Welcome from the Editor Welcome to the first edition of The Church Mouse , a magazine about churches and cathedrals. A cathedral is easy to define; it is the seat of a bishop. A church however is more difficult. In this magazine we are going to use the word to denote any Christian place of worship, although I expect that much of the time we will talking about Anglican buildings. I spend a lot of my time, retirement is one long holiday, on coach trips and whenever possible use the stops to visit a church. Unfortunately this can be a very brief time and not very much is seen. Sometimes one can make new discoveries at places one has visited before. I hope that I can find plenty of interest to most readers.
Church Mice The work of Robert (Mouseman) Thompson (7 May 1876 – 8 December 1955) of Kilburn, North Yorkshire, is too well known for me to write at length about it. It is said that the trademark carved mouse came from a conversation between Thompson and a friend about "being as poor as a church mouse", during the carving of a cornice for a screen in 1919. This remark led to him carving a mouse which became his signature. It is worth making a point of looking for his work during your church visits. Bangor Cathedral, for example, has several pieces. The guide leaflet says there are six, but doesn’t say where, suggesting that you look for them, I haven't found them all.
What is it called? Visiting churches can be very confusing if we don’t know the terminology used by the guide or guidebook. The same thing may have different names in different churches; a simple example is chancel, quire, choir. We are currently preparing a dictionary of the terms used in a church building and hope to include the first instalment in the next issue of The Church Mouse
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The churches and churchyards of Britain contain many items that could be termed 'curiosities' - let's go and explore When I was a lad of six or seven my father took me out to the church of St Wilfrid in the village of Hickleton, near Doncaster in South Yorkshire to show me the Memento Mori there. It isn't how I remember it from nearly 80 years ago, I thought that it was a glass case by the gate, but memories do play tricks.The message however has stayed firmly in my mind. Three skulls are encased behind a grill which carries the inscription in Latin Hodie mihi, cras tibi with the English translation Today for me, tomorrow for thee, a grim reminder of our mortality. Local legend says that they are the skulls of three sheep rustlers, who were hanged nearby. The real likelihood is that Lord Halifax obtained them to serve in this display Only the two outer ones are human, strangely in both cases, they have had the crowns surgically removed and replaced using an adhesive, and the one in the middle is a stone carving. -+-
http://www.issuu,com/the-captain Email: magazines@post.com Š2016. The Captain's Library Issue 1. Summer 2016 The Church Mouse is published as an eMagazine and no paper version is available. You may however print a copy for your own use.
In the next issue: Another curiosity (in Conwy), The cathedra in the cathedral, a cathedral visit and anything else that comes to the editor’s desk. If you have any questions about visiting churches email us at magazines@post.com
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It may not be the biggest or the most famous but it’s...
j Travelling around Britain I like to visit as many churches, cathedrals and other sacred sites as possible. During a visit to the Orkney Islands I had hoped to have a good look at the prehistoric burial mounds and standing stones that abound there, but the weather and the tightly packed itinerary precluded anything more than a fleeting glance. We did, however, visit the Italian Chapel which is a fascinating testimony to the faith and devotion of the Italian prisoners of war. The camp on the island of Lambs Holm housed the prisoners of war who were constructing the Churchill Barriers. The Barriers were conceived as a blockade of the eastern entrance to Scapa Flow, The Geneva Convention, however, does not allow prisoners of war to work on military construction, so the plan was changed to designate them as a causeway between the islands, a purpose they still serve. The chapel lovingly preserved by the local people, is all that remains of the camp. The prisoners were given two Nissen huts, one to use as a school and one as a church. It seems that one of the prisoners, Domenico Chiochetti, an artist, was not satisfied with something as simple as that, the two huts were put together and with the connivance of the camp commander, the padre and his fellow prisoners materials were liberated, diverted, salvaged and otherwise obtained to create this beautiful building. The British commandant somehow got hold of plasterboards to line the chapel and probably the paints wi th which Chiochetti created the interior faux tiles and works of art A lot of concrete seems to have been diverted from building the causeway and I understand that the wrought-iron chancel screen was either welding rods or reinforcing rods. Other examples of ingenuity are the altar lamps made from bully -beef cans. Items were also salvaged from the blockade ships which had been sunk to form a barrier where they were working; the tiles of the chancel are said to have come from a captain's bathroom and the bell in the bell cote over the west door is a ship's bell. The chapel and the experience of being there are almost impossible to describe - you'll have to visit yourself to see the ingenuity of these men and the beauty they created to worship God.
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ The Church Mouse is published as an eMagazine and no paper version is available. You may however print a copy for your own use. Generous margins have been left so that it can be printed either on A4 or Letter size paper. This issue has four sides. ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
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The font is usually one of the first things that we see as we enter a church, for it is normally placed near the entrance. This positioning is symbolic, coming through the door you enter the church building; at the font you enter the church body. The font has a vast variety of forms from the very simple to what we might consider as over elaborate. Not all non-conformist churches practise infant baptism, but in those that do the font is usually simple and a table top version. The practise of having a cover, some of which are large and elaborate, on the font is said to have been put in place to prevent the blessed water being taken for superstitious ceremonies. Other fonts like the one in Durham Cathedral (shown on the right) and Luton reside in their own 'temples' .Most fonts are relatively simple structures, often with Biblical scenes or the Evangelists carved around them, but others are quite different At St Laurence's, Ludlow in Shropshire the font is part of a Roman column hollowed and some years ago I noticed that the font in a Butlin's Holiday Camp chapel was a cast concrete bird-bath such as you buy at a garden centre. In Coventry Cathedral the font is a three-ton boulder from a hillside nea9r Bethlehem. A very impressive font. In St Margaret's, Bodelwyddan white Carrara marble carvings of the two young daughters of the baronet Sir Hugh approach you holding a large seashell which is the font basin. A unique and delightful idea.
CHURCH MAGAZINE HUMOUR "We have now installed a new font at the eastern end of the church i n addition to the one by the west door. This means that we can now baptise infants at both ends"
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