“I went to Coventry Cathedral not too long after it was rebuilt and I remember the rising from the destruction atmosphere of it. We felt somehow proud that it had not been cancelled as a living spiritual Cathedral.”
Wonderful to have watched this film after a visit to Coventry Cathedral. What a charming man Sir Basil Spence seems to have been. And what a profound metaphor for Christianity’s relationship to its history he fashioned with his design.
We start our tour of #MiddleEngland in Oxford, where tonight in the garden in Christ Church that helped inspire Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland my daughter’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is being staged. A sellout (so proud!), but there are tickets on the door…
Also an inspiration to Lewis Carroll was this holy well in Binsey, which in the Middle Ages was famed for the miraculous properties of its ‘treacle’ - its ‘healing fluid’.
Hence the Treacle Well in Alice…
The well appeared thanks to the prayers of Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford. The pagan ruler of Leicester tried to make off with her; she struck him blind; being kind, she then healed him. Still he came after her: so she fled to the remote island of ‘Betona,’ aka Binsey.
On 23 August, I will be embarking on an elite #CricketWalk in aid of my benefit: 50 miles in 24 hours, from the site of the first ever recorded cricket match to Lord's.
We have raised £50,000 so far for charity. I dream of reaching a century.
Huge thanks also to everyone who contributed to the utterly shameless video above - and especially to everyone at Lioncat Films for their time, enthusiasm & incredible expertise. lioncatfilms.com
Mr Justice Holgate "agreed that, in breach of rules in the National Policy Statement for National Networks (NPSNN) and the Planning Act (PA 2008), the Transport Secretary had not properly assessed the risk of harm to each heritage asset within the World Heritage Site."
"The judge found that he did not have the evidence to conclude that the project would cause “less than substantial harm” to the heritage assets within the WHS, which he deemed fatal to the lawfulness of the decision to grant development consent."