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What did Adam and Eve look like?
Probably not like this Disney prince and princess... But for centuries, Christian artists have shared their idea of what the first man and woman looked like... all individual but all recognisable...

#thread
At Llangwm Uchaf, Monmouthshire, a gravestone carving of 1796 shows #adamandeve with rounded tummies (and rounder heads), frozen in synchronised dance moves. They seem blissfully unconcerned by the serpent coiled around the tree trunk between them.

2/4
Eight miles north-west, at Llanfair Kilgeddin, Heywood Sumner captures the couple's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Eve, with flowing Pre-Raphaelite hair, bows her head, chastised, while Adam, with rippling muscles, looks out bleakly.

3/4
While at Llanelieu, Powys, a medieval artist shared their interpretation of the creation story on the west wall. Due to the plaster’s fragility, only small sections could be safely revealed: the couple's feet balancing on blades of grass and the slightest slither of a snake.

4/4
(@steffaniwdavies - am I right in thinking this Llanelieu painting is the only medieval wall-painting depicting Adam & Eve known to survive in Wales?)
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Friendless Churches
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Across the mid-Wales you’ll find cheerful cherubs, buxom and bucolic, “with cheeks like apples from a Herefordshire orchard”. Their golden curls light up dark church corners.
They’re the work of the Brutes – a family of masons working in central Wales in the 18th century.
#thread
Working from their home in Llanbedr, Brecknock, the Brutes dominated the late-Georgian funerary monument market in central Wales, creating some of the finest – and most fun - monuments of the time.

2/7
📸: St Issui, Patricio
Their style is distinctive. It’s characterised by cheerful cherubs and a “vigorous, if primitive, interpretation of Baroque ornamentation, with flowers, especially tulips and daisies, garlands, and sprays of foliage”.

3/7
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Friendless Churches
@friendschurches
Did you know the word 'pew' is derived from Latin 'podia' via Old French 'puie', meaning 'balcony' or 'balustrade'? And that most churches didn’t have seating until the 1200s?
Interest piqued? Pull up a pew for a rattle through the history of seating in British churches..
#thread
In the beginning, there was no seating in churches. People stood to worship. But the 1200s, saw the introduction of stone benches against the wall of the nave. By 1300s, for comfort, wooden benches in the centre of the nave replaced the stone benches, giving better chancel views.
The Protestant Reformation made listening to sermons a core part of worship; seating was needed on a regular (and lengthy) basis. Stools and open-backed benches were replaced with permanent rows of pews - enclosed and elevated furnishings that include panels, doors and benches.
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Friendless Churches
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Matlock Bath chapel is a jewel-box in a sylvan setting… with a mystery.
A 1901 article on the chapel in The Builders’ Journal described a painted altarpiece by John Cooke. But there’s no altarpiece there today. Where did it go? And while we're at it, who was John Cooke?
#thread
For a long time, it was believed that the artist at Matlock was distinguished painter, John Percy Cooke. But recent research has revealed that there were more Cookes in town…

2/
The 1901 census lists a John Cooke (artist-painter, aged 35) living at Temperance Hotel, just down the road from the chapel.

But further digging revealed a family of Cookes, all decorators, painters, carpenters, living three miles away. We reckon they must be our Cookes.

3/6
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