What makes St Baglans special? Is it the sentient landscape? The ancient, shady mountains that watched humans arrive. The clump of gnarled trees stretching their branches protectively around the church. The ever-changing sea breathing rhythmically, slow and deep.

#thread
Or is it the physical reminders of the past that gives St Baglan’s its transcendency? The systems of pre-historic ditched enclosures. The siting of the church within a pre-Christian settlement. The ancient pillar-stone discovered in 1855 built into the fabric.

2/6
Is it Ffynnon Faglan – Baglan’s well – in the adjacent field with its healing powers. The ship graffiti and simple carved symbols that speak of meaning, values and beliefs. The polite, oiled woodwork of the 18th-century families. The close interior. The damp walls.

3/6
But St Baglans isn’t just this list of things. It’s a place that has been formed by “thousands upon thousands of ideas: realisations, hopes, fears and actions…” It is, as Roger Scruton describes, “…saturated with meaning, but whose meaning cannot be put into words”.

4/6
A thin place is Celtic term, an ancient idea of places where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and connection to the divine or to the past becomes profoundly close. These thresholds have long held a place in religion and folklore. St Baglans is a thin place.

5/6
When I visited the atmosphere was soupy with sea mist, low cloud and veiled, looming mountains. It was marvellous, mysterious and otherworldly. St Baglans offers a “rare glimpse into the soul of things”. And part of me has never left.

Read more: friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/the-thin-place/

6/6

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Friendless Churches

Friendless Churches Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @friendschurches

29 Dec
In 1746 in West Africa, a child is playing on the banks of a stream. He's trying to catch a moorhen. It sounds picturesque, but within seconds this little boy will be abducted. He will be shipped across the globe to North Wales. This is the story of John Ystumllyn.

#thread Image
He is taken far from his home, far from everything and everyone he knows. Eventually, he arrives in Ynyscynhaiarn, Gwynedd to work for the Wynne family. We don’t know what name his parents had given him, but the Wynnes named him ‘John Ystumllyn’ after their estate.

2/8 Image
If you’ve been watching #AHouseThroughTime you'll have seen the story of Thomas, a black boy who was a 'servant' of a family in Bristol until he ran away in 1759. Boys like Thomas often appeared in portraits and still-life paintings in this period.

3/8
Read 8 tweets
28 Dec
England has about 3,000 'lost' or deserted medieval villages. We have churches in a fair few of them. Like St Mary Magdalene, Caldecote: a weather-beaten majesty with embattled parapets, cinquefoil tracery and a rather regal porch.

Hinting at the grandeur within…

#thread Image
Entering through the south porch visitors are met by an extraordinary, floor-to-(almost) ceiling stoup. Dated to the 15th century, the shaft is carved with rows of quatrefoils, while acanthus clambers up the canopy. The proportions are so great, it feels very out of place.

2/7 Image
Step beyond this to see the font: an octagonal affair from the same century encrusted with cusped panels, heraldry and foliage. The simple moulded pews also date to the 1400s, as do the glittering fragments of stained glass...

3/7 Image
Read 7 tweets
28 Dec
Off a layby on the A483, you'll find a sunken churchyard. Walk down the avenue of sentinel yews and you'll discover the little church of St Anno.

From the outside, it’s not much to look at. But inside is one of the greatest glories of Welsh craftsmanship...

#thread Image
The majestic 15th-century roodscreen fills the interior. It bursts with life: the bressumer trails with vines, pomegranates and water-plant issuing from the mouth of a wyvern. The vines symbolise Christ. The pomegranate represents eternal life.

2/7 Image
The thirty-four coving panels are decorated with seventeen different designs, creating a restlessness. The tracery heads hang like lace. The loft carries a line of twenty-five canopied niches. The carving is the work of the Newtown School of Carvers, Montgomeryshire.

3/7 Image
Read 7 tweets
27 Dec
This is the story of two women brought together by the horror of war, who needed each other to cope in the aftermath… and who stayed together forever.

This is the story of Bertha Kessler and Katherine Hudson.

#thread
Bertha Kessler and Katherine Hudson were members of the First Aid Nursing Auxiliary in the First World War. However, the shock and stress of war took their toll and by 1920 both women were under psychiatric care.

2/9
Years later, having recovered, they attended a service by W. E. Orchard, which was transformative: “after a 49 minute address… a curtain was drawn back and we were gazing at an altar ablaze with 40 candles... a procession of choristers entered… amid a cloud of incense".

3/9
Read 9 tweets
26 Dec
In cobwebbed corners of churches across the country are carved alms-boxes. Many, like this one at Watton, Norfolk, are inscribed, urging passers-by to ‘remember the poor’. For centuries, the collections in these oaken boxes were society’s main source of poor relief.

#thread
Two of the earliest poor-boxes in English churches date from the mid-14th century and can be found on Holy Island, Northumberland. However, most surviving ones – many of which are still in use – date to the 17th century. 

2/
Boxing Day has been a tradition in the UK for centuries. Though it only officially got that name in the 1830s… and didn’t become a bank holiday until 1871. 26th December is the feast day of St Stephen – an early deacon who made it his duty to care for the poor.

3/
Read 6 tweets
20 Dec
“When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even”

‘Good King Wenceslas’ is a rather odd carol. Who was Wenceslas, and why do we sing about him at Christmas?

#thread
⛪St Andrew's, Wood Walton, Cambridgeshire
Wenceslas was a 10thC Duke of Bohemia (his name in his native Czech was Vaclav). When he was a teenager, his mother sent assassins to murder his grandmother, and then set herself up as Regent.
When Wenceslas turned 18 he banished his mother and took control, giving half of the country to his younger brother, Boleslaus. But on 28 Sept 935, his brother invited him to a feast, and then murdered him. 😱
It was all very Game of Thrones!
Read 9 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!