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11 Sep, 4 tweets, 4 min read
Old St Peter’s, Wickham Bishops was established to serve the Bishop of London in the 12thC. Since the 90s it has been home to Ben Finn's stained glass studio. Tomorrow there's a rare opportunity to look inside ... and see four beautiful new windows created and installed by Ben.
This ancient building continually serves up surprises from its past. Several wall paintings have revealed themselves from within layers of plaster, as well as the scratched names and initials of hundreds of people — left as permanent (though fragile) traces of impermanent lives.
In 2013, Ben Finn created a new east window depicting Jacob's ladder, and this summer, he completed four more windows representing St Helena, St Cedd, St Peter and St Mary. Here’s Ben working at the finishing stages, and the dazzling results —photographed by @badger_beard.
We are absolutely delighted to invite you to come and see these beautiful new works of art.

#HeritageOpenDays
St Peter's Old Church
Wickham Bishops, Essex
Sunday 12 Sept 12pm - 4pm

More event details: bit.ly/3n48qsi

More about Ben Finn: bsmgp.org.uk/membership/fel…

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Friendless Churches Profile picture
12 Sep
In 1876, the chancel of St John the Baptist's, Allington, in Wiltshire was decorated with stencil and freehand decoration, including orange trees, curtains and rosettes, in memory of Fulwar William Fowle, rector of the parish for 60 years.
More oranges appear in a charming 'trompe l'oeil' priest's seat with an orange tree painted in the recess.
The #artsandcrafts decorations, and the east window, were designed by the prestigious firm Heaton, Butler and Bayne.
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Friendless Churches Profile picture
10 Sep
At the end of July, just days after completing a £150k re-roofing project, St Mary Magdalene’s church in Caldecote was vandalised. We’re thrilled to announce that the church will be open this Sunday and the next as part of #HeritageOpenDays 2021.
Come and talk to a local volunteer about this fascinating church in the site of a lost medieval village. Treasures awaiting you include an extraordinary, floor-to- (almost) ceiling stoup and an octagonal font encrusted with cusped panels, heraldry and foliage. Both 15th century.
Some simple moulded pews also date to the 1400s, as do the glittering fragments of stained glass.

📷@badger_beard
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Friendless Churches Profile picture
9 Sep
The Gloucester Candlestick is an extraordinary survival. Dating from 1104-13, it’s a masterpiece of English metalwork, a gilt tangle of beasts clambering, clawing through fleshy foliage, struggling “to reach the light or sink into the darkness below”...

#thread
Incredibly, an inscription on the stem of candlestick clearly indicates its provenance: ‘The devotion of Abbot Peter and his gentle flock gave me to the Church of St Peter of Gloucester’. Peter was the abbot of the Benedictine Abbey in Gloucester in the early 12th century.

2/
However, somehow, Abbot Peter’s candlestick ended up in the treasury of Le Mans Cathedral, France. There are several points when it could’ve made its journey: the Abbey was destroyed by fire in 1122, was the candlestick stolen?

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Friendless Churches Profile picture
8 Sep
Just over a hundred years ago, Louisa Harris commissioned Sir Guy Dawber (a founder of @CPRE & a President of @RIBA) to design a remarkable Arts & Crafts style private chapel.
St John the Baptist, Matlock Bath, was built into a cliff face overlooking the Derwent Valley.
Louisa Harris assembled a glittering array of artists to realise her dream, including Louis Davis, "the last of the Pre-Raphaelites", who designed the water-themed stained glass in the east window ...
- and George Bankart, an architect who specialised in ornamental plasterwork, and who created the barrel-vaulted plaster ceiling (including tiny birds flying across the plaster!).
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Friendless Churches Profile picture
6 Sep
This month, more than 150 historic sites in Wales are offering free entry, special events or tours, as part of #OpenDoors, funded and organised by @cadwwales.

Participating monuments include Laugharne Castle, just a mile from St Oudoceus's church in Llandawke, Carmarthenshire. Image
This medieval castle, built in the 13th century for the de Brian family, was turned into a magnificent mansion in the Tudor period by Sir John Perrot. Unfortunately, Perrot was sentenced to execution by Elizabeth I, and he died in the Tower of London, while awaiting his fate. Image
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Friendless Churches Profile picture
4 Sep
Duncan Berry from Berry Stonework was demonstrating flint knapping. It’s an incredible skill. The material offers no guide, no grain. It’s a capricious stone. Here’s Duncan squaring off a piece.
And here’s a galleted panel he made. The gallets are shards of flint, which he presses into the mortar. It’s decorative, but also provides some structural reinforcement.
Here’s a flint nugget that sort of looks like a thigh ball joint.
Read 10 tweets

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