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Whenever we have tried to see inside St Dunstan's in the past, always on a Saturday, there has been a christening taking place, or some other service, which means I have only glimpsed inside before we had to leave as the stares were quite hard from people attending the service.
I left St Spelchure, intending to walk straight to St Magnus, as that was the one church I wanted to visit. I turned of Holborn, thinking I knew the directions, ending up on Fleet Street in the end after all, with the clock of St Dunstan's just a few hundred yards away.
With the rain falling ever harder, I walk past ambling tourists and find my way into the church.
Sadly, I underestimated the darkness inside, and not may shots came out, but we can always go back.
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"St Dunstan in the West, the church of, is situated on the north side of the west end of Fleet Street, where it has been long known as a grievous incumbrance to Hackney and stage coachmen, drivers of omnibuses, and country females. But as it is about to be taken down, to the infinite regret of the city pickpockets, any description of it is unnecessary. It, however, unfortunately for the public, narrowly escaped destruction by the great fire of 1666, the flames having been stopped within three houses of its walls. It has been several times repaired, but it will, ere long,...be removed. It is a church of very ancient foundation, in the gift of the abott and convent of Westminster, who in 1237 gave it to Henry III towards the maintenance of the foundation of the house called the Rolls, for the reception of converted Jews. It was afterwards conveyed to the abbot and convent of Alnwick, in Northumberland, in whom it continued till the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry VIII. Edward VI granted the advowson of this church under the name of a vicarage to Lord Dudley. Soon after this, the rectory and vicarage were granted to Sir Richard Sackville, and the impropriation has ever since remained in private hands.
familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/St_Dunstan_in_the_West
The Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West is in Fleet Street in the City of London, England. It is dedicated to a former Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury. The church is of medieval origin, although the present building, with an octagonal nave, was constructed in the 1830s to the designs of John Shaw.
First founded between AD 988 and 1070, there is a possibility that a church on this site was one of the Lundenwic strand settlement churches, like St Martin in the Fields, the first St Mary le Strand, St Clement Danes and St Brides. These churches may pre-date any within the walls of the city . It is not known exactly when the original church was built, but it was possibly erected by Saint Dunstan himself, or priests who knew him well. It was first mentioned in written records in 1185.[2] King Henry III gained possession of it and its endowments from Westminster Abbey by 1237 and then granted these and the advowson to the "House of Converts" i.e. of the converted Jews, which led to its neglect of its parochial responsibilities. This institution was eventually transformed into the Court of the Master of the Rolls.
The medieval church underwent many alterations before its demolition in the early 19th century. Small shops were built against its walls, St Dunstan's Churchyard becoming a centre for bookselling and publishing.[3] Later repairs were carried out in an Italianate style: rusticated stonework was used, and some of the Gothic windows were replaced with round headed ones, resulting in what George Godwin called "a most heterogeneous appearance".[3] In 1701 the church's old vaulted roof was replaced with a flat ceiling, ornamented with recessed panels.[3]
The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers has been associated with the church since the 15th century. The company holds an annual service of commemoration to honour two of its benefactors, John Fisher and Richard Minge, after which children were traditionally given a penny for each time they ran around the church.
William Tyndale, the celebrated translator of the Bible, was a lecturer at the church and sermons were given by the poet John Donne. Samuel Pepys mentions the church in his diary.[4] The church narrowly escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. The Dean of Westminster roused 40 scholars from Westminster School in the middle of the night, who formed a fire brigade which extinguished the flames with buckets of water to only three doors away.
In the early 19th century the medieval church of St Dunstan was removed to allow the widening of Fleet Street and a new church was built on its burial ground. An Act of Parliament was obtained authorising the demolition of the church in July 1829 and trustees were appointed to carry it into effect. In December 1829 and September 1830 there were auctions of some of the materials of the old church. The first stone of the new building, to the design of John Shaw, Sr. (1776–1832), was laid in July 1831 and construction proceeded rapidly. In August 1832 the last part of the old church, which had been left as a screen between Fleet Street and the new work, was removed.[3]
Shaw dealt with the restricted site by designing a church with an octagonal central space. Seven of the eight sides open into arched recesses, the northern one containing the altar. The eighth side opens into a short corridor, leading beneath the organ to the lowest stage of the tower, which serves as an entrance porch. Above the recesses Shaw designed a clerestory, and above that a groined ceiling. The tower is square in plan, with an octagonal lantern, resembling those of St Botolph, Boston, and St Helen's York. George Godwin Jr suggested that the form of the lantern might have been immediately inspired by that of St George's church in Ramsgate ( where Shaw was architect to the docks), built in 1825 to the designs of H.E. Kendall.[3] John Shaw Sr. died in 1833, before the church was completed, leaving it in the hands of his son John Shaw Jr (1803–1870).
The communion rail is a survivor of the old church, having been carved by Grinling Gibbons during the period when John Donne served as vicar (1624–1631). Some of the monuments from the medieval building were reinstituted in the new church and a fragment of the old churchyard remains between Clifford's Inn and Bream's Buildings.
Apart from losing its stained glass, the church survived the London Blitz largely intact, though bombs did damage the open-work lantern tower.[6] The building was largely restored in 1950. An appeal to raise money to install a new ring of bells in the tower, replacing those removed in 1969, was successfully completed in 2012 with the dedication and hanging of 10 new bells.[7]
The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
On the façade is a chiming clock, with figures of giants, perhaps representing Gog and Magog, who strike the bells with their clubs. It was installed on the previous church in 1671, perhaps commissioned to celebrate its escape from destruction by the Great Fire of 1666. It was the first public clock in London to have a minute hand. The figures of the two giants strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads. There are numerous literary references to the clock, including in Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays, Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, David Lyddal's The Prompter (1810)[9] and a poem by William Cowper. In 1828, when the medieval church was demolished, the clock was removed by art collector Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford to his mansion in Regent's Park; during World War I, a new charity for blinded soldiers was lent the house, and took the name St Dunstan's from the clock.[10] It was returned by Lord Rothermere in 1935 to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V.
Above the entrance to the old parochial school is a statue of Queen Elizabeth I, taken from the old Ludgate, which was demolished in 1760. This statue, dating from 1586, is contemporaneous with its subject and thought to be the oldest outdoor statue in London. In the porch below are three statues of ancient Britons also from the gate, probably meant to represent King Lud and his two sons.
Adjacent to Queen Elizabeth is a bust of Lord Northcliffe, the newspaper proprietor, co-founder of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. Next to Lord Northcliffe is a memorial tablet to James Louis Garvin, another pioneering British journalist.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Dunstan-in-the-West
St.Dunstan-in-the-West has a long and illustrious history. Visitors are often struck by how St. Dunstan’s differs in appearance and style to other Anglican churches. The church looks traditionally Neo-Gothic on the outside, yet is octagonal inside.
Saint Dunstan
Dunstan was one of the foremost saints of Anglo-Saxon England: he was also one of the most venerated before the cult of St Thomas Becket took hold of the popular imagination. He was born in 909 A.D. and was taught by Irish monks at Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, where he developed a reputation as a formidable scholar. He also learnt metalworking, and was later adopted as the patron saint of Goldsmiths. Dunstan became a companion to King Aethelstan’s stepbrothers, Edmund and Eadred, although he was banished after the king died in 939. He then lived at Glastonbury as a hermit, before being appointed Abbot there in 945. He was appointed as the Bishop of Worcester and then the Bishop of London, before being elected Archbishop of Canterbury in 960. Dunstan sought peace with the Danes and promoted monastic living, as well as establishing the library at Canterbury Cathedral, where he was buried in 988. St Dunstan’s feast day is the 19th May and is still celebrated at this church: in 2013 our Patronal Festival will be held on Saturday 18 May.
The Original Church
The original St Dunstan-in-the-West stood on the same site as today, spilling in the past onto what is now the tarmac of Fleet Street. It is not known exactly when the original church was built, but it was between 988 and 1070 AD. It is not impossible that St Dunstan himself, or priests who knew him well, decreed that a church was needed here. The church narrowly escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. The quick thinking of the Dean of Westminster saved the church: he roused forty scholars from Westminster School in the middle of the night, who extinguished the flames with buckets of water.
The Church is Rebuilt
The wear and tear of time took its toll, however, and St Dunstan’s was rebuilt in 1831. The architect, John Shaw, died in 1832, leaving his son, who bore the same name, to complete the task. The tower was badly damaged by German bombers in 1944, and was rebuilt in 1950 through the generosity of newspaper magnate Viscount Camrose. In 1952, St Dunstan-in-the-West became a Guild Church, dedicating its ministry to the daytime working population around Fleet Street.
The Clock and Giants
St Dunstan-in-the-West was a well-known landmark in previous centuries because of its magnificent clock. This dates from 1671, and was the first public clock in London to have a minute hand. The figures of the two giants strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads. There are numerous literary references to the clock, including in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the Vicar of Wakefield and a poem by William Cowper (1782):
When labour and when dullness, club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan’s stand,
Beating alternately in measured time
The clockwork tintinnabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be,
But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.
The courtyard also contains statues of King Lud, the mythical sovereign, and his sons and Queen Elizabeth I, all of which originally stood in Ludgate. The statue of Queen Elizabeth I dates from 1586 and is the only one known to have been carved during her reign. (Please note: we regret that, due to building works, the statue of Queen Elizabeth I is not on view until the autumn of 2013.)
Inside the Church
Much of the internal fabric pre-dates the rebuilding of the church in the 1830s. The high altar and reredos are Flemish woodwork dating from the seventeenth century. There are also a large number of monuments from the original
church. Some of the earliest are two bronze figures thought to date from 1530.
The Organ
The original church has an organ dating from 1674-75 made by Renatus Harris. However, none of the original parts are likely to have remained as over the years it has had to be entirely rebuilt. Much of the present organ dates from 1834, when a Joseph Robson organ was bought at the same time as the Church was being rebuilt. Many distinguished organists have played here, including John Reading, the composer of Adeste Fideles, who died in 1764. Handel was even invited to play here, although whether the great composer ever accepted the invitation remains unknown.
The Romanian Orthodox Church
As well as being an Anglican church, the building of St Dunstan’s is home to the Romanian Orthodox Church in London. The beautiful iconostasis (altar screen) was brought here from a monastery in Bucharest in 1966.
St Dunstan-in-the-West is home to the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association, and is a centre of prayer for Christian Unity. It is therefore appropriate that the side chapels contain altars dedicated to various traditions, including the Lutheran Church in Berlin (EKD). There is also an altar of the Oriental Churches (Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian, Syro-Indian) and a shrine of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. St Dunstan’s continues in its special role of promoting good relations with Churches outside the Anglican Communion, including through its role as the Diocese of London’s Church for Europe.
Other Famous Connections
The poet John Donne held the benefice here from 1624-31, while he was Dean of St Paul’s. William Tyndale, who pioneered the translation of the Bible into English, was a lecturer here. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys worshipped here a number of times. Lord Baltimore, who founded the State of Maryland in the USA, was buried here in 1632, as was his son. The church has been associated with the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers (old English for shoemakers) since the fifteenth century. Once a year the company holds a service here to commemorate the benefactors John Fisher and Richard Minge, after which children used to be given a penny for each time they ran around the church!
The Hoare Bank
The church has long had an association with C. Hoare and Co., whose bank has been situated opposite the church since 1690. The Hoare family donated the four stained glass windows behind the high altar and the carved canopies of the altar-piece. The windows show Archbishop Lanfrance; St Dunstan beside a roaring furnace into which he has thrust his pincers ready to pull a devil’s nose; St. Anselm and Archbishop Langton with King John at the signing of the Magna Carta. Members of the Hoare family, as well as being generous benefactors, have maintained a tradition of service as churchwardens over the centuries. Two have been Lord Mayors of London and a family vault still lies in the church crypt.
The staple of Victorian penny shockers, the story of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, stalks the no-man’s land between urban myth and historical fact. According to some sources, Todd, a barber, tooth-puller and surgeon, did actually exist, and in 1785 set up shop at 186 Fleet Street. It is claimed that he murdered over 100 of his clients, before selling their flesh on to Margery Lovett, who owned a pie shop in nearby Bell Yard!
Newcastle-upon-Tyne Trinity House is a private corporation in Newcastle upon Tyne which emerged in the 16th century as a guild formed by the City's seafarers. For the past 500 years it has occupied premises in Broad Chare on the Newcastle's Quayside, from which it continues to provide a combination of professional and charitable maritime services. It remains one of only three bodies in England authorized for the examination and licensing of deep-sea pilots.
The 'Guild of the Blessed Trinity of Newcastle upon Tyne' emerged in the late 15th century, and was formally constituted on 4 January 1505 when it obtained an area of land close to the river on which to build a chapel, meeting room and lodgings for mariners (it was secured by the quit-rent of one red rose, payable annually to a Mr Ralph Hebborn on Midsummer's Day.) Early in its history, the corporation (as it came to be known) was given responsibility for improving the Tyne as a navigable river. For example, the first Royal Charter (received from Henry VIII in 1536) stipulated the building and fortification of a pair of towers at a certain point on the north bank, and the maintenance of lights thereon for the purposes of navigation. (These were precursors of the High and Low Lights which still stand today at North Shields).
'Trinity House' is the name of the corporation's headquarters buildings by the Quayside, a site which it has occupied since the day of its foundation in 1505. Though there have been several rebuildings, some sixteenth-century (and older) fabric remains, and later 18th and 19th-century additions and restorations were sympathetic to the Tudor style of the original. A chapel, some offices, the banqueting hall and boardroom, along with the former school and several almshouse buildings, are arranged around three courtyards, described as 'the most pleasant exterior spaces' in the City. Entry is via a gateway on Broad Chare. The warehouses to the south of the gatehouse are currently leased to Live Theatre; they formerly housed the Trinity Maritime Museum, which closed in 2002.
Before long, the corporation was responsible for the licensing of mariners and pilots and for 'keeping the sea lanes' between Whitby and Berwick-upon-Tweed. At the same time, the corporation was (and had been since its early years) active in charitable work, including the provision of almshouses for aged mariners and the establishment of a school on its premises. The corporation was a high profile organisation in the city, for example hosting a visit by Archduke Frederick of Austria in 1841, and presenting him with a commemorative gold snuff box.
All these activities were financed principally through the levying of duties on every ship entering the Tyne to trade – a practice which only ceased in 1861. Following the passing of the Harbour and Passing Tolls Act in that year, the corporation began to devolve some responsibilities to other bodies; in particular, a new board took on responsibility for pilotage on the Tyne, and a new commission took on maintenance of the river's channels and buoyage, together with the corporation's lights at North and South Shields. Newcastle Trinity House continued though to be responsible for buoys, marks and lights along parts of the coast until the mid-1990s.
In the latter part of the 20th century the corporation's Trinity Maritime Museum occupied a pair of early Victorian warehouses on Broad Chare, adjacent to the main site. The museum closed in 2002 and the buildings are now leased by the Live Theatre Company.
Today, the corporation remains active in the provision of professional and charitable maritime services. In addition to its work as a deep-sea pilot authority, it also offers a broader professional maritime consultancy service. It furthermore continues to provide charitable support for 'aged mariners and their widows', as well as varied educational programmes (raising an awareness of maritime history and practice among younger generations, including in schools). It is also committed to the upkeep of its historic buildings (which are nowadays regularly used for corporate and other events) and its extensive archives.
Trinity House has been a registered charity since 1966 and is governed by a royal charter of 1667. Its operation is overseen by an annually elected board; principal officers include the master, deputy master and several wardens with responsibility for different areas of activity. All are master mariners, except the Secretary to the Board. Mariners who are full members of the corporation are styled 'brethren'. Others wishing to support the work of the charity may join as 'associate members'. On formal occasions, the brethren wear a naval-style uniform (similar to that worn by their counterparts in Trinity House, London). The arms of the corporation are worn as a cap-badge and are also prominent on and in the buildings of Trinity House (not just those on Broad Chare, but also structures built and owned by the corporation in former years such as North Shields High Light).
Despite several similarities of nomenclature, structure and activity, Newcastle-upon-Tyne Trinity House is and always has been entirely independent of its namesake Trinity House in London. Trinity House, Kingston-Upon-Hull is similarly an independent body with past and continuing maritime responsibilities in and around the Humber, and there are also similar institutions in Scotland.
After not seeing inside Wattisfield, I see signs pointing to Hinderclay, so I thought I would drive there to see if there was a church that might be open.
I drive down a narrow lane, leading across ploughed fields and to the edge of the village, where I spot the entrance to the church; a simple gateway, with the church beyond mostly hidden by mature trees.
Impressions of a church is largely dependant on the light one sees inside; many have lights, but that isn't the same as pure sunlight pouring through bright stained glass windows.
St Mary has stunning modern glass, that Simon will describe better than I can. But my memory of this wonderful church is those windows and the colourful light that flooded the church.
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This lovely little church is a regular port of call of mine. It is difficult to resist it when I'm passing near by. It is about twenty years since I first visited Hinderclay church. My saintly and long-suffering family had dropped me off near Centreparcs in the Thetford forest early that morning, in order that they might spend their day toiling and weeping beside the vast swimming pool there, with its bars, restaurants and modern leisure facilities. I'd have been quite interested to see the inter-denominational Emmanuel Chapel on the site, but I'm not a great one for lying around. Instead, I headed off on my bike, cutting a swathe across the north of the county, along the hideous A11 through Elveden, and then the Grafton estate, through Barnham, Euston and Fakenham.
Let us be frank: the Elveden area is not great cycling country. The roads are busy, flat and dull, the villages undistinguished. At Euston, there is a brief vision of horsey poshness. But then, beyond Barningham, the countryside opens up, rolling gently, and bubbling with woods and meadows. This is the Suffolk I know best, and love to cycle through; villages hidden as surprises, church towers peeping over distant hedgerows. It was good to be back.
I passed through tiny villages, miles off the main drag; Coney Weston and Market Weston, Knettishall and Thelnetham. Who outside of Suffolk has visited these places, or even heard of them? Indeed, who inside? I tried their names out on friends in Ipswich, none of whom could place any of them. One person knew that Knettishall had been a World War II airfield, that's all.
A glorious sight near Thelnetham is the grand sail-mill, working this day, her great sails at a crazy angle, turning impossibly across the field. An 18th century Suffolker dropped back into the modern landscape would probably find this the biggest change, that nearly all these graceful giants have disappeared. And here, the road rolls down into Hinderclay. It was early afternoon by the time I got to this village, which holds a special interest for me. It is one of a handful of Suffolk parishes I know of that has a recorded Knott family, living here in the 17th and 18th centuries. They are not my Knotts - mine all came from east Kent, but it feels like a connection. There are Knott graves in the churchyard, a quiet little place almost entirely surrounded by mature trees, making the church difficult to photograph.
The tower is pretty and perpendicular, with little chequerboard patterns set into the bell windows. The letters SSRM in the battlements probably stand for Salve Sancta Regina Maria, which the Catholics amongst us will instantly recognise as the opening words of the Hail Holy Queen. This suggests that the medieval dedication of this church was to The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. This was the most common medieval Suffolk church dedication, and has been restored correctly in several places, Ufford for instance. The tower appears off-centre, because the south aisle hides the unclerestoried nave.
Stepping into this building is a delightful surprise. As it opens beyond the south aisle, the interior, with its uncarved font, pammented floors and simple furnishings is almost entirely rustic, except that it is flooded with coloured light. This comes from the glass in the south aisle. The windows, mainly from the 1980s, are by Rosemary Rutherford. She was the sister of the John Rutherford, rector here from 1975, and after she died in 1972 he adapted her designs to be installed in this church. These are therefore her last works, and they are perfectly poised in their simplicity and abstraction. There is a Baptism of Christ, a nativity scene and the Annunciation, while a Crucifixion is flanked by Mary at the empty tomb and the Resurrection. Perhaps the best depicts Mary Magdalene, tiny at the bottom, anointing Christ's feet. The last window to be installed, at the west end, came in 1994 thanks to the participation of Rowland and Surinder Warboys, two well-known Suffolk stained glass artists.
These windows are the best of Rutherford's work, I think. You can see more of it in a number of churches in north Essex, as well as at Boxford and Walsham in Suffolk, and at Gaywood in Norfolk.
In a bigger, noisier church, the 1711 memorial to George Thompson would not stand out, but here the rather alarming cherubs are about as discreet as a stag party in a public library. Thompson was from Trumpington in Cambridgeshire, and the inscription tells us in elegant Latin that he died at the age of 28.
The benches towards the west date from the early 17th century, when Anglican divines were trying to fill their churches with beauty again. Their hopes, of course, would be dashed by the rise to power of the Puritans. These bear the date 1617, sets of initials, probably those of churchwardens. I was interested to see that one set was SK, my own initials. It wasn't until after my visit that a researcher, seeing my name in the visitors' book, wrote to me and told me that they were probably the initials of a member of the Knott family.
There is a comprehensive record of the Guild here, dedicated to St Peter. The alcove in the north aisle probably marks the site of their chantry altar, although there is a large opening from the south aisle chapel, like the ones at Gedding only oriented north-south, which suggests that there was an altar here, too.
Hinderclay is perhaps most famous for its gotch, a large, leather beer pitcher used by the bellringers. It has a dedicatory inscription, and the date 25 March 1724, which was New Year's Day that year (and the the feast of the Annunciation, although this wouldn't have been celebrated in those protestant times). It also says From London I was sent, As plainly does appear, It was with this intent, To be fild with strong beer, Pray remember the pitcher when empty. It used to be on display at the Moyse Hall museum in Bury St Edmunds. In fact, I knew it well, having been a regular visitor there, and it was good to place it in its proper context at last. I wondered if any of the Knotts had drunk from it.
www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/hinderclay.htm
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The present building is of Norman origin, dating from 1128. Many alterations took place during the following two centuries. The first recorded Rector was Rogerus de Caley who came to the village in 1286. You will find a list of all the Rectors who followed him on the RECTORS' page.
The population of Hinderclay had increased during the 13th Century. Between 1257 and 1260 the 10 men of Hinderclay were succeeded by 17 sons! Then, for some unknown reason, the population began to fall, so by 1341 there was a lot of untilled land recorded. With the Black Death arriving in Britain in 1348 the situation worsened.
We know that the lordship and demesne village was in the hands of the Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds by gift of Earl Ulfketch. (Demesne: Under the feudal system in the Middle Ages this was land kept in the lord’s possession and not leased out. It was then worked by villeins (peasants) to supply the lord’s household). When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries (1536-39) it was granted to Thomas and James Bacon.
For ecclesiastical purposes England had been divided into two provinces by the 1300s - the senior was Canterbury and the other York. Hinderclay was in the Archdiocese of Canterbury and the Diocese of Norwich, which included the Counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of Cambridgeshire. Until 1837 Hinderclay was also part of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury and in the Deanery of Blackbourn.
During medieval times prayers were regularly said for the souls of the dead. The rich ensured this by setting up charitable foundations, so that priests (called chantry priests) would say masses for their souls in perpetuity. The poor could not afford this so they often joined a guild, where, for about a penny a week, they could ensure that the guild chantry priest would say masses for their souls after their deaths. Guilds often centred around particular occupations, and became a focus of social activity, meeting in guildhalls. Hinderclay church had at least one medieval guild - the Guild of St. Peter, which was still in existence in 1505.
The Registers of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials date from 1567, although all but the current ones are now kept at the Suffolk Records Office in Bury St. Edmunds.
The Patronage (the right to be consulted in the choice of a new Rector) of the living remains in the Holt-Wilson family. They are descendants of Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, who purchased the Manor of Hinderclay in 1685.
In 1837 the Diocese of Norwich was reorganised and Hinderclay was moved from the Archdeaconry of Sudbury into the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, still remaining in the Blackbourn Deanery.
The six bells were not rung from 1893 for eleven years due to problems with the tower subsiding. The Rev. W. W. Hawkins thoroughly restored the framework but the final restoration was left to the Rev. E. Farrer and was completed in 1904 (see below).
St. Mary's church was thatched until 1842 when the roof was replaced with blue slate.
The drawing opposite hangs in the church. On the back is inscribed:
"Hinderclay Church about AD 1800 Presented by the Rev Canon Sawbridge BD, Rector of Thelnetham to the Rector and Churchwardens of the Parish of Hinderclay Church, 1915."
A school for poor children was supported by the Rector (Rev Thomas Wilson) and was in existence in 1844. It subsequently became a National School for about 50 pupils. A schoolteacher's house was built in 1872 for £500. The school, which is next to the church, closed in 1953 due to the small number of children living in Hinderclay. It is now a private dwelling house.
The 1851 Census of Religious Worship reports that there were 100 free sittings and 80 others. The latter presumably referred to the box pews. It also reported that the church only had Holy Communion celebrated 4 times a year - this was due the disrepair into which the church had fallen.
It is thought that the roof of the church was raised during Victorian times. 'The Suffolk Chronicle and Mercury' dated 15th February, 1935 reported that in 1871 the church was thoroughly repaired and that 10 years later the building underwent extreme restoration. If you look above the north aisle windows a sill can be seen where it is thought the original roof was.
The soil of Hinderclay, as the name suggests, is heavy clay. There was no proper drainage in the church until 1962 and even now the church cemetery often becomes water-logged during winter. Flooding of the church was a great problem in the early days and the fact that the arches inside are abnormally low - as are the side windows - led the Bury Free Press to report (18th August 1962) that at some time in history the floor had been raised by about 3 feet to prevent flooding. Their information probably come from the Rev. Dr. Welton but we do not know what evidence he had for that. It could just have been the architect's design at the time of building.
The pillars are Norman and are thought to date from about 1225.
St. Mary's Well is situated some way along the road towards Thelnetham. The spring is in a field, near the foot of a healthy looking elder tree. Many people pass it by every day oblivious to its history.
In the past the spring was thought to possess medicinal properties and could cure eye ailments. It was therefore sometimes visited as a place of pilgrimage.
If you have any photographs you would like to add to the collection of memories of the Aston Students’ Guild/Union, please send them to us at alumniinfo@aston.ac.uk and we will add them to this Flickr album.
Whenever we have tried to see inside St Dunstan's in the past, always on a Saturday, there has been a christening taking place, or some other service, which means I have only glimpsed inside before we had to leave as the stares were quite hard from people attending the service.
I left St Spelchure, intending to walk straight to St Magnus, as that was the one church I wanted to visit. I turned of Holborn, thinking I knew the directions, ending up on Fleet Street in the end after all, with the clock of St Dunstan's just a few hundred yards away.
With the rain falling ever harder, I walk past ambling tourists and find my way into the church.
Sadly, I underestimated the darkness inside, and not may shots came out, but we can always go back.
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"St Dunstan in the West, the church of, is situated on the north side of the west end of Fleet Street, where it has been long known as a grievous incumbrance to Hackney and stage coachmen, drivers of omnibuses, and country females. But as it is about to be taken down, to the infinite regret of the city pickpockets, any description of it is unnecessary. It, however, unfortunately for the public, narrowly escaped destruction by the great fire of 1666, the flames having been stopped within three houses of its walls. It has been several times repaired, but it will, ere long,...be removed. It is a church of very ancient foundation, in the gift of the abott and convent of Westminster, who in 1237 gave it to Henry III towards the maintenance of the foundation of the house called the Rolls, for the reception of converted Jews. It was afterwards conveyed to the abbot and convent of Alnwick, in Northumberland, in whom it continued till the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry VIII. Edward VI granted the advowson of this church under the name of a vicarage to Lord Dudley. Soon after this, the rectory and vicarage were granted to Sir Richard Sackville, and the impropriation has ever since remained in private hands.
familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/St_Dunstan_in_the_West
The Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West is in Fleet Street in the City of London, England. It is dedicated to a former Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury. The church is of medieval origin, although the present building, with an octagonal nave, was constructed in the 1830s to the designs of John Shaw.
First founded between AD 988 and 1070, there is a possibility that a church on this site was one of the Lundenwic strand settlement churches, like St Martin in the Fields, the first St Mary le Strand, St Clement Danes and St Brides. These churches may pre-date any within the walls of the city . It is not known exactly when the original church was built, but it was possibly erected by Saint Dunstan himself, or priests who knew him well. It was first mentioned in written records in 1185.[2] King Henry III gained possession of it and its endowments from Westminster Abbey by 1237 and then granted these and the advowson to the "House of Converts" i.e. of the converted Jews, which led to its neglect of its parochial responsibilities. This institution was eventually transformed into the Court of the Master of the Rolls.
The medieval church underwent many alterations before its demolition in the early 19th century. Small shops were built against its walls, St Dunstan's Churchyard becoming a centre for bookselling and publishing.[3] Later repairs were carried out in an Italianate style: rusticated stonework was used, and some of the Gothic windows were replaced with round headed ones, resulting in what George Godwin called "a most heterogeneous appearance".[3] In 1701 the church's old vaulted roof was replaced with a flat ceiling, ornamented with recessed panels.[3]
The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers has been associated with the church since the 15th century. The company holds an annual service of commemoration to honour two of its benefactors, John Fisher and Richard Minge, after which children were traditionally given a penny for each time they ran around the church.
William Tyndale, the celebrated translator of the Bible, was a lecturer at the church and sermons were given by the poet John Donne. Samuel Pepys mentions the church in his diary.[4] The church narrowly escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. The Dean of Westminster roused 40 scholars from Westminster School in the middle of the night, who formed a fire brigade which extinguished the flames with buckets of water to only three doors away.
In the early 19th century the medieval church of St Dunstan was removed to allow the widening of Fleet Street and a new church was built on its burial ground. An Act of Parliament was obtained authorising the demolition of the church in July 1829 and trustees were appointed to carry it into effect. In December 1829 and September 1830 there were auctions of some of the materials of the old church. The first stone of the new building, to the design of John Shaw, Sr. (1776–1832), was laid in July 1831 and construction proceeded rapidly. In August 1832 the last part of the old church, which had been left as a screen between Fleet Street and the new work, was removed.[3]
Shaw dealt with the restricted site by designing a church with an octagonal central space. Seven of the eight sides open into arched recesses, the northern one containing the altar. The eighth side opens into a short corridor, leading beneath the organ to the lowest stage of the tower, which serves as an entrance porch. Above the recesses Shaw designed a clerestory, and above that a groined ceiling. The tower is square in plan, with an octagonal lantern, resembling those of St Botolph, Boston, and St Helen's York. George Godwin Jr suggested that the form of the lantern might have been immediately inspired by that of St George's church in Ramsgate ( where Shaw was architect to the docks), built in 1825 to the designs of H.E. Kendall.[3] John Shaw Sr. died in 1833, before the church was completed, leaving it in the hands of his son John Shaw Jr (1803–1870).
The communion rail is a survivor of the old church, having been carved by Grinling Gibbons during the period when John Donne served as vicar (1624–1631). Some of the monuments from the medieval building were reinstituted in the new church and a fragment of the old churchyard remains between Clifford's Inn and Bream's Buildings.
Apart from losing its stained glass, the church survived the London Blitz largely intact, though bombs did damage the open-work lantern tower.[6] The building was largely restored in 1950. An appeal to raise money to install a new ring of bells in the tower, replacing those removed in 1969, was successfully completed in 2012 with the dedication and hanging of 10 new bells.[7]
The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
On the façade is a chiming clock, with figures of giants, perhaps representing Gog and Magog, who strike the bells with their clubs. It was installed on the previous church in 1671, perhaps commissioned to celebrate its escape from destruction by the Great Fire of 1666. It was the first public clock in London to have a minute hand. The figures of the two giants strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads. There are numerous literary references to the clock, including in Thomas Hughes' Tom Brown's Schooldays, Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, David Lyddal's The Prompter (1810)[9] and a poem by William Cowper. In 1828, when the medieval church was demolished, the clock was removed by art collector Francis Seymour-Conway, 3rd Marquess of Hertford to his mansion in Regent's Park; during World War I, a new charity for blinded soldiers was lent the house, and took the name St Dunstan's from the clock.[10] It was returned by Lord Rothermere in 1935 to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V.
Above the entrance to the old parochial school is a statue of Queen Elizabeth I, taken from the old Ludgate, which was demolished in 1760. This statue, dating from 1586, is contemporaneous with its subject and thought to be the oldest outdoor statue in London. In the porch below are three statues of ancient Britons also from the gate, probably meant to represent King Lud and his two sons.
Adjacent to Queen Elizabeth is a bust of Lord Northcliffe, the newspaper proprietor, co-founder of the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror. Next to Lord Northcliffe is a memorial tablet to James Louis Garvin, another pioneering British journalist.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Dunstan-in-the-West
St.Dunstan-in-the-West has a long and illustrious history. Visitors are often struck by how St. Dunstan’s differs in appearance and style to other Anglican churches. The church looks traditionally Neo-Gothic on the outside, yet is octagonal inside.
Saint Dunstan
Dunstan was one of the foremost saints of Anglo-Saxon England: he was also one of the most venerated before the cult of St Thomas Becket took hold of the popular imagination. He was born in 909 A.D. and was taught by Irish monks at Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset, where he developed a reputation as a formidable scholar. He also learnt metalworking, and was later adopted as the patron saint of Goldsmiths. Dunstan became a companion to King Aethelstan’s stepbrothers, Edmund and Eadred, although he was banished after the king died in 939. He then lived at Glastonbury as a hermit, before being appointed Abbot there in 945. He was appointed as the Bishop of Worcester and then the Bishop of London, before being elected Archbishop of Canterbury in 960. Dunstan sought peace with the Danes and promoted monastic living, as well as establishing the library at Canterbury Cathedral, where he was buried in 988. St Dunstan’s feast day is the 19th May and is still celebrated at this church: in 2013 our Patronal Festival will be held on Saturday 18 May.
The Original Church
The original St Dunstan-in-the-West stood on the same site as today, spilling in the past onto what is now the tarmac of Fleet Street. It is not known exactly when the original church was built, but it was between 988 and 1070 AD. It is not impossible that St Dunstan himself, or priests who knew him well, decreed that a church was needed here. The church narrowly escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. The quick thinking of the Dean of Westminster saved the church: he roused forty scholars from Westminster School in the middle of the night, who extinguished the flames with buckets of water.
The Church is Rebuilt
The wear and tear of time took its toll, however, and St Dunstan’s was rebuilt in 1831. The architect, John Shaw, died in 1832, leaving his son, who bore the same name, to complete the task. The tower was badly damaged by German bombers in 1944, and was rebuilt in 1950 through the generosity of newspaper magnate Viscount Camrose. In 1952, St Dunstan-in-the-West became a Guild Church, dedicating its ministry to the daytime working population around Fleet Street.
The Clock and Giants
St Dunstan-in-the-West was a well-known landmark in previous centuries because of its magnificent clock. This dates from 1671, and was the first public clock in London to have a minute hand. The figures of the two giants strike the hours and quarters, and turn their heads. There are numerous literary references to the clock, including in Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the Vicar of Wakefield and a poem by William Cowper (1782):
When labour and when dullness, club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan’s stand,
Beating alternately in measured time
The clockwork tintinnabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be,
But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.
The courtyard also contains statues of King Lud, the mythical sovereign, and his sons and Queen Elizabeth I, all of which originally stood in Ludgate. The statue of Queen Elizabeth I dates from 1586 and is the only one known to have been carved during her reign. (Please note: we regret that, due to building works, the statue of Queen Elizabeth I is not on view until the autumn of 2013.)
Inside the Church
Much of the internal fabric pre-dates the rebuilding of the church in the 1830s. The high altar and reredos are Flemish woodwork dating from the seventeenth century. There are also a large number of monuments from the original
church. Some of the earliest are two bronze figures thought to date from 1530.
The Organ
The original church has an organ dating from 1674-75 made by Renatus Harris. However, none of the original parts are likely to have remained as over the years it has had to be entirely rebuilt. Much of the present organ dates from 1834, when a Joseph Robson organ was bought at the same time as the Church was being rebuilt. Many distinguished organists have played here, including John Reading, the composer of Adeste Fideles, who died in 1764. Handel was even invited to play here, although whether the great composer ever accepted the invitation remains unknown.
The Romanian Orthodox Church
As well as being an Anglican church, the building of St Dunstan’s is home to the Romanian Orthodox Church in London. The beautiful iconostasis (altar screen) was brought here from a monastery in Bucharest in 1966.
St Dunstan-in-the-West is home to the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association, and is a centre of prayer for Christian Unity. It is therefore appropriate that the side chapels contain altars dedicated to various traditions, including the Lutheran Church in Berlin (EKD). There is also an altar of the Oriental Churches (Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Syrian, Syro-Indian) and a shrine of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. St Dunstan’s continues in its special role of promoting good relations with Churches outside the Anglican Communion, including through its role as the Diocese of London’s Church for Europe.
Other Famous Connections
The poet John Donne held the benefice here from 1624-31, while he was Dean of St Paul’s. William Tyndale, who pioneered the translation of the Bible into English, was a lecturer here. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys worshipped here a number of times. Lord Baltimore, who founded the State of Maryland in the USA, was buried here in 1632, as was his son. The church has been associated with the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers (old English for shoemakers) since the fifteenth century. Once a year the company holds a service here to commemorate the benefactors John Fisher and Richard Minge, after which children used to be given a penny for each time they ran around the church!
The Hoare Bank
The church has long had an association with C. Hoare and Co., whose bank has been situated opposite the church since 1690. The Hoare family donated the four stained glass windows behind the high altar and the carved canopies of the altar-piece. The windows show Archbishop Lanfrance; St Dunstan beside a roaring furnace into which he has thrust his pincers ready to pull a devil’s nose; St. Anselm and Archbishop Langton with King John at the signing of the Magna Carta. Members of the Hoare family, as well as being generous benefactors, have maintained a tradition of service as churchwardens over the centuries. Two have been Lord Mayors of London and a family vault still lies in the church crypt.
The staple of Victorian penny shockers, the story of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, stalks the no-man’s land between urban myth and historical fact. According to some sources, Todd, a barber, tooth-puller and surgeon, did actually exist, and in 1785 set up shop at 186 Fleet Street. It is claimed that he murdered over 100 of his clients, before selling their flesh on to Margery Lovett, who owned a pie shop in nearby Bell Yard!
One of the main reasons for going to Henley-in-Arden was this church at the centre of the town.
It is the Church of St John the Baptist dating from the mid 15th century.
It is in the middle of High Street, to the right of the Guildhall.
It is a Grade I listed building.
Church. c1450 with slightly later north aisle and earlier west
tower; restored 1856 and 1900.
MATERIALS: coursed dressed lias and coursed lias rubble with
ashlar dressings; old tile roof.
PLAN: single-vessel chancel and 4-bay nave; west tower and
north aisle.
EXTERIOR: coped gables with crosses. Chancel has 5-light east
window with renewed Perpendicular tracery and hoodmould with
head stops; diagonal buttresses.
Small C19 gabled vestry to north has tile roof and 2-light
straight-headed window.
North aisle has flying buttress to west end, cornice, parapet
and coped gable; 3-light windows with no hoods, that to east
with renewed tracery.
Nave south elevation has deep plinth, off-set buttresses and
diagonal buttresses, and plain cornice; 3-light windows with
renewed tracery and foliated hood stops.
West end has shallow-gabled porch with plinth, panelled
diagonal buttresses and cornice with crenellated parapet;
entrance has continuous mouldings and depressed arch (other
entrances similar) and hood with beast stops, crockets and
finials, C20 paired battened doors; inner entrance has king
and queen headstops, crockets and paired 9-fielded-panel
doors; south side of porch has cusped panelling flanking
2-light straight-headed window. Renewed 4-light west window
has hood with woman and green man stops, crockets and fleuron.
3-stage west tower has plinth and diagonal buttresses ending
in bases to removed pinnacles; 2-light west window.
Triple-chamfered cusped light to south and west, with
continuous hoodmould; third stage has similar straight-headed
lights; top stage has 2-light transomed bell-openings, the
lower lights with stone infill, upper ones louvred; south side
has stair lights and lozenge-face clock; top cornice and C19
or C20 crenellated parapet.
INTERIOR: nave and chancel has roof with arch-braced cambered
tie beams on angel corbels, queen struts to arch-braced
cambered collars, wind braces and coupled and ashlared common
rafters; north arcade has wide shallow 4-centred arches on
tall octagonal piers, east respond and west corbel in form of
winged beast (cf Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon); chancel
north door.
South and east windows have head stops with large and
elaborate headgear. Aisle has stop-chamfered members to roof;
east window over entrance; 2 north windows with stops similar
to arcade corbel, and north door set inside-out;
double-chamfered tower arch with C19 screen.
FITTINGS: C20 panelling to sanctuary, simple stalls and timber
rail; early C16 pulpit with renewed stone base, panels with
blind tracery over linen-fold with renewed brattished cornice;
plain octagonal font with shallow C17 or C18 bowl; mostly C19
fittings.
MONUMENTS: marble wall tablet to Simon Kempson, d.1719, and
Margaret, d.1699; panel with apron, side pilasters ending in
scrolls and crest with armorial bearing. 2 early C18 floor
slabs, one to Robert Clayton with armorial bearing. Brass
First World War memorial lists causes of death.
STAINED GLASS: 1879 east window; 1865 aisle east window with
figure of Hope set in grisaille; 1882 west window with
pictorial Nativity; south windows of c1856 with decorative
roundels set in grisaille.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: wall connecting north-west angle of tower
with the Guildhall (qv) has 4-centred entrance with plank
door.
HISTORY: believed to have Hanoverian Royal Arms to tower. The
church built as a chapel of ease to the parish church at
Wooton Wawen, and was first mentioned in 1367; the north aisle
was used by the Guild of the Holy Trinity, St John the
Evangelist and St John the Baptist, first mentioned in 1408.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Warwickshire: Harmondsworth:
1966-: 309-10; Shell Guides: Hickman D: Warwickshire: London:
1979-: 112; Victoria County History: Styles P: Victoria
History of the County of Warwickshire: 1945-: 210-11).
Church of St John the Baptist, Henley-in-Arden - Heritage Gateway
Clock on the church tower.
Four of the actors playing the role of Jesus in the 2014 wagon plays, photographed at the Minster.
Left to right, with the plays in which they are acting, and the groups producing them):
Ehren Mierau (The Baptism, Hidden Theatre);
Laurence O'Reilly (The Entry into Jerusalem, York Mystery Plays Supporters Trust);
John Osman (Christ before Annas and Caiaphas, York Settlement Community Players);
John Hoyland (The Crucifixion, the Guild of Butchers and St Chad's).
19 June 2014
SLR2_8487
Diana Lee (Felicia's original Guild Leader), Kim Evey (producer), Amy Okuda, Andrew Seely (2nd AD, PA), Brian Kameoka (marketing/BTS) & Maurissa Tancharoen.
From the Season 4 Wrap Party. Special thanks to sponsors J!NX, Barbarella Bar and Kimura Marketing.
Photo by Brian Kameoka. If you use this photo, please ask permission via The Guild's contact form here (select "press inquiries") and use the following photo credit: PHOTO COURTESY KNIGHTS OF GOOD PRODUCTIONS/BRIAN KAMEOKA
One of the main reasons for going to Henley-in-Arden was this church at the centre of the town.
It is the Church of St John the Baptist dating from the mid 15th century.
It is in the middle of High Street, to the right of the Guildhall.
It is a Grade I listed building.
Church. c1450 with slightly later north aisle and earlier west
tower; restored 1856 and 1900.
MATERIALS: coursed dressed lias and coursed lias rubble with
ashlar dressings; old tile roof.
PLAN: single-vessel chancel and 4-bay nave; west tower and
north aisle.
EXTERIOR: coped gables with crosses. Chancel has 5-light east
window with renewed Perpendicular tracery and hoodmould with
head stops; diagonal buttresses.
Small C19 gabled vestry to north has tile roof and 2-light
straight-headed window.
North aisle has flying buttress to west end, cornice, parapet
and coped gable; 3-light windows with no hoods, that to east
with renewed tracery.
Nave south elevation has deep plinth, off-set buttresses and
diagonal buttresses, and plain cornice; 3-light windows with
renewed tracery and foliated hood stops.
West end has shallow-gabled porch with plinth, panelled
diagonal buttresses and cornice with crenellated parapet;
entrance has continuous mouldings and depressed arch (other
entrances similar) and hood with beast stops, crockets and
finials, C20 paired battened doors; inner entrance has king
and queen headstops, crockets and paired 9-fielded-panel
doors; south side of porch has cusped panelling flanking
2-light straight-headed window. Renewed 4-light west window
has hood with woman and green man stops, crockets and fleuron.
3-stage west tower has plinth and diagonal buttresses ending
in bases to removed pinnacles; 2-light west window.
Triple-chamfered cusped light to south and west, with
continuous hoodmould; third stage has similar straight-headed
lights; top stage has 2-light transomed bell-openings, the
lower lights with stone infill, upper ones louvred; south side
has stair lights and lozenge-face clock; top cornice and C19
or C20 crenellated parapet.
INTERIOR: nave and chancel has roof with arch-braced cambered
tie beams on angel corbels, queen struts to arch-braced
cambered collars, wind braces and coupled and ashlared common
rafters; north arcade has wide shallow 4-centred arches on
tall octagonal piers, east respond and west corbel in form of
winged beast (cf Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon); chancel
north door.
South and east windows have head stops with large and
elaborate headgear. Aisle has stop-chamfered members to roof;
east window over entrance; 2 north windows with stops similar
to arcade corbel, and north door set inside-out;
double-chamfered tower arch with C19 screen.
FITTINGS: C20 panelling to sanctuary, simple stalls and timber
rail; early C16 pulpit with renewed stone base, panels with
blind tracery over linen-fold with renewed brattished cornice;
plain octagonal font with shallow C17 or C18 bowl; mostly C19
fittings.
MONUMENTS: marble wall tablet to Simon Kempson, d.1719, and
Margaret, d.1699; panel with apron, side pilasters ending in
scrolls and crest with armorial bearing. 2 early C18 floor
slabs, one to Robert Clayton with armorial bearing. Brass
First World War memorial lists causes of death.
STAINED GLASS: 1879 east window; 1865 aisle east window with
figure of Hope set in grisaille; 1882 west window with
pictorial Nativity; south windows of c1856 with decorative
roundels set in grisaille.
SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: wall connecting north-west angle of tower
with the Guildhall (qv) has 4-centred entrance with plank
door.
HISTORY: believed to have Hanoverian Royal Arms to tower. The
church built as a chapel of ease to the parish church at
Wooton Wawen, and was first mentioned in 1367; the north aisle
was used by the Guild of the Holy Trinity, St John the
Evangelist and St John the Baptist, first mentioned in 1408.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Warwickshire: Harmondsworth:
1966-: 309-10; Shell Guides: Hickman D: Warwickshire: London:
1979-: 112; Victoria County History: Styles P: Victoria
History of the County of Warwickshire: 1945-: 210-11).
Church of St John the Baptist, Henley-in-Arden - Heritage Gateway
A lantern.
A painting of a covered bridge over a flowing stream in rural New England and a still-life photograph of an arrangement of objects. In the window of the Guild of Boston Artists on Newbury Street in the Back Bay.
The Keep on the Borderlands
Gary Gygax
Area 24. TORTURE CHAMBER/PLAYROOM/FOOD STORAGE:
There are 2 very large, ugly hobgoblins here. Each is equal to a 2 + 1 hit dice monster, one having 10 hit points, the other 8 hit points, and both wear chain mail (AC 5). One also has a whip, as well as a sword, so that he can strike at opponents up to 15’ distant, and if a hit is scored, the whip will jerk the victim off his or her feef and stun (paralyze) him or her for 1-2 melee rounds. However, once closely engaged, the hobgoblin cannot make use of his whip, so he will cast it aside. Each of these monsters has a purse with d6 each copper, silver, and electrum pieces. The larger also has a silver armlet worth 135 gold pieces. They guard 6 prisoners who are chained to the walls. There are two chairs, a small table, a central fire pit, and various implements of torture in the chamber. The keys to the prisoners’ chains are hanging on the wall in the southwest corner.
The prisoners are:
Prisoner #1: A plump, half-dead merchant, scheduled to be eaten tonight in a special banquet. If he is rescued and returned to the KEEP, the Guild will pay a 100 gold piece reward, grant the rescuers honorary Guild status, and exempt them for one year from any fees, dues, taxes, and the like which the Guild would normally collect.
Prisoner #2: An orc (AC 7, HD 1, hp 4, ML 8) who will fight goblins and hobgoblins gladly, if handed a weapon (of course, he will seek to escape from the adventurers at first chance, taking whatever he can with him, and informing his fellows at B. (above), of what happened).
Prisoner #3: A man-at-arms (AC 9 due to no armor, F 1, hp 5, ML 7) who formerly served as a guard for the merchant. He will take service with rescuers for 1 year if an offer is made, for room and board only, if given armor and weapons.
Prisoner #4: A normal female, the merchant’s wife, in fact, who is also slated for the big feast. She will personally reward her rescuers by giving them a dagger +1 she has in her room back at the KEEP.
Prisoner #5: A crazy gnoll (AC 9 due to no armor, HD 2, hp 9, #AT I, D 1-6, Save F2, ML 8) who will snatch up a weapon and attack his rescuers if he is freed. (He will cause only 1-6 points of damage due to his weakened condition.)
Prisoner #6: Another man-at-arms as #3, above, who will behave the same way his companion will.
On Tuesday 7th of March I went to Chipping Campden to photograph three unique businesses, organised by the lovely Wendy Chapman.
There are nine plus photo's on here from the day.
The businesses are: Cherry Press - David Lewis creates letterpress stationery on traditional old printing presses; Louise Pocock Millinery - Louise is an amazing milliner making bespoke creations. She also teaches millinery at the highest level; Hart Gold & Silversmiths, The Guild of Handicraft - Silversmiths using traditional methods in an original studio established in 1888 and still run by the same family.
Created by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Ferguson and Urie in 1880 for the opening of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, this non-figurative stained glass window features design elements typical of their work. It features a latticed "diaper" pattern containing stylised floral designs in yellow. It has a border of coloured squares dispersed with stylised flowers, also a common element of Ferguson and Urie's windows. Each lancet window features two diamond shaped panes, one at the top and one at the bottom of the window, and a central round pane of brightly coloured glass, once again featuring a stylised floral image set into an eight pointed star. A round vent at the top features a Tudor Rose sitting in the middle of an eight pointed star of green and golden yellow.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
The stained glass firm of Ferguson and Urie was established by Scots James Ferguson (1818 – 1894), James Urie (1828 – 1890) and John Lamb Lyon (1836 – 1916). They were the first known makers of stained glass in Australia. Until the early 1860s, window glass in Melbourne had been clear or plain coloured, and nearly all was imported, but new churches and elaborate buildings created a demand for pictorial windows. The three Scotsmen set up Ferguson and Urie in 1862 and the business thrived until 1899, when it ceased operation, with only John Lamb Lyon left alive. Ferguson and Urie was the most successful Nineteenth Century Australian stained glass window making company. Among their earliest works were a Shakespeare window for the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke Street, a memorial window to Prince Albert in Holy Trinity, Kew, and a set of Apostles for the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church. Their palatial Gothic Revival office building stood at 283 Collins Street from 1875. Ironically, their last major commission, a window depicting “labour”, was installed in the old Melbourne Stock Exchange in Collins Street in 1893 on the eve of the bank crash. Their windows can be found throughout the older suburbs of Melbourne and across provincial Victoria.
Hand making Arts and Crafts silver in 2012.
Quote taken from the website of the Hart family, current owners....
"The Guild of Handicraft was founded in 1888 by Charles Ashbee, an architect and devotee of William Morris, its aim to revive craftsmanship, which had been in decline since the industrial revolution.
In 1902, to improve the quality of life for his craftsman, Ashbee moved the Guilds – which included around fifty jewellers, enamelers, woodcarvers, cabinetmakers, silversmiths, French polishers and bookbinders – from workshops in the East End of London to Chipping Camden in the centre of the Cotswolds.
The group, some 200 in all, including wives and children, descended on the town, bringing with them fresh ideas and making the market town a centre for the study of Arts and Crafts and contemporary design in the early part of this century. Although in the long term the experiment was not successful, there were some who stayed on.
Among them was silversmith George Hart, who, in the best traditions of the Guild, passed on his skills to his son Henry.
Henry in turn taught his own son David, who today runs the business with his son William and nephew Julian; Derek Elliott, the fourth member of the studio, also served his apprenticeship with David."
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saintt. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saintt, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
Created by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Ferguson and Urie in 1880 for the opening of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, this non-figurative stained glass window features design elements typical of their work. It features a latticed "diaper" pattern containing stylised floral designs in yellow. It has a border of coloured squares dispersed with stylised flowers, also a common element of Ferguson and Urie's windows. Each lancet window features two diamond shaped panes, one at the top and one at the bottom of the window, and a central round pane of brightly coloured glass, once again featuring a stylised floral image set into an eight pointed star. A round vent at the top features a Tudor Rose sitting in the middle of an eight pointed star of green and golden yellow.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
The stained glass firm of Ferguson and Urie was established by Scots James Ferguson (1818 – 1894), James Urie (1828 – 1890) and John Lamb Lyon (1836 – 1916). They were the first known makers of stained glass in Australia. Until the early 1860s, window glass in Melbourne had been clear or plain coloured, and nearly all was imported, but new churches and elaborate buildings created a demand for pictorial windows. The three Scotsmen set up Ferguson and Urie in 1862 and the business thrived until 1899, when it ceased operation, with only John Lamb Lyon left alive. Ferguson and Urie was the most successful Nineteenth Century Australian stained glass window making company. Among their earliest works were a Shakespeare window for the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke Street, a memorial window to Prince Albert in Holy Trinity, Kew, and a set of Apostles for the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church. Their palatial Gothic Revival office building stood at 283 Collins Street from 1875. Ironically, their last major commission, a window depicting “labour”, was installed in the old Melbourne Stock Exchange in Collins Street in 1893 on the eve of the bank crash. Their windows can be found throughout the older suburbs of Melbourne and across provincial Victoria.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
That time I met Felicia Day... She signed my The Guild book but was very busy and didn't even say hi. Still a big fan, though.
Back to Saturday Market Place.
On the left is the Guildhall of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Or as one of the plaques says - Hall of the Guild of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
I was suprised to find the Town Hall and the older Guildhall had the same architectural design. I guess that back in 1895 the architects decided that the Town Hall should look similar to the Guildhall. Perhaps both are used by the local council.
It is a Grade I listed building.
Guildhall (of the Holy and Undivided Trinity), now part of
civic accommodation. 1422-28; porch and interior alterations
of 1624.
Brick with ashlar and flint dressings. Plain tiled roofs.
Narrow site, set gable-end to street. Two elements. To right
(east) is the gabled guildhall proper, with the Stone Hall
forming the upper 2 floors and lit through a 7-light
Perpendicular arched window with panel tracery. Moulded jambs.
Stone string course divides this from ground floor.
Ground floor is a brick undercroft used, when built, to store
the guilds goods. Originally entered through 2 timber
doorways, these removed and replaced with two 2-light,
round-arched Y-tracery windows. One small 2-light window
flanks right and left. Polygonal corner turrets close
elevation and rise to gabled roof. Whole of facade decorated
with knapped flint squares alternating with stone squares to
produce chequered flushwork.
Original entrance to Stone Hall was via a dog-leg staircase
against west wall. In 1624 present porch built to protect new
staircase; this forms left (west) element in overall design.
Of same materials and with same chequered flushwork.
3 storeys and gabled roof. Diminishing polygonal corner shafts
and string courses at each floor. Central round-headed doorway
with pair of engaged Doric columns. Guttae under flat hood.
Small subsidiary doors either side under lunettes. First floor
lit through 6-light transomed casement. Top floor with a large
re-used coat of arms relating to reign of Elizabeth, and
inscribed Edward Hargae, Mayor, 1624. This flanked by a small
light each side and another in each of returns. When noticed
that coat of arms to Elizabeth was re-used, a new achievement
relating to Charles II was erected on parapet at Restoration
and inscribed William Wharton, Mayor, 1664.
INTERIOR. Porch doorway leads to timber staircase. Fluted
Ionic timber columns on high bases right and left. Balustrade
with fat turned balusters and moulded handrail. Dog-legs to
right to approach entrance to Stone Hall: moulded stone jambs
and arch, with double plank and muntin doors. Stone Hall in 4
bays (originally 6). Chamfered wall arches. Wainscoting from
1895. Roof of crenellated tie beams supported on arched braces
with pierced tracery spandrels. Roof above is scissor-braced,
but boarded. Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Guildhall (of the Holy and Undivided Trinity) - King's Lynn - Heritage Gateway
On the right is a former prison called Gaol House. Now a museum.
It dates to 1784 and housed the towns gaoler, replacing an earlier gaoler's house. There were some prison cells in the late 18th century. It was a Police Station until 1954.
Gaol House is Grade II* listed.
Courthouse and prison, now offices and exhibition centre. 1784
by William Tuck. Gault brick with ashlar dressings. Plain
tiled roof. 3 storeys in 5 bays. Rusticated quoins and string
courses between each floor. Central rusticated field rising
into first floor to terminate in an open pediment: arched
doorway to ground floor below a recessed panel containing iron
shackles and chains. Under pediment is a barred lunette. This
grille pattern repeated in fanlight of the panelled door.
Fenestration of sashes with glazing bars and gauged skewback
arches. Low parapet with a stone achievement bearing a sundial
arm. Gabled roof with internal gable-end stacks. INTERIOR.
Prison yard to rear entered through an iron-clad lattice door
with original fittings. Rectangular yard enclosed by high
walls of surrounding buildings now contains brick cell block
of 1937. Within west and north walls of court are four C18
cells. Round-headed brick openings contain iron-clad timber
doors flanked by shuttered iron lattice grilles. 3 western
cells have groin-vaulted interiors, northern one has flat
brick ceiling.
Gaol House - King's Lynn - Heritage Gateway
Shot from the car park - I erased the car licence plates.
This is The Old Crown at 188 High Street, Deritend, an inn, the oldest building left in Birmingham.
It is Grade II* listed. It claims to date back to 1368, retaining its "black and white" timber frame, although most of the buildings date from the 16th century. It is believed it was constructed between 1450 and 1500, with some evidence dating back to 1492 (the same year the Saracen's Head in Kings Norton was completed).
In 1538 someone called Leyland noted that it was a Mansion House of Timber.
Skermishes were fought nearby during the English Civil War when Prince Rupert's forces invaded Birmingham.
The building was converted into two houses in 1684, and into three in 1693. It remained three houses into the 19th century.
In 1851 the Old Crown was saved from demolition by Joshua Toulmin Smith, and again in 1856 and 1862, by the corporation, and Smith saved it each time.
All the first floor windows date from the 19th century.
The Old Crown - Heritage Gateway
The Old Crown - official website
When I did this, a man came out and asked what I was doing, I told him I was taking photos for my Flickr Account (probably the Landlord)
The Old Crown Inn was built in the late 15th century by the Guild of St John the Baptist of Deritend, one of the two guilds in Birmingham, religious orders to which only the town's richest citizens could belong. Such guilds flourished as a link between the church and secular society, and as well as spiritual support provided members with a form of social security and welfare benefit. This building was originally the Guildhall, where members of the guild met and prayed, and was also a school for the children of the guild members. The Guildhall was timber-built, infilled with wattle and daub, and the original ground floor contains a large meeting hall and smaller master's room. The building was turned into an inn in the 19th century, and has recently been restored.
Above info from Walks Through History: Birmingham by John Wilks
The tour that I went on today was lead by Pat Liddy (who I highly recommend) and sponsored by Dublin City Council (thanks). Toured part of the Liberties and despite the fact that I live not far from the area and despite that I went to Kevin Street College I saw parts of the the city that I never saw before. I will revisit most of the area when the weather is better and I will of course publish some more photographs.
Pat Liddy is a well-known Dublin historian, author and artist who has developed a unique walking tour service for Dublin. Covering the inner city and, by advance request, the coastal villages, waterways, hills and intriguing suburbs, the tours are compiled by Pat Liddy himself based on his years of experience, historical research and the collection of anecdotal and legendary stories of Ireland's Capital City
The Liberties of Dublin, Ireland were manorial jurisdictions that existed since the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century. They were town lands united to the city, but still preserving their own jurisdiction. The most important of these liberties were the Liberty of St. Sepulchre, under the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Liberty of Thomas Court and Donore belonging to the Abbey of St. Thomas (later called the Earl of Meath's Liberty). Today's "Dublin Liberties" generally refer to the inner-city area covered by these two liberties.
Many places in The Liberties still have connections with a turbulent past in which political upheaval or dire poverty were the order of the day. In the 17th century, parts of them became wealthy districts, when the weaving crafts of the immigrant Huguenots had a ready market around the present day Meath Street Market, and a healthy export trade.
In the late 17th century development started in order to house the weavers who were moving into the area. Woolen manufacture was set up by settlers from England, while many Huguenots took up silk weaving, using skills they had acquired in their home country, France. They constructed their own traditional style of house, Dutch Billies, with gables that faced the street. Thousands of weavers became employed in the Coombe, Pimlico, Spitalfields and Weavers' Square.
However, English woolen manufacturers felt threatened by the Irish industry, and heavy duties were imposed on Irish wool exports. The Navigation Act was passed to prevent the Irish from exporting to the whole colonial market, then in 1699 the English government passed the Wool Act which prevented export to any country whatsoever, which effectively put an end to the industry in the Liberties.
A weavers' hall was built by the Weavers' Guild in the Lower Coombe in 1682. In 1745 a new hall was provided, financed by the Huguenot, David Digges La Touche. In 1750 the Guild erected a statue of George II on the front of their hall "as a mark of their sincere loyalty". The hall was demolished in 1965.
In the eighteenth century a revival took place by importing Spanish wool into Ireland, which was helped from 1775 by the Royal Dublin Society, but the events of 1798 and 1803, in which many weavers in the Liberties took part, and the economic decline that set in after the Act of Union, prevented any further growth in this industry in the Liberties.
Similarly, the successful growth of the silk and poplin industries, which was supported by the Royal Dublin Society in the second half of the 18th century, was hindered by an act passed by the Irish government in 1786, which prevented the society from supporting any house where Irish silk goods were sold. When war was declared against France under Napoleon and raw materials were difficult to obtain, the silk weavers suffered greatly.
The final blow came in the 1820s when the British government did away with the tarifs imposed upon imported silk products. From this time on fate of the Liberties was sealed and most of the once-prosperous houses became poverty-stricken tenements housing the unemployed and destitute.
The Tenter House was erected in 1815 in Cork Street, financed by Thomas Pleasants. Before this the poor weavers of the Liberties had either to suspend work in rainy weather or use the alehouse fire and thus were (as Wright expresses it) "exposed to great distress, and not unfrequently reduced either to the hospital or the gaol." The Tenter House was a brick building 275 feet long, 3 stories high, and with a central cupola. It had a form of central heating powered by four furnaces, and provided a place for weavers to stretch their material in bad weather.
Part of the area was redeveloped into affordable housing and parkland by the Iveagh Trust, the Dublin Artisans Dwellings Company and the City Council in the early to mid twentieth century. The appalling slums, dire poverty and hazardous dereliction have now been wiped away, and only a few scattered pockets remain to be demolished.
Created in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Century by Melbourne stained glass manufacturer Ferguson and Urie, the Second Saint Stephen stained glass window and its partner the Martyr Saint Stephen stained glass window may be found in the eastern wall of the north transept of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church. It was presented by Miss Inglis in memorandum. Saint Stephen, is traditionally venerated as the first martyr of Christianity. He was, according to the Acts of the Apostles, a deacon in the early church at Jerusalem who aroused the enmity of members of various synagogues by his teachings. Accused of blasphemy, at his trial, he made a long speech denouncing the Jewish authorities who were sitting in judgment on him and was then stoned to death. His martyrdom was witnessed by Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee who would later become a follower of Jesus and known as Paul the Apostle. The window depicts Saint Stephen beautifully arrayed in a red orarion, the distinguishing vestment of a deacon. In his left hand he holds one of his common attributes; a Gospel book. In his right he holds a sheathed sword. The design of this window is almost identical in design and colour palette to that of a stained glass window of Saint Paul in the Lady Chapel of Christ Church, Brunswick. The latter window is earlier, so this Second Saint Stephen window was obviously modeled on the earlier version. The pane below Saint Stephen features a biblical quote from II Timothy IV - 7 - 8: "I have fought the good fight: henceforth there is laid up for me the Crown."
Miss Inglis was originally from New York, and was possibly allowed to donate a window because she was very wealthy and "contributed generously to the Building Fund" according to the Saint George's Presbyterian Church's 1876 - 1926 Jubilee Souvenir Book. Miss Inglis was heavily involved in good deeds associated to the church including fundraising for different causes and in 1879 made a handsome presentation to the congregation of Saint George's Presbyterian Church of a sterling silver communion service (sadly stolen in 1973 and never recovered), a Bible, a Psalms Book and a Hymn Book.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
The stained glass firm of Ferguson and Urie was established by Scots James Ferguson (1818 – 1894), James Urie (1828 – 1890) and John Lamb Lyon (1836 – 1916). They were the first known makers of stained glass in Australia. Until the early 1860s, window glass in Melbourne had been clear or plain coloured, and nearly all was imported, but new churches and elaborate buildings created a demand for pictorial windows. The three Scotsmen set up Ferguson and Urie in 1862 and the business thrived until 1899, when it ceased operation, with only John Lamb Lyon left alive. Ferguson and Urie was the most successful Nineteenth Century Australian stained glass window making company. Among their earliest works were a Shakespeare window for the Haymarket Theatre in Bourke Street, a memorial window to Prince Albert in Holy Trinity, Kew, and a set of Apostles for the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church. Their palatial Gothic Revival office building stood at 283 Collins Street from 1875. Ironically, their last major commission, a window depicting “labour”, was installed in the old Melbourne Stock Exchange in Collins Street in 1893 on the eve of the bank crash. Their windows can be found throughout the older suburbs of Melbourne and across provincial Victoria.
The tour that I went on today was lead by Pat Liddy (who I highly recommend) and sponsored by Dublin City Council (thanks). Toured part of the Liberties and despite the fact that I live not far from the area and despite that I went to Kevin Street College I saw parts of the the city that I never saw before. I will revisit most of the area when the weather is better and I will of course publish some more photographs.
Pat Liddy is a well-known Dublin historian, author and artist who has developed a unique walking tour service for Dublin. Covering the inner city and, by advance request, the coastal villages, waterways, hills and intriguing suburbs, the tours are compiled by Pat Liddy himself based on his years of experience, historical research and the collection of anecdotal and legendary stories of Ireland's Capital City
The Liberties of Dublin, Ireland were manorial jurisdictions that existed since the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century. They were town lands united to the city, but still preserving their own jurisdiction. The most important of these liberties were the Liberty of St. Sepulchre, under the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Liberty of Thomas Court and Donore belonging to the Abbey of St. Thomas (later called the Earl of Meath's Liberty). Today's "Dublin Liberties" generally refer to the inner-city area covered by these two liberties.
Many places in The Liberties still have connections with a turbulent past in which political upheaval or dire poverty were the order of the day. In the 17th century, parts of them became wealthy districts, when the weaving crafts of the immigrant Huguenots had a ready market around the present day Meath Street Market, and a healthy export trade.
In the late 17th century development started in order to house the weavers who were moving into the area. Woolen manufacture was set up by settlers from England, while many Huguenots took up silk weaving, using skills they had acquired in their home country, France. They constructed their own traditional style of house, Dutch Billies, with gables that faced the street. Thousands of weavers became employed in the Coombe, Pimlico, Spitalfields and Weavers' Square.
However, English woolen manufacturers felt threatened by the Irish industry, and heavy duties were imposed on Irish wool exports. The Navigation Act was passed to prevent the Irish from exporting to the whole colonial market, then in 1699 the English government passed the Wool Act which prevented export to any country whatsoever, which effectively put an end to the industry in the Liberties.
A weavers' hall was built by the Weavers' Guild in the Lower Coombe in 1682. In 1745 a new hall was provided, financed by the Huguenot, David Digges La Touche. In 1750 the Guild erected a statue of George II on the front of their hall "as a mark of their sincere loyalty". The hall was demolished in 1965.
In the eighteenth century a revival took place by importing Spanish wool into Ireland, which was helped from 1775 by the Royal Dublin Society, but the events of 1798 and 1803, in which many weavers in the Liberties took part, and the economic decline that set in after the Act of Union, prevented any further growth in this industry in the Liberties.
Similarly, the successful growth of the silk and poplin industries, which was supported by the Royal Dublin Society in the second half of the 18th century, was hindered by an act passed by the Irish government in 1786, which prevented the society from supporting any house where Irish silk goods were sold. When war was declared against France under Napoleon and raw materials were difficult to obtain, the silk weavers suffered greatly.
The final blow came in the 1820s when the British government did away with the tarifs imposed upon imported silk products. From this time on fate of the Liberties was sealed and most of the once-prosperous houses became poverty-stricken tenements housing the unemployed and destitute.
The Tenter House was erected in 1815 in Cork Street, financed by Thomas Pleasants. Before this the poor weavers of the Liberties had either to suspend work in rainy weather or use the alehouse fire and thus were (as Wright expresses it) "exposed to great distress, and not unfrequently reduced either to the hospital or the gaol." The Tenter House was a brick building 275 feet long, 3 stories high, and with a central cupola. It had a form of central heating powered by four furnaces, and provided a place for weavers to stretch their material in bad weather.
Part of the area was redeveloped into affordable housing and parkland by the Iveagh Trust, the Dublin Artisans Dwellings Company and the City Council in the early to mid twentieth century. The appalling slums, dire poverty and hazardous dereliction have now been wiped away, and only a few scattered pockets remain to be demolished.
I belong to 2 quilt guilds. In March we are hosting a Quilt Festival and this is my donation to raise funds for one of the guilds... It is going to be Silent Auction! Sil, you may recognize the window!!! LOL!
I'd live here in a heartbeat!
37416 leads the Preston to Ormskirk leg of "The Guild & Docker" railtour - 1Z37 05:55 Newport to Preston Docks, near Rufford. 19/11/2005. This is the only time I've ever photted on this line. The train reversed at Ormskirk and the next leg of the tour - to Preston Docks was led by 60042, which was on the rear of the train at this point.
salle à manger d'apparat
table en acajou dressée pour 60 couverts
longue de 15 mètres, nécessite 28 rallonges
nappe en lin d'Irlande de 17 mètres de long
surtout en bronze doré ou centre de table, oeuvre de l'orfèvre Thomire acquis en 1820 appartenait probablement à Pauline Borghèse
argenterie anglaise datant de 1825
lustres de la maison Osler
banqueting hall
mahogany table set for 60 covers
15 meters long needs 28 extension leaves
17 meters long irish linen table cloth
english silverware dating back to 1825
while the guilded bronze epergne (center piece decoration) made
by Thomire is dating back to the time of Pauline Borghese
The decoration and the pieces of furniture are still strongly linked to her
the chandelier from 1860 made by Osler
A view down one of the streets inside the bazaar.
Istanbul, Turkey.
The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with 61 covered streets and over 4,000 shops. The bazaar attracts between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily. In 2014, It is one of the world's most-visited tourist attractions with nearly 100 million annual visitors. The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul is one of the first shopping malls of the world, dating from the mid 1400s.
The following was taken directly from wikipedia and describes the atmosphere of the original bazaar and it's modern equivalent:
"Until the restoration following the quake of 1894, the Grand Bazaar had no shops as found in the western world: along both sides of the roads merchants sat on wooden divans in front of their shelves. Each of them occupied a space 6 to 8 feet in width, and 3 to 4 feet in depth. This was named in Turkish dolap, meaning 'stall'. The most precious merchandise was not on display, but kept in cabinets. Only clothes were hung in long rows, with a picturesque effect. A prospective client could sit in front of the dealer, talk with him and drink a tea or a Turkish coffee, in a relaxed way. At the end of the day, each stall was closed with drapes. Another peculiarity was the complete lack of advertising. Moreover, as everywhere in the East, traders of the same type of goods were forcibly concentrated along one road, which got its name from their profession. The Inner Bedesten hosted the most precious wares: jewelers, armorers, crystal dealers had their shops there. The Sandal Bedesten was mainly the center of the silk trade, but also other goods were on sale there. The most picturesque parts of the market were – apart from the two Bedestens – the shoe market, where thousands of shoes of different colors (Ottoman sumptuary laws prescribed yellow shoes for Muslims, blue for Greek Orthodox, black for Jews and red for Armenians) were on display on high shelves; the spice and herbs market (later concentrated in the Egyptian Bazaar), which stood near the jewelers; the armor and weapon market; the old book market; and the flea market.
This kind of organization disappeared gradually, although nowadays a concentration of the same business along certain roads can be observed again:
Jewellers and gold bracelets along Kalpakçılar Caddesi;
Gold bracelets along Kuyumcular Çarşısı;
Furniture along Divrikli Caddesi;
Carpets along Sahaflar Caddesi;
Leather goods along Perdahçılar Caddesi
Leather and casual clothes at the Bit Pazarı.
Actually, the main reason of concentrating the trade in one place was to provide the highest security against theft, fire and uprising. The goods in the Bedesten were guaranteed against everything except turmoil. Gates were always closed at night, and the bazaar was patrolled by guards paid by the merchants' guilds. In order to access the complex during night hours, an imperial edict was required. The only official night opening in the history of the Bazaar occurred in 1867 during the feast organized for the return of Sultan Abdülaziz from Egypt, when the sovereign crossed the illuminated market riding a horse among the rejoicing populace. Despite the immense wealth present in the Bazaar over the centuries—as an English traveller recorded as late as c. 1870, a tour of the inner Bedesten could easily ruin a few Rothschild families—theft occurred extremely rarely. The most important such incident happened in 1591, when 30,000 gold coins were stolen in the old Bedesten. The theft shocked the whole of Istanbul, the Bazaar remained closed for two weeks and people were tortured, until the money was found hidden under a floor matting. The culprit was a young Persian musk seller. Thanks to the intercession of the Sultan Murad III he was executed by hanging and not by torture.
The ethics of trade in the Market until the Tanzimat age (the mid-19th century) were quite different from the modern ones: indifference to profit, absence of envy in the successes of other traders, and a single and correct price were peculiar traits of the Ottoman bazaar during its golden age. The reason for such behavior lies partly in the ethics of Islam, and partly in the guild system which provided a strong social security net to the merchants. Afterwards, the westernization of the Ottoman society and the influence of the national minorities caused the introduction of mercantile ethics in Ottoman society.
Another peculiarity of the market during the Ottoman age was the total lack of restaurants. The absence of women in the social life and the nomadic conventions in the Turkish society made the concept of restaurant alien. Merchants brought their lunch in a food box called sefertas, and the only food on sale was simple dishes such as doner kebab, tavuk göğsü (a dessert prepared with chicken breast, milk sugar and rose water sprinkled on it) and Turkish coffee. These simple dishes were prepared and served in small two-story kiosks placed in the middle of a road. The most famous among these kiosks is the one—still extant but not functioning any more—placed at the crossing of Halıcılar Caddesi and Acı Çesme Caddesi. It is alleged that Sultan Mahmud II came there often in disguise to eat his pudding. The Bazaar was in the Ottoman Age the place where the people of Istanbul could see each other. Not only was the market the only place in town where the ladies could go relatively easily (and this circumstance made the place especially interesting for the Europeans who visited the city), but it was also the only public place where the average citizen had a chance to meet the members of the Imperial Harem and of the Court.
The Bazaar's merchants were organized in guilds. In order to establish a new one, it was only necessary to have enough traders of the same good. Afterwards, a monopoly was formed and the number of traders and shops was frozen. One could only be accepted in the guild through co-optation, either as son of a deceased member, or after paying a suitable sum to a member who wanted to retire.
Today the Grand Bazaar is a thriving complex, employing 26,000 people and visited by between 250,000 and 400,000 visitors daily, and one of the major landmarks of Istanbul. It must compete with modern shopping malls common in Istanbul, but its beauty and fascination represent a formidable advantage for it. The head of the Grand Bazaar Artisans Association claimed that the complex was in 2011 the most visited monument in the world. A restoration project starting in 2012 to renew its infrastructure, heating and lighting systems. Moreover, the hans inside the Market will be renovated and later additions will be demolished. This project should finally solve the big problems of the market such as the complete lack of proper toilet facilities.
The Grand Bazaar is opened each day except Sundays and bank holidays from 9:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m."
The tour that I went on today was lead by Pat Liddy (who I highly recommend) and sponsored by Dublin City Council (thanks). Toured part of the Liberties and despite the fact that I live not far from the area and despite that I went to Kevin Street College I saw parts of the the city that I never saw before. I will revisit most of the area when the weather is better and I will of course publish some more photographs.
Pat Liddy is a well-known Dublin historian, author and artist who has developed a unique walking tour service for Dublin. Covering the inner city and, by advance request, the coastal villages, waterways, hills and intriguing suburbs, the tours are compiled by Pat Liddy himself based on his years of experience, historical research and the collection of anecdotal and legendary stories of Ireland's Capital City
The Liberties of Dublin, Ireland were manorial jurisdictions that existed since the arrival of the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century. They were town lands united to the city, but still preserving their own jurisdiction. The most important of these liberties were the Liberty of St. Sepulchre, under the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Liberty of Thomas Court and Donore belonging to the Abbey of St. Thomas (later called the Earl of Meath's Liberty). Today's "Dublin Liberties" generally refer to the inner-city area covered by these two liberties.
Many places in The Liberties still have connections with a turbulent past in which political upheaval or dire poverty were the order of the day. In the 17th century, parts of them became wealthy districts, when the weaving crafts of the immigrant Huguenots had a ready market around the present day Meath Street Market, and a healthy export trade.
In the late 17th century development started in order to house the weavers who were moving into the area. Woolen manufacture was set up by settlers from England, while many Huguenots took up silk weaving, using skills they had acquired in their home country, France. They constructed their own traditional style of house, Dutch Billies, with gables that faced the street. Thousands of weavers became employed in the Coombe, Pimlico, Spitalfields and Weavers' Square.
However, English woolen manufacturers felt threatened by the Irish industry, and heavy duties were imposed on Irish wool exports. The Navigation Act was passed to prevent the Irish from exporting to the whole colonial market, then in 1699 the English government passed the Wool Act which prevented export to any country whatsoever, which effectively put an end to the industry in the Liberties.
A weavers' hall was built by the Weavers' Guild in the Lower Coombe in 1682. In 1745 a new hall was provided, financed by the Huguenot, David Digges La Touche. In 1750 the Guild erected a statue of George II on the front of their hall "as a mark of their sincere loyalty". The hall was demolished in 1965.
In the eighteenth century a revival took place by importing Spanish wool into Ireland, which was helped from 1775 by the Royal Dublin Society, but the events of 1798 and 1803, in which many weavers in the Liberties took part, and the economic decline that set in after the Act of Union, prevented any further growth in this industry in the Liberties.
Similarly, the successful growth of the silk and poplin industries, which was supported by the Royal Dublin Society in the second half of the 18th century, was hindered by an act passed by the Irish government in 1786, which prevented the society from supporting any house where Irish silk goods were sold. When war was declared against France under Napoleon and raw materials were difficult to obtain, the silk weavers suffered greatly.
The final blow came in the 1820s when the British government did away with the tarifs imposed upon imported silk products. From this time on fate of the Liberties was sealed and most of the once-prosperous houses became poverty-stricken tenements housing the unemployed and destitute.
The Tenter House was erected in 1815 in Cork Street, financed by Thomas Pleasants. Before this the poor weavers of the Liberties had either to suspend work in rainy weather or use the alehouse fire and thus were (as Wright expresses it) "exposed to great distress, and not unfrequently reduced either to the hospital or the gaol." The Tenter House was a brick building 275 feet long, 3 stories high, and with a central cupola. It had a form of central heating powered by four furnaces, and provided a place for weavers to stretch their material in bad weather.
Part of the area was redeveloped into affordable housing and parkland by the Iveagh Trust, the Dublin Artisans Dwellings Company and the City Council in the early to mid twentieth century. The appalling slums, dire poverty and hazardous dereliction have now been wiped away, and only a few scattered pockets remain to be demolished.
The National Bargello Museum is housed in the former Palace of the Capitain of the People. According to Vasari, the original core, dating to 1255, was built following a design by a certain Lapo, father of Arnolfo di Cambio, and corresponds to the site overlooking Via del Proconsolo: this was the city's oldest seat of government.
From the late 13th century to 1502 the Palace was the official residence of the Podestà, the magistrate who governed the city and who, by tradition, had to come from another town.
Around 1287 the balcony was built, a beautiful loggia overlooking the courtyard where the Podestà often held meetings with the representatives of the guilds and corporations.
The tower, which predates the rest of the building, held a bell known as La Montanina, which rang to call the Florentine citizens to gather in case of war or siege.
In 1502 the palace became the headquarters of the Council of Justice and of the Police, whose head was known as the Bargello. In 1786, when the grand duke Pietro Leopoldo abolished the death penalty, the torture instruments were burnt in the courtyard.
The prisons remained in use until 1857, when they were transferred to the former Murate convent; the palace underwent complete restoration after this date under the guidance of the architect, Francesco Mazzei.
The Guild
Atlantis Theme
March 1st to March 31st
maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Abnormality/132/122/1756
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L$599 each
The continuation of the Mythora Skin Line, with the new additions to the full colourstory. These ones are all watery based colours
These are EvoX only. The Body part is SLUV based or Cinnamon & Chai Based, for Chai only.
There is a Normal and Cleavage version. Each comes with BOM and Universal Version for each of the variations.
Each Tone comes with Eyebrows, Freckles, Blush and Pubes all as separate BOM and Universal Layers. Tintable versions of each are included. There is an Eyebrow shaper too.
My Orcs live in a hidden valley deep in the mountains known only as The Shade. This gate secures the entrance to that valley.
This was built for the Lands of Classic Castle roleplay. It is my first apprentice level build for the Guild of Heroes.
Courtesy of Phil Barrett BSc Electronic Engineering & Computer Science 1992
If you have any photographs you would like to add to the collection of memories of the Aston Students’ Guild/Union, please send them to us at alumniinfo@aston.ac.uk and we will add them to this Flickr album.
The church today dates from the late 15th century, although it replaced an earlier building.
It is thought that the original church was ruined after the sack of the town in 1461. However, other churches were little damaged, so a more likely reason is that it was neglected by the nuns who owned it at the time.
The present church was built in the 1480s.
There is a western tower, clerestoried nave with north and south aisles which clasp the tower, chancel with north and south chapels, and south porch. The church is built in limestone ashlar with lead roofs.
Externally, the nave and chancel have embattled parapets, the windows are late Perpendicular.
The tower is of four stages and has an embattled parapet with pinnacles. A spire was intended but never built. The tower is very similar to that of Saint John's church nearby.
The south porch has two storeys, the upper one is now a Chapel, accessible by a narrow spiral stairway.
It is probable that the plan of the nave follows that of the earlier building, as the aisles are fairly narrow.
They have arcades of four bays with slim piers and angel corbels holding shields with the Arms of 15th century Bishops of Lincoln. The north aisle at its eastern end terminates at a 19th century arch which was built when the Burghley Chapel was extended.
There was a western Gallery in the nave until the late 19th century.
The font is octagonal with a window tracery design, from the early 14th century, and is probably from the earlier church.
The chancel was altered with the installation of the tomb of William Cecil in 1598. The north chapel was extended to accommodate his monument.
The chancel arch has remains of entrances to a Rood screen which was probably removed in the late 16th century.
In 1865 the Burghley Chapel was extended on its north side and a further arch was inserted at the eastern end of the north aisle which blocked the entrance to the Rood loft stairway.
The south Chapel is occupied by the organ, but originally housed the Guild of St Martin.
The church has three large monuments, the largest is that to William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520-1598), once described as "one of the finest examples of its kind in existence", probably by Cornelius Cure. William's parent's monument is located nearby. There is also a large monument to John Cecil, fifth Earl of Exeter and his wife, of white marble with semi-reclining and standing figures either side.
There are numerous other wall tablets throughout the church.
The church was refurbished in 1844 by Edward Browning, and has low box pews in the nave. There are further box pews and choir stalls in the chancel which also has geometric patterned tiles.
There are five windows containing reset mediaeval glass including much from Tattershall church. The windows were assembled by Peckitt of York in 1759/60, with several incorporating rather garish patterned glass. The east window is of five lights with reset glass from the second half of the 15th century and Shields from the 16th century.
The organ is a two manual by Bevington from circa 1889.
1968 was a year of student demonstrations internationally. University of Birmingham students occupied the Great Hall and Aston Webb building for a week in late November and early December that year. The unrest was the result of the perceived failure by the University to accept the demands of the Guild of Students for students to be represented on University committees such as Council and Senate in order to play a role in how the University was run
Reference: UA10/15
Courtesy of Phil Barrett BSc Electronic Engineering & Computer Science 1992
If you have any photographs you would like to add to the collection of memories of the Aston Students’ Guild/Union, please send them to us at alumniinfo@aston.ac.uk and we will add them to this Flickr album.
THis is where the story begins. Well, almost.
On a sunny day in the early autumn of 1965, the baby Jelltex was baptised here, and there are photographs of me being held by both Godmothers.
Despite living, literally, down the road for four years in the previous decade, since that baptism, I have not seen inside St Michael. Indeed it was locked on this occasion too.
I see now it is unusual with the tower in the middle of the nave, and so I wonder what its history could be.
Unbeknown to me, I knew a keyholder, and when I mentioned I had been trying to see inside for years, she said, will Friday morning do? It will indeed.
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Hemmed in by the sea on one side, the town of Lowestoft sprawls relentlessly in the other three directions, like a liquid flowing downhill. The quality of the urban landscape is not, quite frankly, very high. In Pevsner's The Buildings of England: Suffolk, 22 pages are given to Bury St Edmunds and 20 to Ipswich; but Lowestoft receives just six, and most of this taken up by St Margaret, the medieval Borough parish church.
But Oulton is a pleasant enough space, protected from the industrial horrors of central Lowestoft by the charming Normanston Park, and from 19th century Oulton Broad by the open lake of the same name. There was considerable building here in that century, and the parish was home to the Lowestoft area workhouse; the workhouse chapel survives.
And right on the edge of the suburb, right on the edge of Lowestoft, so that the wide marshes stretch beyond it into Norfolk, is St Michael, Oulton, one of the modern Borough's six medieval churches.
St Michael was once a cruciform church with a central tower, an uncommon pattern in Suffolk, and one not recorded too many times on this site. Eyke, Dallinghoo, Pakenham and Ousden spring to mind, and possibly Brockley.
The transepts have gone, and the tower is a replacement of the 18th century and later. Walking around the outside, though, there are a couple of points of interest.
Surviving in the south wall is the outline of an arch. In the days when this was a Catholic church, it probably led into the chantry chapel of the guild of the Holy Trinity, and was obviously left disused, and filled in, after the Reformation.
The 14th century priest's doorway has a fine, fierce grotesque corbel above it, with flaring nostrils. It's probably not in its original place.
The south porch is nice on the outside, but rather grimly repainted on the inside.
There are two curious alcoves in the inside east wall, the left hand one of which was probably for a holy water stoup - but again, they may not be in their original places.
The Norman doorway is not one of Suffolk's finest.
The key (of which more in a moment) lets us into the priest's door, and, as always in churches with central towers, one is struck by the extent to which the chancel is cut off from the nave. It is also higher than the nave.
Also striking is the lurid chancel carpet - not quite competition for the one at Tuddenham St Martin, but alarming just the same.
The results of the 1857 restoration are plain to see, and one of them was the theft at that time of the two fine brasses in the chancel floor, which were no doubt melted down soon after.
However, Henry Davy had taken copies of them, and replicas made from these lie in their place. The single man is Adam Bacon, who was a priest here.
Dating from 1318, it was the earliest English brass to depict a priest wearing Mass vestments, and its loss is a grievous one.
No less interesting are the couple in the other brass. The man is none other than Sir John Fastolfe, immortalised by Shakespeare as Sir John Falstaff. I understand that he was rather less jolly in real life.
He lies with Katharine, his wife.
Stepping beneath the tower, we look up at two interesting things. Firstly, the door high up in the east nave wall. This is to the tower stairs, and shows that access to the tower was via the rood loft.
Secondly, a rare coat of arms of James II, which apparently came from a London church, although there seems to be some disagreement about exactly which one.
The gallery at the west end is rather fine, and still bears a dedicatory inscription: Erected at the expense of the patron of this Rectory and some of the principal landowners and inhabitants 1836.
There is a good view of the church below from it.
On my visit, the church was packed with trestle tables and jumble for the following day's summer fete, which was at least a sign of a bit of life in the parish. I was not surprised to find the church locked (all Lowestoft churches are kept locked) but I was surprised to find a keyholder listed. I hastened to collect it, but was treated with much suspicion, being questioned as to my motives, having to prove my identity and offer up my cheque guarantee card (which was copied) to obtain the key. As the keyholder was the Rector, this made me rather sad.
About six months after this entry first appeared, I received a rather extraordinary e-mail about it. It appeared to come from a member of the parish, although for reasons that I hope are apparent, I'm withholding the sender's name. In part, it read:
Your guide appears somewhat derogatory and biased. As someone who frequently visits churches, you should know they are generally locked.
Now, this simply isn't true. Most Suffolk parish churches, indeed most English parish churches, are kept open.
However, the e-mail continued: St Michael's is locked because of its isolated position, and because the insurers will not insure it open and unattended and being a small congregation do not have the personnel to be there.
I thought this was also sad. Even so, it struck me as strange that Evangelists for Christ's Word on Earth should be more concerned about protecting their property than being open as an act of witness.
I read on: Surely a phone call to the incumbent - and you know where bonafide enquirers may obtain the numbers - would be the best way of introducing yourself, and to make sure that the church could be conveniently opened. At St Michael's this would have avoided your photograph in bad taste of the church interior as the Summer Fete was being prepared.
It might also have meant that more interesting information about St Michael, Oulton could have been given to you, and a guide produced without the need to include comments which appear to have been made as a result of an ill-planned visit and subsequent unpleasant meeting with a key holder, who happened to be the Rector.
All St Michael's key holders are expected to get identification from anybody asking for a key to the church, and not known to them personally, especially when the request is from someone not dressed as would be normally expected for their purpose in the area.
While St Michael, Oulton is in the care of the present generation, it is intended that all will be done to preserve it for the future.
Well, as you can imagine, this made me breathe out in exasperation. What, then, is the point in being a Church? Most people who turn to God do not do so by turning up for a church service. Most wander into an empty church, perhaps more than once, and respond to its prayerful silence over a period of time, before taking the plunge and joining the community for worship.
This would not be possible in Oulton, or almost anywhere in Lowestoft. Someone seeking salvation in Lowestoft would be hard-pressed to do so in a Christian building. There is only one Lowestoft church that opens its doors to strangers (thank God there is one!) and that is Our Lady Star of the Sea, the Catholic church in the town centre.
But I think that our churches are there for the whole People of God, not just for the Sunday club of believers. When the Victorians tried to resacramentalise the parish churches of England, they were very fond of a quotation from the Book of Genesis: This is the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven. They inscribed this above the entrance to many of Suffolk's churches.
An open church is the greatest act of witness a parish can make. By simply locking our churches, insuring them, and 'preserving' them for the future, we may find that we end up with no future for which to preserve them. Is it possible that, by keeping our church doors locked, we are barring the Gate of Heaven against the People of God?
Oh, and I'm still trying to work out exactly what someone not dressed as would be normally expected for their purpose in the area means. Does it mean me? Oh dear. My advice to anyone seeking salvation in the west Lowestoft area is to smarten up a bit, and phone ahead. Otherwise, maybe God won't get to hear about it.
www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/oultonmike.html
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Lothingland is called in Domesday Book the Half Hundred of Ludingaland, and was returned as the King's Estate. It appears to have formed a portion of the Hundred of Ludinga, which was afterwards termed the Half Hundred of Mutford. (fn. 1) Lothingland continued to be considered as a Half Hundred only till the year 1763, when it was incorporated with the Mutford division as the Hundred of Mutford and Lothingland. It lies in the Archdeaconry of Suffolk, and gives name to a Deanery which embraces all the incorporated parishes; and in judicial affairs is comprehended in the Beccles division. It forms the north-eastern point of the county of Suffolk, and extends about ten miles in length, though its greatest breadth does not exceed five. It varies much in soil, but must be considered, on the whole, as a fertile district.
It is bounded on the east by the German Ocean, against whose encroachments it opposes a bold range of cliffs, except for about three miles towards the north, where it is separated from the sea by a narrow peninsula of sand, called Yarmouth Denes, and by the River Yare, which mingles with the waters of the ocean at Gorleston. On the north, this Hundred is encompassed by Breydon, a salt-water lake, now the shallow basin of the once impetuous Gar. The navigable River Waveney washes its western side with its winding tides, while Oulton Broad and Lake Lothing form its southern boundary; which, uniting with the ocean near Lowestoft, insulate the district.
This insular character of Lothingland, which it possessed from the remotest period of history, was destroyed in the early part of the last century by the action of the tides, and the fury of the eastern gales, which "play the tyrant" on the coasts of East Anglia. Their combined agency raised a barrier of sand and pebbles about a quarter of a mile wide, across the ancient mouth of Lake Lothing, by which all communication between the sea and the river was interrupted. Occasionally, at high tides, the sea broke over this barrier, as if desirous to regain its former dominion. The last irruption which happened at this place occurred on the 14th of December, 1717, when the sea forced its way over the beach with such irresistible violence as to carry away Mutford Bridge at the distance of two miles from the shore. To guard, however, against future damages, a breakwater was erected between Lowestoft and Kirkley, which effectually resisted all subsequent attacks of the ocean, and across which the mail-coach road from Yarmouth to London was formed. Lothingland thus continued a peninsula till the year 1831, when, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament obtained to transport sea-borne vessels to Norwich by Lake Lothing, a navigable cut was made through the recently formed isthmus, and Lothingland became once more an island. Strong lock-gates were placed at the inner extremity of this cut, to prevent the too impetuous entry of the tides, if danger should be apprehended, and barriers of a like description erected at Mutford Bridge, where there is a dam of earth, which forms a causeway of communication between the opposite shores, and divides the Lake from Oulton Broad. The flow of the tide is permanently resisted here, which is not suffered to pass the lock, as the port of Yarmouth claims the flood and the ebb in Oulton Broad and the Waveney.
At an inquisition, held at Lowestoft, in 1845, before Joseph Hume, Esq., M.P., Chairman of the Royal Tidal Harbours Commissioners, it was shown by Mr. Hodges, Engineer of the Lowestoft Harbour, that the difference between the water on one side and on the other of Mutford Lock was sometimes seven feet, in consequence of the land floods. On the Lothing side, during high water, the tide is four feet higher than the water in Oulton. The tide which flows into Oulton Broad by the Waveney, from Yarmouth, is four hours and a half later than the tide in Lake Lothing.
The fee of the Hundred continued in the Crown as a Royal demesne, from the time of the Conquest to the reign of Henry III. By the latter monarch it was granted to John Baliol and the Countess Devorgill, his wife, and passed to John Baliol, King of Scotland; but upon this King's renouncing his homage to Edward I., this, and all his English estates, became forfeited to the Crown. By Edward I. the fee of the Hundred was granted, in 1306, to John de Dreux, Earl of Richmond, his sister's son. John de Dreux, nephew and heir of the former Earl, died in 1341, in possession of it; and in 1376 it appears to have been held by the Earl of Surrey. It next passed into the hands of Michael de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, whose descendant, Edmund de la Pole, lost it by attainder of High Treason, in the reign of Henry VIII., when it was regranted by that monarch to Edmund Jernegan, Esq., and Mary his wife, and subsequently passed, as the Hundred of Mutford, through the families of Allin and Anguish, to its present possessor, Samuel Morton Peto, Esq.
In 1561, the island of Lothingland returned the following list of freeholders: Laystoft, 16; Gunton, 2; Belton, 4; Bradwell, 1; Borowcastell, 4; Somerleyton, 7; Heringfleet, 4; Ffritton, 3; Gorleston, 6; Hopton, 1; Lound, 2; Blundeston, 10; Corton, 6; Ashby, 2. (fn. 2) Francis Jessup, of Beccles, was appointed Will. Dowsing's substitute for "Lethergland and Bungay."
The coast line of Lothingland has suffered very considerable changes within the last few centuries; for the village of Newton, recorded in Domesday, and lying contiguous to Corton, has been entirely swept away, with a portion of the latter parish; whilst the point, or Ness, at Lowestoft, has been gradually extending itself into the sea. It was lately shown, before Mr. Hume and the Tidal Harbours Commissioners, that this point had extended 132 yards eastward since the year 1825.
www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/suffolk-history-antiq...
Attending the funeral of London Town crier Peter Moore - God bless him!
Noisy tribute for Peter Moore, London's town crierLucy Bannerman A tricorne, plumed with white ostrich feathers, and a brass bell were placed upon his coffin.
Then, proudly making more noise than the average mourner, a dozen men and women rang out their last respects for Peter Moore, the London town crier who has fallen silent after 30 years of service.
“Bells up,” boomed the man in gold-buckled shoes, as the coffin was carried by. “Goodbye Peter and God save the Queen.”
Hundreds of friends, family and colleagues gathered at St George’s Cathedral in Southwark, Central London, today to celebrate the man who has been making toasts and amusing tourists in the capital since 1979.
Mr Moore died in his sleep, aged 70, at his home in Wandsworth, South London, last month.
At the requiem, held this afternoon, fellow town criers from Banbury, Brighton, Colchester and Kidderminster joined colleagues from across the country to pay tribute to the man with the formidable voice.
They were accompanied by local mayors in full insignia, freemasons, men in red fur-trim and members of the Guild of Pearly Kings and Queens from across the capital.
One man was consipicuous by his absence, however.
“I thought Boris might have come,” muttered one crier, clearly disappointed that the Mayor of London was otherwise engaged.
Town criers have been proclaiming news around London’s marketplaces since the 13th century.
Mr Moore was brought up by Barnardo’s in Walsall, in the West Midlands, but “ran away to seek his fortune in London”, according to friends.
He became an actor and played Mr Sowerberry, the undertaker, in the original stage production of Oliver! in 1960, before accepting a role as a town crier for an event.
“It was almost his vocation,” said Canon James Cronin, the cathedral dean, during the Catholic service.
“He loved London, he loved England and its institutions. And he did love a gullible American.”
Mr Moore’s theatrical performances were heard regularly around Trafalgar Square, the Tower of London and Parliament Square. With the motto, "Have bell, will travel" he had appeared in every New Year’s Day parade since the event began in 1987, and was due to receive a lifetime achievement award at the latest parade. However, he died just days before the ceremony.
Tony Uppleton, a town crier from Essex, who boasts the twin titles of Lord of the Manor, Great Baddow and Town Crier of the Year 2001, remembered Mr Moore as a close friend and mentor.
“Peter helped me when I started out, giving me tips on how to project the voice and shout from the stomach.
“He also told me to get my white tights from the ballet shop, my bell from Bow’s in Whitechapel. But he did get annoyed when I got white ostrich feathers for my hat, just like him. Made me change the colours,” said Mr Uppleton, pointing to the feathers, which were respectfully changed to red and blue. “I had to go Union Jack,” he added.
“Peter was a wonderful crier,” recalled Alan Myatt, town crier for Market Stables, in Camden, as he prepared to ring out the funeral procession. Mr Myatt should know – he once recorded a cry of 112 decibels.
“London was lucky to have him,” said Barrie Anderson, mayor of Lewisham, dressed in his red mayoral insignia for the service.
“He seemed to know exactly how to make an occasion. He never ignored protocol and yet he could put everyone at their ease, and that is not an easy thing to do.”
Mr Moore suffered a heart attack in the summer but carried on promoting London up until his death.
Doreen Golding, a pearly queen from the Old Kent Road, said: “Peter had the presence and the personality. It will be a hard act to follow.”
In a statement paying tribute to Mr Moore, Boris Johnson said: “Peter Moore was a highly spirited, charismatic individual who dedicated his life to the historical art of town crying.
“He participated in thousands of high-profile events across the city and I am one of the many Londoners who will hold fond memories of his famous, unique cries. “
A spokeswoman for Mr Johnson said: "The Mayor was deeply saddened to hear about Mr Moore's death but unfortunately due to diary commitments he was unable to attend the funeral."
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6992866.ece?toke...
To my Dear China Plates (mates)
I had my coronation as the Pearly King of Peckham in 1958 down the Old Kent Road, after being a Pearly Prince from the age of seven.
In February 2008 will be my 50th Golden Anniversary as the Pearly King of Peckham.
During that time I have brought into the Pearly Kings and Queens World by introducing Ron Keeble the Pearly King of Shepherd's Bush and his trouble and strife (wife) Dot his Pearly Queen and in turn his two sons Steven and Wayne, and Daughter Nicola.
I know that I had made the right choice because they were a caring family who thought of others with the many charities needing support and of course not forgetting the good old cockney spirit to stand up and fight for those charities in great need.
That was in 1976 and since then has proved that my choice was that of the right one.
I take my hat off to them and another couple dear Eddie and Flo Cheer the Pearly king and Queen of Fulham who also held them qualities whom I introduced in 1976.
Then there is Ricky Conway a great Pearly who I already knew as a Pearly but found him and his family a title Pearly King and Queen of Deptford along with his Princesses all with the above qualities, who brought alive with his musical input.
Between all the above Pearlies mentioned they have raised thousands and thousands of pounds for many charities.
They have brought brightness into many dull lives which now brings me to my old china plate Sir Norman Wisdom who is so genuine whom I admire, who never forgot his roots even after a tough childhood that he survived.
Sir Norman Wisdom who is well known for bringing laughter happiness and smiles too many of faces, that is why I made him into the Honourable Pearly King of comedy, which again in turn has done so much for others.
Then finally we have Lord Jeffery Archer who I made into an Honourable Pearly King of charity who outstrips us all for his endless work raising bees and honey (money) for charity that amounts into millions and also a man who thinks of others.
He has most certainly helped me to be more determined to bring my dream of a Cockney Museum alive.
I am proud to put their names on my website www.pearlykingofpeckham.com.
Unfortunately, the great pearlys of by-gone days have left us.
The ones that have done so much for charity also that have given hope and happiness to many, long may they not be forgotten.
Not much is known about the foundation of Braunschweig. Tradition tells, Brunswick (= Braunschweig) was created through the merger of two settlements on either side of the River Oker around 860.
The city was first mentioned in documents from the St. Magni Church in 1031. Up to the 12th century, Brunswick was ruled by the Saxon noble family, then, through marriage, it fell to the House of Welf. In 1142, Henry the Lion of the House of Welf became Duke of Saxony and made Braunschweig the capital of his state. He turned Dankwarderode Castle into his own Pfalz and developed the city further to represent his authority. Under Henry's rule, the Cathedral of St. Blasius was built and he also had the statue of a lion, his heraldic animal, erected in front of the castle.
Henry the Lion became so powerful that he dared to refuse military aid to Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, which led to his banishment in 1182. Henry went into exile in England. He had previously established ties to the English crown in 1168, through his marriage to King Henry II of England's daughter Matilda, sister of Richard the Lionheart. However, his son Otto, who could regain influence and was eventually crowned Holy Roman Emperor, continued to foster the city's development.
Brunswick was an important center of trade, an economic and a political centers and a member of the Hanseatic League from the 13th century on. By the year 1600. Brunswick was the seventh largest city in Germany. It was de facto ruled independently by a powerful class of patricians and the guilds throughout much of the Late Middle Ages and the early modern period. Because of the growing power of Brunswick's burghers, the Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel finally moved their Residenz out of the city and to the nearby town of Wolfenbüttel in 1432. The Princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel did not regain control over the city until the late 17th century, when Rudolph Augustus, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, took the city by siege.
St. Blasii Cathedral was built in 1173 as a collegiate church by order of Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, opposite his Dankwarderode Castle and designated by him as the burial place of him and his second wife Matilda of England. The cathedral was consecrated in 1226.
The construction of the church was disrupted several times during the various exiles of Henry the Lion, so that he and his consort were both buried in an unfinished church.
In 1543, at the time of the Protestant Reformation, the church came into Lutheran use. Its college was dissolved.
The cathedral is the burial place of Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor (1175 - 1218) and Caroline of Brunswick, Queen Consort of George IV of the United Kingdom.
The Vines, 81 Lime Street, Liverpool, 1907.
By Walter William Thomas (1849-1912).
Walkers Ales of Warrington.
Grade ll* listed.
See also:-
pubheritage.camra.org.uk/pubs/112
breweryhistory.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vines,_Liverpool
www.govserv.org/GB/Liverpool/236929139665303/The-Vines-%2...
m.facebook.com/The-Vines-the-Big-House-236929139665303/
ymliverpool.com/historic-lime-street-pub-vines-plans-attr...
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/07/liverpool-pu...
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The Vines public house
Statutory Address: 79-87 Lime Street, Liverpool, L1 1JQ
Grade II* Listed
List Entry Number: 1084210
National Grid Reference: SJ3505890334
Summary
Public house, 1907, by Walter Thomas for Robert Cain & Sons. Neo-Baroque style.
Reasons for Designation
The Vines, constructed in 1907 to the designs of Walter W Thomas for Robert Cain & Sons, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* it has an impressive neo-Baroque design with flamboyant principal elevations that maximise its prominent corner location;
* its imposing composition and highly ornate interior reflect the status, wealth and ambition of Robert Cain who sought to create public houses of great beauty;
* the interior decoration is of a superior quality and includes plasterwork by the Bromsgrove Guild and H Gustave Hiller, carved mahogany woodwork throughout, repousse copper panels, and a stained-glass dome in the former billiards room;
* the interior retains high-quality original fixtures and fittings, including elaborate fireplaces, carved baffles with Art Nouveau stained glass, ornate wall panelling, arcaded screens, a striking wave-shaped beaten-copper bar counter in the lounge, and Art Nouveau fireplaces in the upper-floor accommodation.
Group value:
* it has strong group value with its sister building, the nearby Grade I-listed Philharmonic Dining Rooms, which was also designed by Walter W Thomas for Robert Cain & Sons, as well as other listed buildings on Lime Street and Ranelagh Place, including the Grade II-listed Crown Hotel, Adelphi Hotel and former Lewis's department store.
History
The Vines was constructed in 1907 to the designs of Walter W Thomas for the Liverpool brewery Robert Cain & Sons and replaced an early-C19 pub operated by Albert B Vines from 1867; hence the current pub's name. The interior decoration includes works by the Bromsgrove Guild and H Gustave Hiller.
Walter W Thomas (1849-1912) was a Liverpool architect who is best known for his public house designs, but who also produced designs for Owen Owen's department store known as Audley House, and houses around Sefton Park. As well as The Vines, Thomas also designed The Philharmonic Dining Rooms (1898-1900, Grade I) on Hope Street for Robert Cain & Sons, and rebuilt The Crown (1905, Grade II) for Walkers Brewery of Warrington, which is also on Lime Street.
Robert Cain (1826-1907) was born in Ireland but grew up in Liverpool. As a teenager he became an apprentice to a cooper on board a ship carrying palm oil from West Africa and after returning to Liverpool in 1844 he established himself first as a cooper, and then subsequently as a brewer in 1848. Cain began brewing at a pub on Limekiln Lane, but soon moved to larger premises on Wilton Street, and finally to the Mersey Brewery on Stanhope Street in 1858, which Cain extended in the late C19 and early C20. As well as brewing Cain also invested in property, built pubs, and ran a hotel adjacent to the Mersey Brewery. As his brewery business grew (known as Robert Cain & Sons from 1896) it bought out smaller brewers and took control of their pubs, evolving into a company that owned over 200 pubs in Liverpool by the late 1880s. In 1921 Robert Cain & Sons merged with Walkers Brewery to become Walker Cains and the Liverpool brewery at Stanhope Street was sold to Higsons in 1923. After a succession of owners from the 1980s onwards the brewery is being converted for mixed use.
The Bromsgrove Guild of Fine Arts was established in 1898 by Walter Gilbert as a means of promoting high-qualify craftsmanship in metal casting, woodcarving and embroidery in the style of a medieval guild, and included the creation of apprenticeships. The Guild subsequently expanded into other areas of art and design, including jewellery, enamelling, and decorative plasterwork, and recruited the best craftsmen. In 1900 the Guild was showcased at the British Pavilion at the Exposition Universelle in Paris and in 1908 it received a royal warrant. Famous works included the gates at Buckingham Palace, interior decoration on RMS Lusitania and RMS Queen Mary, and the Liver bird statues on the Royal Liver Building in Liverpool. Although the Guild survived the loss of key craftsmen and the Great Depression of the late 1920s it was finally wound up in the 1960s.
Henry Gustave Hiller (1864-1946) was a Liverpool-based designer and manufacturer of stained glass who trained at the Manchester School of Art under Walter Crane. He established a studio in Liverpool in around 1904 and retired in 1940. Although primarily known for his stained glass he worked in a wide variety of mediums, including plasterwork.
Details
Public house, 1907, by Walter W Thomas for Robert Cain & Sons. Neo-Baroque style.
MATERIALS: sandstone ashlar with a pink-granite ground floor, slate roof coverings.
PLAN: The Vines has a V-shaped plan with a north corner in-filled at ground-floor level by a former billiards room. It occupies a corner plot at the junction of Copperas Hill and Lime Street with principal elevations onto both streets. It is bounded by Copperas Hill to the south-east, Lime Street to the south-west, and adjoining buildings to the north-east and north-west.
EXTERIOR: The Vines is of three-storeys plus attic and basement with a nine-bay elevation onto Lime Street, a canted south corner bay, and a six-bay return on Copperas Hill, and entrances on each elevation. The pub has a steep slate roof set behind ornate Dutch gables and a balustraded parapet, and the ground floor has banded rustication to the pink-granite facings. The ground floor is lit by large bow windows containing original patterned brilliant-cut glass and replaced etched glass, whilst the upper-floors have casement windows set within carved surrounds. A cornice projects out from the main face of the building above the ground floor and stood atop it to both the Lime Street and Copperas Hill elevations are later gold letters that read 'WALKERS WARRINGTON ALES', with additional letters to Lime Street that read 'THE VINES'. Above the first floor is a stringcourse interrupted by segmental floating cornices over some of the windows, and in between the windows are floriated drops attached to corbelled pedestals that support Ionic engaged columns between the second-floor windows. The Lime Street elevation has two large Dutch gables with scroll detailing, elaborate finials, paired casement windows with elaborate surrounds, and oculi to the gable apexes, whilst the Copperas Hill elevation has a single gable in the same style. Projecting out from the right gable on Lime Street is a large bracketed clock.
SOUTH CORNER The south corner has a tall doorway to the ground floor accessing the public bar with a decorative wrought-iron and gilded-copper gate with a vestibule behind containing a patterned mosaic floor incorporating the lettering 'RCS' (Robert Cain & Sons) and two partly-glazed and panelled doors; that to the right is no longer in use. The entrance doorway itself is flanked by engaged Ionic columns with copper capitals and drops, and above are large triple keystones and a segmental open pediment, all exaggerated in size. Inscribed to the central keystone is 'The Vines' in gilded lettering. To the south corner's first floor is a glazed oculi with a festoon above incorporating a figurative head keystone, whilst the second-floor window mirrors that of the other elevations. Rising from the top of the corner bay behind the parapet and sandwiched by the Dutch gables on Lime Street and Copperas Hill is a tall round tower topped by a dome with a squat obelisk finial.
LIME STREET The Lime Street elevation incorporates a further entrance to the centre of the ground floor, which is identically styled to that to the south corner, but the lower section of the original gate has been removed and replaced by late-C20 concertina gates. The vestibule behind is lined with pink granite and has a decorative plasterwork ceiling and a small bow-shaped window (possibly an off-sales opening originally and in 2019 now covered with an advertising sign) directly opposite the doorway with a multipaned segmental overlight above. Partly-glazed panelled doors to each side lead into the lounge and public bar to the left and right respectively; both doors are multipaned to their upper halves with panes of brilliant-cut glass. To the left of the main building on Lime Street is an additional lower, rendered single-bay that comprises 79 Lime Street; part of an earlier (now demolished) building that was partly raised, altered and re-used in the early C20 to house The Vines' main accommodation stair. It has a tall doorway to the ground floor flanked by Corinthian columns with two panelled doors with overlights; that to the left previously served a now-demolished part of the building to the left whilst that to the right accesses the stair for The Vines. Single plate-glass sash windows exist to the right on two floors above; that to the second floor has been altered and made smaller, presumably when the stair was inserted internally. Corresponding windows to the left have been blocked up, but are partly visible internally.
COPPERAS HILL The ground floor of the pub's Copperas Hill elevation also has a number of entrances, including one with a doorway incorporating a scrolled floating cornice and prominent keystone that leads into the public bar and originally also a former snug (now altered into a kitchenette). A plainer doorway to the right leads to a stair accessing the upper floors at this end of the building. A single-storey flat-roofed section to the far right of the elevation with a plain recessed doorway is a later addition and provides external access to the former billiards room.
REAR ELEVATIONS The rear (north-east and north-west) elevations are plainer and of brick with large casement windows, some of which incorporate Art Nouveau stained glass. The entire rear yard area is occupied by a flat-roofed billiards room with a large lantern roof over a stained-glass dome visible internally. A cast-iron fire escape provides access down onto the roof of the billiards room.
INTERIOR: internally the pub has a linear sequence of rooms from south-east to north-west formed by a public bar, lounge and smoke room, with a large former billiards room at the rear. There are high ceilings and carved mahogany woodwork throughout the ground floor, and plasterwork by the Bromsgrove Guild and H Gustave Hiller.
PUBLIC BAR The south corner entrance leads into a large public bar with a richly moulded plasterwork ceiling and a panelled mahogany bar counter to the north corner that originally ran down the north-east side of the room, but was shortened in 1989. Rising from the bar counter are short mirror-panelled piers supporting a pot shelf surmounted by three twin-armed brass lamps, and in front of the counter is a brass foot rail. The bar-back behind forms part of a carved, arcaded and panelled screen that runs down the north-east side of the public bar and incorporates stained, leaded, and cut glass, and two openings; the opening to the right has lost its original panelled infill, which would have been in similar style to the bar-back, whilst that to the left is an original open doorway with a broken segmental pediment above containing a clock face that gives the appearance of an outsized grandfather clock with the doorway through the pendulum case. The screen separates the public bar from a rear corridor cum drinking lobby that accesses toilets and leads through to the lounge and smoke room at the opposite end of the pub. Bench seating and a mahogany and tiled fireplace with a carved overmantel exist to the public bar's south-west wall, and a small late-C20 stage has been inserted at the south-east end of the room. At the north-west end of the room adjacent to the Lime Street entrance is a panelled and stained-glass arcaded screen with an integral drinking shelf that conceals the bar service area, possible off-sales and basement access from view. In the eastern corner of the bar adjacent to a lobby off the Copperas Hill entrance is an altered glazed screen covered with modern signage chalkboards that probably originally led through to another small room/snug, which is now a kitchenette.
Behind the public bar the corridor/drinking lobby's north-east wall is panelled and incorporates a wide arched opening to the centre with early-C20 signage plaques with incised and gilded lettering and arrows pointing towards the ladies and gents lavatories, which are accessed through an inner screen with Art Nouveau stained glass and a vestibule with panelled doors. Off to the right is a doorway through to the altered snug and access to a stair leading up to the first floor.
LOUNGE The lounge is accessed from the Lime Street entrance and shares a bar servery with the public bar, although the bar counter in the lounge is set within a wide arched opening and is more elaborate and wave-shaped with a decorative beaten-copper front. Above the counter are brass lighting rails with paired globe lights. Ornate carved and fluted Corinthian columns stood atop panelled pedestals support the room's ceiling, which continues the same richly decorated plasterwork as the public bar. Similarly detailed pilasters also exist to the walls, which are panelled. To the room's north-west wall is a tall mahogany and marble fireplace with a decorative beaten-copper panel depicting torches and swags, and a beaten-copper Art Nouveau fire hood, and large caryatids to each side supporting an entablature and segmental pediment above. Two doorways either side of the fireplace with their doors removed (one of the doors with an etched-glass upper panel that reads 'SMOKE ROOM' survives on the second floor in the Lime Street range) lead through into the smoke room, which has a back-to-back fireplace with the lounge.
SMOKE ROOM The smoke room has booth seating set around three walls separated by baffles with Art Nouveau stained-glass panels and fluted octagonal uprights surmounted by paired lamps. The walls above the seating have highly decorative mahogany panelling with fluted pilasters, carved mouldings, marquetry detailing and built-in bell pushes set within decorative plates. To the top of the walls, and set below a coffered ceiling that incorporates a large plasterwork oval to the centre depicting the signs of the zodiac, is a deep plasterwork frieze depicting putti in various Arcadian scenes. The room's elaborate fireplace is also of mahogany, marble and beaten copper, with a semi-circular panel depicting Viking ships in relief and flanking fluted octagonal columns with Art Nouveau floriate capitals supporting an entablature.
FORMER BILLIARDS ROOM At the rear (north-east side) of the ground floor, and accessed from the lounge and rear corridor, is a vast room (probably a billiards room originally and now known as the Heritage Suite) with an exposed floorboard floor, wall panelling incorporating doorcases with shaped heads, giant Corinthian pilasters, carved festoons and cartouches, and a coffered ceiling with a massive, oval, stained-glass domed skylight to the centre with a plasterwork frieze at its base depicting apples, foliage and lion's heads. To the south-west wall is an elaborate carved mahogany and marble fireplace with a large mirror built into the panelling above and surviving to the south-east wall is original built-in bench seating. At the north-west end of the room is a later panelled bar counter with a substantial bar-back behind incorporating Roman Doric columns supporting a deep entablature and flanked by later shelving. A doorway in the east corner leads through to an altered entrance foyer off Copperas Hill.
UPPER FLOORS A steep, narrow stair off Copperas Hill leads up to the first floor and rooms in the south corner and south-east end of the building. The stair has modern tread coverings and has lost its balusters, but an original newel post and handrail survive. The main accommodation stair serving the upper floors in the Lime Street range is contained within the neighbouring single-bay property of 79 Lime Street and rises from a ground-floor foyer with later inserted partitioning. The stair is a wide dog-leg stair with substantial carved newel posts and balusters, pendant drops, a closed string, and a glazed-tiled dado.
The upper floor rooms at the south-east end of the building have been modernised to accommodate en-suite bathrooms and toilets, but the floor plan largely survives with only minor alteration, including boxing-in on the second-floor landing. The rooms and landings retain plain moulded cornicing and door architraves, and a mixture of original four-panel and modern doors. Chimneybreasts also survive, and most rooms retain Art Nouveau cast-iron and tiled fireplaces. A stair flight up to the second floor survives with closed strings and turned balusters and newel posts. On each of the first and second floor landings is a doorway through to the upper-floor rooms facing onto Lime Street, which are no longer in use. These spaces, except for the main stair at the north-west end, have been altered and modernised, along with the attic rooms.
The attic at the south-east end of the building and the basement were not inspected.
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
Legacy System number: 359023
Legacy System: LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Brandwood, G, Davison, A, Slaughter, M, Licensed to Sell. The HIstory and Heritage of the Public House, (2004), 77, 78, 115, 147, 150
Brandwood, G, Britain's Best Real Heritage Pubs. Pub Interiors of Outstanding Historic Interest, (2013), 118
Pye, K, Liverpool Pubs, (2015), 68-72
Sharples, J, Pevsner Architectural Guides: Liverpool, (2004), 184
Websites
The Bromsgrove Guild, accessed 7 November 2019 from www.architectural-heritage.co.uk/garden-ornament-history
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church, which stands on busy Chapel Street in St Kilda East, is a well known and loved local landmark, not least of all because of its strikingly tall (33.5 metre or 110 foot) banded bell tower which can be spotted from far away. In the Nineteenth Century when it was built, it would have been even more striking for its great height and domineering presence. Designed by architect Albert Purchas, the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is often referred to as his ecclesiastical tour-de-force, and it is most certainly one of his most dramatic and memorable churches.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was constructed on a plot of land reserved in Chapel Street for the Presbyterian Church of Victoria in 1866. Initially services were held in a small hall whilst fundraising efforts advanced the erection of a church. The architect Albert Purchas was commissioned to design the church and the foundation stone for the western portion of the nave was finally laid in April 1877 by Sir James McCulloch. The first service was held in the church on the 1st of October 1877. The first clergyman of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was the Reverend John Laurence Rentoul (father to world renown and much loved Australian children's book illustrator Ida Rentoul Outhwaite). However, the swelling Presbyterian congregation of St Kilda and its surrounding districts quickly outgrew the initial Saint George's Presbyterian Church building, so Albert Purchas was obliged to re-design and enlarge the church to allow a doubling in capacity. Robert S. Ekins was the contractor and his tender was £3000.00. It is this imposing church building, reopened in 1880, that we see today. The "Australasian Sketcher with Pen and Pencil" noted that the total length of the building was 118 feet and 6 inches (36 metres), by 40 foot (12 metres) wide and that the striking octagonal tower to the north-west was 110ft 6 in high. It perhaps reflected better the wealth and aspirations of the congregation.
The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is constructed on bluestone foundations and is built in an ornate polychromatic Gothic Revival style in the tradition of English designers like William Butterfield and John L. Pearson. Built of red brick building, it is decorated in contrasting cream bricks and Waurn Ponds freestone dressings. It features a slate roof with prominent roof vents, iron ridge cresting and fleche at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The front facade of the church is dominated by the slender, banded octagonal tower topped by a narrow spire. The entrance features a double arched portal portico. The facade also features a dominant triangular epitrochoidal (curved triangular form) rose window. The church, like its bluestone neighbour All Saints Church of England, is built to a T-shaped plan, with an aisleless nave, broad transepts and internal walls of cream brick, relieved with coloured brickwork. The former Saint George's Presbyterian Church was one of the first major church design in Melbourne in which polychrome brickwork was lavishly employed both externally and internally.
The inside of the former Saint George's Presbyterian Church is equally as grand as the exterior, with ornamental Gothic Revival polychromatic brickwork, a lofty vaulted ceiling, deal and kauri pine joinery and pulpit and reredos of Keene's cement. The building originally contained a complete set of Victorian stained glass windows by well known and successful Melbourne manufacturers Ferguson and Urie, all of which remain intact today except for one of the non-figurative windows which was replaced by a memorial window to Samuel Lyons McKenzie, the congregation’s beloved minister, who served from 1930 to 1948, in 1949. The earliest of the Ferguson and Urie windows are non-figurative windows which feature the distinctive diaper pattern and floral motifs of Fergus and Urie's work, and are often argued to be amongst the finest of their non-figurative designs. The large triple window in the chancel was presented by Lady McCulloch in memory of the ‘loved and dead’. Another, in memory of John Kane Smyth, the Vice-Consul for the United States of America in Melbourne, has the American Stars and Stripes on the top ventilator above it. An organ by Thomas C. Lewis of London, one of the leading 19th century English organ builders, was installed in the south transept in 1882. It was designed to blend with its architectural setting, with pipework styled to avoid the obstruction of windows. The action of this organ was altered in 1935, but the pipework, and the original sound, have been retained.
Over the years many spiritual and social activities were instituted at Saint George’s, Presbyterian Church some of short duration such as the Ladies’ Reading Club which operated between 1888 and 1893. There were segregated Bible classes for young men and women, the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union, formed in 1892, a cricket club and a floral guild. Guilds teaching physical culture for girls, boys and young men began in 1904. They were entirely financed by John Maclellan and the idea extended to other denominations throughout Victoria. John Maclellan died in 1936 and the guilds ceased at Saint George’s Presbyterian church through lack of funds although in 1977 the members of the girls’ guild were still holding bi-annual reunions and raising money for charity. Sadly, the Presbyterian congregations may have been large in the Nineteenth Century, but by St George's Presbyterian Church's 110th centenary, its doors had already closed during the week due to dwindling numbers and an ageing congregation as a result of the general decline in church attendances after the Second World War exacerbated by the changing nature of St Kilda and the decrease in numbers of residents living in the vicinity of the church. So it stood, forlorn and empty and seemingly nothing more than a relic of a glorious but bygone religious past. However in 1990, Saint Michael's Grammar School across the road leased the Victorian Heritage listed building during weekdays, and it was eventually sold to them in 2015. It now forms part of the school's performing-arts complex, and it has a wonderful new lease of life.
St George's Presbyterian Church is sometimes hired out for performances, and I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to hear Handel's Messiah performed there in 2009. The ecclesiastical acoustics made the performance all the more magnificent. I remember as I sat on one of the original (hard) kauri pine pews, I looked around me and admired the stained glass and ornamental brickwork. I tried without success over several subsequent years to gain access to the church's interior, settling for photographs of the exterior instead, but it wasn't until 2018 that I was fortunate enough to gain entry to photograph the church's interior. The former St George's Presbyterian Church was opened up to the public for one Sunday morning only as part of Open House Melbourne in July 2018. It was a fantastic morning, and I am very grateful to the staff who manned the church for the day and watched bemused as I photographed the stained glass extensively and in such detail.
Albert Purchas, born in 1825 in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, Wales, was a prominent Nineteenth Century architect who achieved great success for himself in Melbourne. Born to parents Robert Whittlesey Purchas and Marianne Guyon, he migrated to Australia in 1851 to establish himself in the then quickly expanding city of Melbourne, where he set up a small architect's firm in Little Collins Street. He also offered surveying services. His first major building was constructing the mansion "Berkeley Hall" in St Kilda on Princes Street in 1854. The house still exists today. Two years after migrating, Albert designed the layout of the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton. It was the first "garden cemetery" in Victoria, and his curvilinear design is still in existence, unaltered, today. In 1854, Albert married Eliza Anne Sawyer (1825 - 1869) in St Kilda. The couple had ten children over their marriage, including a son, Robert, who followed in his father's footsteps as an architect. Albert's brother-in-law, Charles Sawyer joined him in the partnership of Purchas and Sawyer, which existed from 1856 until 1862 in Queens Street. The firm produced more than 140 houses, churches, offices and cemetery buildings including: the nave and transepts of Christ Church St Kilda between 1854 and 1857, "Glenara Homestead"in Bulla in 1857, the Melbourne Savings Bank on the corner of Flinders Lane and Market Street (now demolished) between 1857 and 1858, the Geelong branch of the Bank of Australasia in Malop Street between 1859 and 1860, and Beck's Imperial Hotel in Castlemaine in 1861. When the firm broke up, Albert returned to Little Collins Street, and the best known building he designed during this period was Saint. George's Presbyterian Church in St Kilda East between 1877 and 1880. The church's tall polychomatic brick bell tower is still a local landmark, even in the times of high rise architecture and development, and Saint, George's itself is said to be one of his most striking church designs. Socially, Albert was vice president of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects for many years, before becoming president in 1887. He was also an inventor and philanthropist. Albert died in 1909 at his home in Kew, a wealthy widower and much loved father.
St Anne's Cathedral (RC), Leeds, 1901-04.
By Eastwood & Greenslade.
Grade ll* listed.
South Transept Window.
Faded figures depicting scenes from the life of Christ.
Bought privately by Canon homas Shine in 1920 and of unknown provenance.
Left - Christ's temptation in the Desert.
Right - The Transfiguration.
The first church was built in 1838 and became the cathedral of the new Roman Catholic diocese of Leeds in 1878. JH Eastwood was a founder member of the Guild of St Gregory & St Luke which was devoted to the improvement of church craftsmanship.