Despite having retired from being a full-time website designer, I recently completed a small website for a Twitter friend Helen Wilson to help launch her new book The Remarkable Pinwill Sisters: From ‘Lady Woodcarvers’ to Professionals (which will be available soon). The sisters, Mary, Ethel and Violet, worked in Plymouth from the late 1800s creating beautiful carvings for churches across Devon and Cornwall. Violet carried on working almost up to her death in 1957.
Helen has created a comprehensive catalogue of the Pinwill’s work in over 200 locations, which represents a mammoth ten year’s work.
I’ve just added another eight churches to my collection of 360° panoramas of the interiors of Cornish parish churches. On my first foray I photographed Launcells, Week St Mary, North Tamerton and Treneglos. I did visit another four, but they were all locked with only two giving details of a keyholder. Of the two that did, one was out and the other slammed their window shut when I rang the doorbell and wouldn’t come to the door. Not much point in them having the key!
Later that week I contacted the rector of St Conan’s, Washaway to see if I could gain entry there as I know that church is normally kept locked. I was really pleased when he got back to me saying that the church has a key safe to which he gave me the combination. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more churches that feel the need to stay locked took up this idea. St Conan’s is a very small chapel attached to the parish of Wadebridge – the two main churches are Egloshayle and St Breock. It was built in 1883 but it contains a Saxon font, one of the oldest in the country. It also has a 16th century carved wooden pulpit brought from Germany from which Martin Luther is thought to have preached.
While my car was being serviced during a recent trip to Cornwall I took the opportunity to do the photography for a 360° panoramic tour of Truro Cathedral. The cathedral has a policy of allowing photography, but ask for a fee of £5 to use a tripod – which seems very reasonable to me. I made six panoramas for the tour, the west front, the nave, crossing, chancel, St Mary’s aisle and the All Saints chapel behind the high altar.
St Peter’s Church, at Hascombe in Surrey was described by Betjeman as ‘a Tractarian Work of Art’. Built on a site of Saxon origins, by 1862 the medieval church which was then over 600 years old had become so dilapidated that rebuilding was considered the only option. Led by the Rector, Canon Musgrave, Henry Woodyer (a pupil of Butterfield) was commissioned to design a new church. The simple plan of nave and apsidal chancel became a canvas for a richly decorated interior. The walls of the nave are painted with the 153 fishes of the second miraculous catch of fish, all tangled in a net which is being dragged in by seven of the disciples. Above the chancel arch is Christ in Majesty flanked by the 12 apostles. The rood screen (a survivor from the previous church) was restored and repainted. Read more…
I’ve just completed a 360° panoramic tour of St Matthew’s Church, Winchester. The church is quite small so only needs four views: Nave, Chancel, Vestry and Gallery. The earliest parts of the church date to about 1200, but like so many English churches it probably stands on the site of an earlier Saxon building. The church has recently been lovingly restored and is certainly worth a visit. Read more…
While I was photographing at St Paternus’ Church, North Petherwin for some more 360° panoramas for my ongoing series on the parish churches of Cornwall I came across this really touching memorial to three sisters of the Yeo family who all died young in the 1630s.
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, here’s a photo of some graffiti on the General Post Office in Dublin on the 60th anniversary in 1976: Freedom Fighters Are Not Criminals.
The lobby of the Lloyds TSB Bank at 222 Strand, London is a wonderful display of art nouveau tiling by Doulton painted by J H McLennan. Formerly a restaurant and built originally as the Palsgrove Hotel, this is the work of the architect G Cuthbert, and dates from 1883. Read more…
