The Sound of Music has led generations of children astray.
Do is not a deer. Re is not a drop of golden sun. And Mi has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with an 8th-century poem to St John the Baptist.
About 1300 years ago, the monk and historian, Paulus Diaconus, lost his voice. During his illness, he composed a poem and dedicated it to St John the Baptist.
This translates as, So that your servants may, with loosened voices, resound the wonders of your deeds, clean the guilt from our stained lips, O Saint John.
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In the 11th century, Benedictine monk, Guido of Arezzo took Paulus’s poem and set it to a sweet climbing melody.
To remember the notes, he took the opening syllable of each line: Ut - Re - Mi - Fa - So - La - Si... and used them to name the notes of the C-Major scale.
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Guido D’Arezzo’s Micrologus – a musical treatise – became one of the most popular texts on music in the Middle Ages. In it, he included the seven musical notes: ut-re-mi-fa-so-la-si.
But, I hear you cry, the notes don’t have ut and si!
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… that’s because in the 17th century, Giovanni Battista Doni changed ut to do, and in the 19th century Sarah Glover changed si to ti, as they were easier to sing.
... And that’s why you’re reciting poem to St John the Baptist every time you sing this musical scale.
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At St Mary’s, Eastwell the vitality of the frothy foliage balances the morbidity of the decaying church.
A picturesque lake created to the east of the church in the 1800s caused the collapse of building, as the chalk columns sucked moisture from the earth and crumbled...
In the 1940s, Eastwell Park in Kent was taken over by the army for tank training exercises. Shocks from nearby explosions didn’t help the vulnerable structure. But in February 1951, after weeks of heavy rain the nave roof collapsed and took the arcade with it.
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Six years later the church was dismantled. The bells were sold for scrap. The monuments found a new home in the @V_and_A.
Our two churches in Lincolnshire stand in what was once Viking territory. In the late 9th C a swathe of Eastern and Northern England was occupied by Danes and other Norsemen, and governed by Danelaw.
/a Viking thread ...
Christian Anglo-Saxons labelled the Norse settlers 'heathens'. However, some Scandinavian pagans were buried in Christian churchyards. Others converted to Christianity, and over time, people, beliefs, art & languages from the different cultures became intertwined.
Anglo-Norse dialects developed, and they influenced local speech for hundreds of years. Even today, the English language has numerous words of Old Norse origin, like 'knife', 'kindling', 'egg', & ‘window' (literally - 'wind eye').
Many place names also have Viking roots ...
Today, we thought we'd look back at some of our 'big saves'.
First, St Peter’s, Wickham Bishops, Essex. We took it on in the ‘70s, repaired it, found four schemes of hugely important wall-paintings. Now a stained-glass artist works from the nave, and welcomes visitors.
To Caernarfon, to Hen Eglwys Baglan. An ancient church in the shadow of Snowdon and overlooking the Menai Straits. By the 1970s, it had been neglected for years, and was teetering on the edge when we took it on. Now, it is well-used and beloved by people all over the world.
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In Sussex, the little chapel at Milland fell into disuse and dereliction in the 1930s. By 1960, it looked like this. In 1974, working with a local group – who are still active today - haul this ancient place back from the brink. And just in the nick of time too.
St Helen's, Barmby-on-the-Marsh, Yorkshire closed in 2007. The earliest record of a chapel here dates to 1388. In 1489, the parishioners petitioned at Rome for a grander church. This was granted. Only the nave survives from this date.
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The medieval tower with timber spire was ruinous by 1773, and was dismantled, rebuilt in red brick and crowned with a copper cupola. The chancel seems to have been added only in the 19th century, when the church was restored in 1854 by Thomas Clarke.
#OTD in 1703 a hurricane ravaged England and Wales: trees damaged, property destroyed, livestock killed, ships lost at sea...
Lives were lost too, including the Bishop of Bath & Wells and his wife - killed in their bed when a chimney of the Palace at Wells fell on them.
The weather blew in from the north Atlantic and is one of the worst storms to have ever hit the UK.
Writer Daniel Defoe engaged in one of the first examples of what would today be called 'investigative journalism', obtaining country-wide accounts of people's experiences.
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Defoe published his findings in The Storm (1704).
In Wales, most of the accounts came from seaboard towns - Chepstow, Cardiff, Swansea and Milford Haven - but one is of particular interest to the Friends; it was from "Llaneloe" (i.e. Llanelieu) in Breconshire.
The churches in our care are derived from the landscape they occupy. Forest, mountain, field and sea, in many cases, we know exactly where the raw materials came from. Locally sourced limestone formed the lime mortar that sticks masonry and brickwork together.
When it comes to buildings, mortar really does the heavy lifting. It sticks masonry together, keeps masonry apart, and impacts everything from load distribution to acoustic insulation.
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Mortar is a binding agent composed primarily of binder and aggregate. Generally, it is defined by the binding agent, i.e. lime. Aggregate provides a vital framework and prevents shrinkage. The proportion, grading and packing of aggregate will affect quality, porosity and strength