inside and out, including glass, furnishings and decoration, and no expense was to be spared. First, the ruinous north aisle and south porch were rebuilt. The following year, Pugin produced the design for the elaborate chancel, but before it could be completed he died in 1852. From this point onwards the work was overseen by his son, Edward Welby Pugin. The chancel is the most memorable feature of Pugin's church, for it is taller than the nave and has a western bellcote intended as a sanctus bell turret, giving the impression of a separate new church beside the old one. The roof extends a bay back into the nave, so that externally the south transept now comes off of the chancel, and the chancel appears longer than the nave. On the north side is a half-timbered extension which contains the internal stairway leading to the organ loft. It sits above a vestry.

 

The long church feels almost shoe-horned into its churchyard, an effect amplified by the tall wire fence protecting it from incursions. The churchyard is set back from the track that was once the village street, but the avenue of lime trees still leads up to it just as it did a century ago. There are many more headstones here than in the churchyards of the other Battle Training Area churches, and of all the churches, this is the one in the best condition, for it is effectively maintained as if it were a working church. You enter the nave through the south porch into a fairly dim and intimate space. The furnishings are to Pugin's design, and the tracery backs of the benches are based on a familiar late-medieval style found locally at a number of other churches. The south windows are filled with figure glass, most of it made by Hardman & Co to Pugin's design, but some of it is by Augustus Sutton's brother Frederick who was an enthusiastic glassmaker.

 

Turning east, the nave and aisle become a simple foil for Pugin's fireworks, for the south transept contains the memorial to Sir Richard Sutton's wife Jane Mary, a remarkable Gothic Revival piece, one of the grandest of its kind in England. It's in the Early English style with a highly decorated gabled canopy above what is effectively a shrine with a brass ledger. The roof above it is vaulted and painted. The memorial is contained within iron railings with the repeated Sutton rebus in copper of a barrel (or 'tun') with an S on it. Beyond the transept, Pugin's tall, elegant rood screen leads through into the long chancel with its tiled floor, stencilled walls and painted roof. On the north side, the organ loft projects dramatically from the upper wall. The organ itself, with its memorable painted panels, is now at South Pickenham. However, as that church is now no longer in use and appeared in a state of some decay when I visited in 2022, I wonder if it might be safer for it if it was moved back here.

 

The east window contains a crucifixion with scenes of the Passion, made by Hardman & Co to Pugin's design. It was removed into store with the other glass in the 1980s, but it has all gradually been returned. That on the south side of the chancel is by Frederick Sutton and incorporates figures of saints in 14th Century continental panels which had been collected by the Suttons. They originally came from an abbey in Austria, The best of the glass is in the north-west chancel window (though west of the screen) opposite Jane Sutton's shrine memorial. In its two lights it depicts firstly Eve in the Garden of Eden being tempted by the serpent, two hares sitting at her feet, and then the Annunciation, the Angel Gabriel appearing to the Blessed Virgin. it was installed in memory of Jane Sutton. Other glass in the north aisle is decorative, and to Pugin's design. The font sits at the west end of the aisle, with large protruding figures of angels holding scrolls, who emerge from beneath the bowl. It appears to be 14th Century. Above it is a crocketted Jacobean font cover.

 

At the east end of the aisle is a screened chapel with a crocketted and cusped wall memorial in the style of a tomb recess, angels with scrolls flanking the opening. I'm told it was intended for Sir Richard Sutton, but in fact it was not used for him, for outside, low on the south wall of the transept, is another recess. Within it, Sir Richard lies close to his wife. He died in 1855, and the Suttons sold Lynford Hall to Stephens Lyne-Stephens and his wife Yolande. They had inherited a fortune made by a relative who had patented moving dolls eyes, and when her husband died in 1860 Mrs Stephens became one of the wealthiest women in England. Her stewardship of this part of the Breckland would be a new chapter.

 

As the church sits close to West Tofts army camp, it is the least secretive of the the Battle Training Area churches. It can be seen from a public road. It's used for an annual carol service for which members of the public can apply for tickets, and by the Norfolk Churches Trust for its annual service in the summer. It's also in use for some secular purposes such as lectures. It wouldn't take a great leap of the imagination to see it used more regularly for concerts and the like, and back at the end of the last century I recall ideas were being mooted that it might become generally accessible to the public again. But I am told that the changing security situation of the last twenty years or so has made that prospect unlikely.

CAOLAS MOR was built by Essex Yacht Builders in 1972 and has been in the same ownership since. Over the years she has been professionally maintained, thoughtfully upgraded and regularly surveyed, her last survey was in 2017. Lightly used in the last 10 years the boat is well presented with comfortable accommodation below decks for 6 people, including an en-suite heads in the aft cabin. The owners advancing years have brought about the hard decision to sell this much loved member of the family, she comes with a full inventory with the majority of equipment a new owner would require to sail away. Currently lying ashore under her winter cover here at Ardfern.

 

CONSTRUCTION

  

HULL Traditional heavy weight hand consolidated GRP moulded hull. Full length traditional type keel. Lead ballast keel mounted externally. Full depth rudder secured on pintle. Topsides painted with International Paints two-pack paint system 2003

 

DECK Traditional heavy weight hand consolidated single piece moulded GRP deck and coachroof. Non-slip textured panels moulded into decks. GRP moulded doghouse. Timber and perspex fixed enclosure at aft end of doghouse to create full protected wheelhouse. Decks and coachroof painted with International Paints systems 2011

 

SPARS AND RIGGING

  

Masthead, single spreader sloop rig. Spars of gold anodised alloy, manufactured by Sparlight. Standing rigging of 1x19 stainless steel wire with roll swage terminals and chromed bronze rigging screws. All new in 2004 On mast Bamar roller reefing system for mainsail. Hood Seafurl roller reefing system on forestay for genoa. Twin spinnaker pole tracks on mast. Removable inner forestay with Wichard tensioner. 2009. All running rigging completely replaced 2004/05. Z-Spars whisker pole.

 

SAILS

  

Mainsail - On mast roller reefing sail, white Dacron. Genoa - Roller reefing, white Dacron. Staysail - Heavy weight white Dacron, hank on to set on removable inner forestay. Owen Sails 2009

 

WINCHES

  

Primary Winches - Gibb 9CR chromed bronze, two speed. Mainsail Outhaul - Lewmar 30st, chromed bronze, two speed. Mainsheet - Single speed

 

MOORING AND GROUND TACKLE

  

Main Anchor - Delta plough type anchor on 80m 3/8ths chain rode Kedge Anchor - Admiralty Pattern type on short 3/8th chain rode. Spare Anchors - 1x Bruce anchor 1x Fisherman type folding anchor. Windlass - FML 400 Electric windlass. Mounted on deck with chain gypsy and warping drum.

 

ON DECK

  

Two pack painted coachroof and deck. Moulded non-slip panels painted in contrasting colour. Coachroof and doghouse tops painted in non-slip deck paint. Twin bow roller stem head fitting Panama style fairlead forward, port and starboard. Deck mounted horizontal windlass. Moulded bulwark running full length of deck edge with solid teak capping rail. Solid teak grabrails running the length of the coachroof and dog house roof. Stainless steel stanchion supporting stainless steel guardwires outboard. Guardwires completely replaced 2012. Fold down seat over liferaft on aft deck.

 

The original doghouse has been modified at the aft end to close in the cockpit with a timber framework and perspex panels. Washboards are fitted at the entrances on the port and starboard sides with perspex panels in way of the primary winches being fully removable. The modification creates a full enclosed cockpit and provides a second all weather living space. The cockpit itself is spacious with the large timber helm located centrally forward. Engine controls and instrumentation are all easily to hand and the three windows forward provide and excellent view. A chart table is provided forward of the helm on a varnished timber surface, some chart storage is provided below the working surface. Bench style seating is provides aft of the helm port and starboard with cavernous lockers beneath.

 

NAVIGATION INSTRUMENTATION

  

Depth Sounder - Seafarer 700 Wind Instrument - Autohelm ST50 Log - Analogue Plotter - Garmin GPSMAP 450 (2008) VHF - Icom-M421 DSCVHF (2006) Handheld VHF - Silva S12 Autopilot - Autohelm ST6000+ (1998) with SL100 remote control (2006) Hand Bearing Compass – Aalborg

 

DOMESTIC EQUIPMENT

  

Freshwater System - Full pressurised hot and cold water system with faucets in galley, forward heads and aft heads.Hot water heated via calorifier with 240V heating element and engine feed. Water tank capacity - 380ltr Heating - Eberspacher diesel fired, blown air system with outlets in aft cabin, saloon and forepeak. Cooker - Plastimo Neptune 3000 gas stove. 3 burner, grill and oven. Fridge - Coolbox with SuperCool electric chiller unit. Forward Heads - Jabsco manual toilet, never used, installed 2016 Aft Heads - ITT Jabsco manual toilet.

 

BELOW DECKS

  

With one caring owner since she was built in 1972 CAOLAS MOR benefits from not having been 'modified' by a succession of different owners and the appearance of the finish below benefits from this. Internal joinery work is constructed from solid and veneer faced teak, finished with a gloss varnish. Throughout the interior soles are finished with carpets. As was customary at the time with designs of this type the aft cabin is accessible via a separate companionway, ideal for a couple cruising with younger children.

 

Forepeak - A clever design here allows the door for the hanging locker to double as a door into the forepeak when required. The space provides two well sized single berths in a V configuration. Access to the chain locker is provided forward via a large removable panel. Storage is provided with a small shelve running the length of the berths outboard while a good selection of locker space and drawers are provided beneath.

 

Forward Heads - The heads area is appointed with a brand new Jabsco manual toilet, vanity unit and stainless steel sink. An extendable sink faucet doubles as a shower head when required. The compartment is finished with easy clean formica facings and a teak sole grating. Opposite the heads is a full height wet hanging locker.

 

Galley - Running along the starboard side of the saloon space the galley is in a linear layout and open to the main saloon. The Plastimo Neptune 3 burner gas locker is located at the forward end with the stainless steel galley sink and drying rack set into the worktop running aft to the companionway. Top loading coolbox has been fitted with additional insulation and an electronic chiller unit to become a fridge. Good selection of storage provided beneath the worktop and in lockers outboard with dedicate storage racks for crockery.

 

Saloon - Opposite the galley to port the saloon table lies athwart ships with seating forward and aft. Gimballed oil lamps are fitted on the bulkheads to provide a cosy night light. A good volume of storage is again provided outboard of the seating and below each of the seating units.

 

Aft Cabin - Accessed via a separate companionway at the aft end of the cockpit the cabin provides two good sized single berths on the port and starboard sides. A central dresser type unit aft provides some personal storage space with additional large drawers beneath each bunk and a hanging locker to starboard forward.

 

Aft Heads - Located at the forward end of the cabin to port this is effectively an en-suite. A small compartment fitted out with manual toilet, sink and vanity unit.

 

SAFETY EQUIPMENT

  

Liferaft - Ocean Safety 6 person cannister raft. Last serviced 2016, next service due 2019. EPIRB - resuceME EPIRB1, dual frequency, mounted inside saloon. Expires 2026 Lifejackets - 4x Sowester Osprey - auto inflation type. Fire Blanket Pilot Gas Alarm

 

GENERAL EQUIPMENT

  

Shore Power System - Hard wired RCD Protected system with ring main, immersion heater and battery charger. Battery Charger - 240V hardwired charger (2003) Wind Generator - LVM Aerogen 25 Manual Bilge Pump Electric Bilge Pump Swimming Ladder - Custom made stainless steel folding swimming ladder mounted on transom with 3 rungs below water level (2003) Davits - Simpson type davits on transom. Tender - Zodiac C260 Aero (2008) Outboard - Honda 2.3hp, 4-stroke. Winter Cover - Heavy duty full cover with timber frame. Spares - With the owners giving up boating a large volume of spares and general tools are aboard the vessel and included with the inventory.

 

ENGINE

  

The engine is located within the cavernous space beneath the cockpit sole and is accessible by lifting the folding cockpit sole. Access around the engine for maintenance is excellent with the sole lifted. The space contains ample room to install a generator or any other gear that maybe required for longer distance cruising.

 

Perkins 4.236 4 cylinder naturally aspirated marine diesel engine. 72hp Borg Warner Velvet Drive hydraulic marine gearbox. Conventional shaft type sterngear, completely overhauled 2004. Hydraulic, manually operated shaft brake. Fixed 3 blade bronze propeller. Adverc alternator smart charge controller. Exhaust system completely replaced 2010. Cathodic bonding system re-wired 2012 Twin diesel tanks, total capacity 570ltr

 

SHIPS BATTERIES

  

All batteries replaced with new items in 2007.

 

GBP 34,500

January 2018

SET 1 – HLT Remodel: 10-15-2023

 

Now here’s a shot looking straight back at the reconfigured vestibule and entrance area, with Bullseye’s Playground also occupying a portion of our vision. I don’t have a comparison shot from the exact same angle, but I do have this 2015 pic focused more directly on the vestibule. You can see that getting rid of the stepped-down drop ceiling and raising the windows all the way up has really made a huge difference internally as well as externally.

 

(c) 2025 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

 

 

Cancer can be treated in a number of ways. Surgery, Chemotherapy, Radiation Therapy, Immunotherapy, and Monoclonal Antibody Therapy are among the most popular. The choice of cancer therapy is made by looking at the stage of the disease and the state of the patient. The goal of cancer treatment is the complete removal of the cancer without significantly damaging the rest of the body. Sometimes a surgeon can remove the cancer easily, other times this is not possible. Chemotherapy and Radiation can be quite affective in killing cancer cells, but they are also toxic to healthy cells.

   

The Breast Cancer Run

Surgery

  

Theoretically, non-blood based cancers can be cured if entirely removed by surgery. This is easier said than done. If the cancer spreads to other parts of the body before surgery, it is usually impossible to remove all the cancer through surgery. Two of the most well know surgical procedures for removing cancer are mastectomy (where one or both of the breast are removed in an effort to treat breast cancer) and a prostatectomy (where all or part of the prostate gland are removed). Cancer can recur if a single cell is left behind after surgery. With this in mind a pathologist will carefully examine your surgical specimen to make sure there is a margin of healthy tissue present.

  

Surgery is also used to determine the stage (extent) of cancer. Staging is very important for determining a prognosis and treatment.

   

A Radiation Mask

Radiation Therapy

  

Radiation Therapy is the use of radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Radiation can be giving externally through External Beam Radiotherapy (EBRT) or internally through Brachytherapy. The effects of radiation are concentrated on the area being treated. Radiation Therapy damages the DNA of the cancer cells making it impossible for them to grow and divide. Radiation Therapy damages both healthy and cancer cells, but healthy cells are able to recover from the Radiation. Radiation is given over several rounds so the healthy cells have a chance to recover between treatments.

  

Radiation is used to treat almost every type of cancer. The amount of Radiation that is given depends on the type of cancer and how close it is to major organs. As with every form of cancer treatment, radiation is not without side effects.

   

Steve after Radiation

Side Effects of Radiation Therapy

  

The side effects of Radiation Therapy can appear during treatment or years later. The nature of the side effects depend on where the radiation was received and how much. Some of the immediate side effects from radiation are burning on the skin, swelling, infertility, and fatigue. Some of the long term side effects fibrosis (loss of elasticity in the tissue that was treated), hair loss, dryness, and cancer.

   

Mia in the Hospital

Chemotherapy

  

Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with anticancer drugs. Most chemotherapy targets all rapidly dividing cells, and not just cancer cells. This means that often chemotherapy damages healthy cells as well as cancer cells. However, most healthy cells repair themselves after the chemotherapy has ended. Most patients are given a combination of chemotherapy drugs. It is important that you talk all drugs that are prescribed in combination with your chemotherapy.

  

Targeted Therapy

  

Targeted Therapy first became available in the late 1990s and it has proven to be very effective in treating some types of cancer. If you have questions about Targeted Therapy and how it can help you or your loved one, talk to your doctor. Your doctor will know what Targeted Therapies may be right for your cancer.

   

Josh and his family after surgery

Immunotherapy

  

Immunotherapy is a set of strategies that will trigger a patient’s immune system to fight the tumor. Immunotherapy has been very affective on Renal Cell Carcinoma, Melanoma, and prostate cancer.

      

Hormonal Therapy

  

Hormonal therapy is used to block or provide certain hormones. They have been particularly effective in Breast and Prostate Cancers.

   

Tom getting chemo

Symptom Control

  

Some treatments are designed not to kill the cancer cells, but to control the symptoms of the cancer. This is very important for helping maintain a high quality of life for the cancer patient. Symptom Control is used for all stages of cancer, but particularly for end of life care. There is somewhat of a social stigma attached to the use of high power pain killers. Cancer patients should feel free to ask their doctor or Hospice provider about any medicine they take, especially if the patient feels the medicine is doing more harm than good. That being said, do not stop taking any medicines without consulting your health care provider first.

  

Complementary and Alternative Medicines

  

Consult your doctor and do lots of research before beginning any alternative treatment. Do not stop your other therapies or medicines in order to take an Alternative Medicine. No Alternative Treatments have been shown to effectively treat any form of cancer, and none are FDA approved.

   

Roger perparing for surgery

Clinical Trials

  

Clinical Trials test new treatments on people with cancer. The goal of these studies is to find better ways to treat cancer and help cancer patients. Patients who take part in clinical trails get the best available standard of care for their cancer, however there is no guarantee that the new treatment will work. If the treatment does work, those in the trial are among the first to benefit from the new treatment.

 

Article From www.cancer.sc/content,treatment/

All Saints church at Claverley is a church-crawler's delight, among the finest of Shropshire's churches. Externally it is a handsome structure in red sandstone whose most prominent features appear to be 15th century or later, but the oldest parts of the building date back to the 12th century and are only revealed when one steps inside. The south tower with its pinnacled parapet is especially attractive in the warm hues of its stonework. This is a grand structure built to impress, a role in which it succeeds.

 

Inside the earlier origins of the church become clear as one is faced with the Norman north nave arcade directly opposite the entrance. What is so special here however is not just its antiquity but the astonishing scheme of wall paintings that have survived here, believed to date from c1200. The main colours are red, ochre and black and the dominant element is the central frieze of knights in combat mounted on horseback, usually facing each other in pairs. It is an extremely rare survival and makes the church well worth visiting for this alone, but it does have other charms.

 

The interior here feels to some degree like a sequence of separate spaces, each with its own identity, owing to the more complex layout with the tower base interrupting the aisle on the south side. The south chapel is especially interesting for its monuments, particularly the impressive Broke tomb from the Tudor period with its three recumbent effigies. There is some interesting glass, only a few fragments remain from the medieval period but there is rich Victorian glass in the east window and two delightful Arts & Crafts windows at the west end.

 

Claverley church is the one to visit in this area, one of the most rewarding in the county. I have visited twice and on both occasions found it open and welcoming (I had to return after a problem with my camera left me with very poor low-res photos from my first trip!).

For more see the article below:-

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints_Church,_Claverley

Aberdeen Technical School (Aberdeen Industrial Institute, built in 1935; renamed in 1952)

Main Building: International Modern style. It consists of several linear blocks of different design three stories high staggered and arranged in an L-shaped plan onto an elongated site at the foot of a steep slope. There is a certain Art Deco influence in the design. Architectural features are long open verandahs, porthole windows, stylised columns or pilotis, and a square tower incorporating the main entrance. The long linear balconies are features of this architectural style. Internally the Art Deco influence can be seen in the design of the Main Hall and the Main Staircase. The Shanghai plaster and polished terrazzo finishes used externally and internally respectively are typical of the period.

externally

Armstrong Siddeley Star Saphire (1959-60) Engine 3990cc S6 OHV Production 980 (902 Saloons + 77 Limousines + 1 prototype Mk.II)

Registration Number PUD 920

ARMSTRONG SIDDELEY SET

www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623635543067...

 

The Star Sapphire was announced in October 1958 with production continued through to Summer 1960, similar in styling to the earlier Sappire 346 externally, the radiator grille no longer rose to the top of the bonnet, many refinements were incorporated. The six-cylinder engine was enlarged more than 16% to 3,990 cc with larger twin Stromberg carburettors as standard and power output increased to [SAE] 165 bhp more importantly torque increased by almost 30 per cent Big end and main bearings were now made of lead indium and a vibration damper fitted to the nose of the crankshaft. Servo-assisted 12 in (305 mm) Girling disc brakes were now installed on the front wheels and Burman recirculating ball power steering was standardised with a turning circle reduced by 4'6". A BorgWarner type DG automatic gearbox was fitted which incorporated a lever on the facia to hold intermediate gear at 35, 45, 55, and 65 m.p.h

 

Limousines made only in 1960 had a single carburettor and manual gearbox (the automatic gearbox was fitted to 12 examples). The remaining 4 chassis were used for 3 hearses and an ambulance

 

After the Star Sapphire, Armstrong Siddeley produced only one more vehicle, a Mk.II version which did not get beyond the prototype stage in 1960

 

Shot at The Enfield Pagaent 29.05.2011 Ref 69-015

 

Please don't forget to click on the flag couter on my Profile page. Thankyou

LUMBAR MUSCLES - GLUTEUS MEDIUS

Lumbar Spine Pelvis Hip Muscles Gluteus Medius physiotherapy illustrations

DESCRIPTION

Gluteus medius is a broad, thick, fan-shaped muscle, most of which lies beneath gluteus maximus.

 

ORIGIN

Gluteus medius originates from the outer surface of the ilium between the iliac crest and posterior gluteal line above and the anterior gluteal line below, and from the fascia superficial to its upper part. physiotherapy illustrations.

 

INSERTION

Gluteus medius inserts onto a ridge that slants downwards and forwards on the lateral surface of the greater trochanter.

 

VARIATIONS

Gluteus medius sometimes has a deep slip attached to the upper border of the trochanter. The posterior border of gluteus medius sometimes fuses with piriformis. physiotherapy illustrations.

 

INNERVATION

Gluteus medius is innervated by the superior gluteal nerve from L4, L5 and S1 spinal nerves.

 

BLOOD SUPPLY

Gluteus medius is supplied by the superior gluteal artery, rami from the inferior gluteal artery, the internal pudendal artery, and upper rami from vessels forming the cruciate anastomosis. physiotherapy illustrations.

 

ACTION

Gluteus medius abducts the thigh.

Gluteus medius (anterior fibres) internally rotate and flex the thigh.

Gluteus medius (posterior fibres) externally rotate and extend the thigh. physiotherapy illustrations.

 

FUNCTION

Gluteus medius works with gluteus minimus to prevent the pelvis sagging to the unsupported side during one leg support in walking and running.

 

Lumbar Spine Pelvis Hip Muscles Gluteus Medius physiotherapy illustrations

Everyone wish to look beautiful to others at least externally. Though the true beauty lies internally. I see in this image her attempts to do so in spite of her true soul reflected in her next image "s h y" to me.

St Mary, South Luffenham, Rutland

 

Another bike ride in England's smallest county. Sixteen churches altogether, which sounds a lot, but churches in Rutland are refreshingly close together, and generally open, although I did find two that said they were open and weren't, and one that said it wasn't, but was.

 

Part six.

 

I headed east from Wing, scenting the train home from Stamford but with three more churches to visit before I got there. It was a lonely road, though not as lonely as the one I turned off onto, a tiny lane up to the small, isolated hamlet of Pilton, set at a remote crossroads high on the ridge. It was easy to imagine Thomas Hardy characters wandering through here at night, perhaps on their way to become the destined mayor of a small town, or maybe to commit suicide on a historic monument. Just down from the road is the church, which I found locked with a keyholder notice.

 

This was annoying, as I was conscious of the clock ticking away - it was nearly three, and I had a train to catch in Stamford at five - but the house wasn't far off, and unusually for a Saturday the keyholder was in. "Why do you want the key?" I was asked. This was such a stunningly unexpected question that I could not think of a sensible reply, and could only mumble "because I want to see inside the church", but this seemed to satisfy him.

 

This is a small church, but externally a pretty one, with a delightful little late-Perp south aisle as if it were a room in a Cambridge college. I let myself in. As you would expect, given that this was the only keyholder notice church of the sixteen I visited today, it was also the least interesting church, and the altar and parts of the floor were swathed in plastic sheeting on account of the bats. I had seen everything I needed to see in about thirty seconds, but I spent a bit of time pottering about in the graveyard before taking the key back, so as not to disappoint him. The churchyard is raised, and home to two vast scots pines which dwarf the little church. One of them had recently lost a branch in the high winds, and the branch that lay on the floor was bigger than most churchyard trees on its own. It would easily have killed anyone it had fallen on.

 

I took back the key and hurtled down back into the relative civilisation of North Luffenham, a village large enough to have a zebra crossing by the school, and a new road which led down to the biggest church of the day, St John the Baptist. The church was open - but I thought it was locked. There was a padlock and chain on the gate, and a sign saying 'Sorry, church closed, open again tomorrow!' Luckily, there was also a keyholder notice, but conscious of that train which would not wait for me at Stamford I hurried hell-for-leather back up to the high street and found the house. Luckily, the keyholder was in, but I probably sounded a bit grumpy as I asked for the key. The nice lady looked at me slightly wide-eyed. "But the church is open!" she told me. "It's always open every day! My husband opened it this morning!" I explained what I had found, and although she obviously had her doubts she gave me the key anyway.

 

I got back to the church to find that she was quite right. The padlock and chain were not around both doors, just hanging off one of the grills, and when I stepped into the porch the inner door was already unlocked. I looked back at the 'church closed' sign, and saw that on the back of it it said 'Church Open! Do come in!" Obviously, the person who had unlocked the church that morning had forgotten to turn the sign around, so I restored it to its correct orientation.

 

Now a bit flustered, I calmed myself down and explored within. As I say, this is a big church, a grand church which underwent an opulent restoration and was probably very High Church in its day. The feeling is of a town church where no expense has been spared. There are old survivals - the 15th Century angels still look down from the roof, and there is surviving painting under the Early English arcades. But best of all, in the long chancel, there is Rutland's best collection of 14th Century glass, the stars of which are the near-complete figures of St Mary Magdalene, St Barbara and St Edward the Confessor. It must be said that they were in the east window, and in a quite different configuration, until the late 19th Century, when Clayton & Bell came along and resotred them. But that does suggest that they were from this church originally. There is a modern version of the last figure in the west window below the tower which asks, in Latin, for prayers for the soul of the donor, a very daring thing to do in the Church of England in the early 20th Century.

 

I took back the key, explaining that it had been my mistake, but that I had altered the sign, and then headed back down into the valley for one last time to South Luffenham. This is more of a hamlet than a village, but it sits beside the Stamford to Leicester road. Unusually for Rutland the church sits below the village beside the River Chater.

 

Well, the church was locked - but the sign said it was open every day. Whoever had opened it that morning had opened the porch gates, but not unlocked the inner door. The notice in the porch even gave the unlocking rota, saying that the church should be 'unlocked by 9am and locked again at 5pm'. There was even a list of nearby keyholders with their addresses! But at last the curse of Saturday struck, and they were all out. And so I was reduced to a few exteriors, not entirely easy in the narrow churchyard.

 

After huffing and puffing a bit with frustration, I headed on towards Stamford, reaching Ketton after a mile or so. I'd visited the church here two weeks previously, but the light was better today so as I was passing anyway I rolled down between the high stone walls of the old village to have another go at the west front, as well as the Comper war memorial which I had unaccountably missed. I couldn't resist stepping inside again to that vast, slightly absurd space, a healing benediction perhaps after the frustrations of the Luffenhams. Yes, God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.

 

It was a quarter past four. It was an easy roll now down and up over the A1 and that long, slow downhill drift into the middle of Stamford. I reached the station at twenty to five, and I was back in Ipswich by half past seven, to discover I had missed several hours of steady Suffolk rain. Sixteen churches visited, fourteen of them open or accessible. Church of the day? Edith Weston, with honourable mentions for Tickencote, Manton and Ayston.