Theological, Cultural and Educational Reflections

Thursday 27th August 2015

We had a half lay day today first of all finding and using a laundromat in Chippingham and secondly negotiating with Europcar over the health of our Vauxhall Estate Car which had quite a high mileage for a rental (not that much due to us!).  In recent days when the poor old Vauxhall was started up in the morning we had been receiving dire orange warnings on the desktop such as “oil pressure low”  “do not drive” , “service car immediately” etc   With my normal vast expertise in car mechanics I have been ignoring these warnings and still driving to Wales etc. because the signs seemed to disappear after a few seconds.

This morning as well as dire orange warnings we had all sorts of bells and whistles when we started it up. At first I thought it was the local bell ringers but eventually even I realised we shouldn’t keep driving the poor old thing so after some phone argybargy we drove to the nearest Europcar  centre in Bath, the home of the Georgian circle and the perpendicular Bath Abbey not to mention the hugely chlorinated and very expensive Roman baths!  After even more argy bargy (because of course no signs dared appear when a real mechanic was watching)  I was reduced to threats of being marooned in the wilds of Scotland (we are going to Edinburgh!)

They agreed to change vehicles after seeing the look on Ann’s face and we are now the proud drivers of a pretty well brand new white Kia SUV! This is a huge embarrassment to me because I have been a long time critic of SUVs and their drivers’ arrogance predicated on size. Apart from anything else all the lanes in England our satnav keeps sending us down will have to be immediately widened as the Kia is a seriously wide vehicle!

By the time we sat in the vehicle to drive off it was teeming rain, the vehicle was parked on a seriously steep gradient with a brand new  company van about a foot away in front, and a returning customer having parked a vehicle not far behind us.  In addition I was back with an old fashioned pull up hand break instead of the flash automatic button on the Vauxhall which simply released when we took off.  Pride would not allow me to take Ann’s sensible suggestion to ask them to move their vehicle so my first reverse wet handbrake start was not the greatest but did do the job and we emerged with all vehicles intact (phew!)

We tootled off through the glorious southern Cotswold hills and valleys over the amazing canal and boat systems and found the wonderful Red Lion pub in the hamlet of Wolverton where we felt we had deserved a baguette or two.

So it was 3.30pm when we arrived at our destination for the day, the wonderful National Trust property of Stourhead House and gardens in the tiny village of Stourton in Wiltshire. Aussie National Trust earned half its cost today saving us thirty one pounds entry fee which is over $60 Aussie in real money!

This property was built in the Palladian style by the Hoare family in  the early C18th and is much newer than the other stately homes we have been visiting except of course for the neo-Gothic house at Cardiff Castle. The Hoares have accrued four generations of banking leadership and the Hoare Bank is the only bank still in private hands in London.

In 1902 the House was badly damaged by fire but much of its contents were saved. It was rebuilt in identical style from photographs.  It is in some ways a sad story. The final heir Henry Hoare and his wife had their own property when they inherited  Stourhead and reluctantly moved there to set it up for their son Harry who was heavily involved in helping to develop the property and loved living there. Unfortunately Harry was killed in action in World War 1 and the couple had to decide whether to keep living there which they did and ended up further developing the property for over 30 years, dying within six hours of each other on the same day in 1947. The House was donated to the National Trust with an allowance for an extended family member to continue living there.

The House includes an impressive art and library collection although key items from both were sold over the years to raise funds. There is also some significant furniture and the house itself stands impressively on a hill surrounded by a village, forest and beautiful pasture land.

The real gem of Stourhead however is the garden.  Landscaped around a large man-made lake achieved by damming a small stream it is a vast forest of deciduous and evergreen trees of every shape, size and origin alongside vast areas of lawn and  glorious herbaceous borders, a very effective green house, and wonderful tracks with vistas to the lake, to various temples and follies and to the hills beyond.

It is certainly a place to lose yourself in and in some ways it is reminiscent  of the great Victorian gardens in Mt Macedon and the Dandenongs. There are literally forests of rhododendrons, maples, ash and liliodendron trees and all open to the village (which is a little remote) to walk in till dusk with their dogs.

The village also contains a more than useful pub, a wonderful small art gallery, St Peter’s 700 year old early Gothic parish church of Stoughton and many fine old village homes. This is a placee to seriously lose yourself for a day or a year! We loved it!

Wednesday 26th August

Today with the rain moving East to London we took off West to the sunshine of South Wales but first detoured to the beautiful harbour city of Bristol to find Bristol Cathedral. The church historian and architectural scholar Pevsner describes this Cathedral whose nave was not completed until the 1860’s as superior to anything else built in England and indeed in Europe at the same time. This is high praise but the Cathedral does make an impact.  The reason for this is that the nave, choir and aisles are all at the same height creating effectively a mediaeval “hall church” …a lofty and elegant space with a series of elegant arches.” With the technology then available, flying buttresses were no longer required and the result is a very “clean” building with flowing lines.

Originally a Norman  “hall church”  was built within the abbey in 1298 but  Henry V111 ordered the dissolution of the abbey in 1539 and only the choir remained until the nave and west front was added in Gothic Revival style in the 1860s.

It’s latest claim to fame is as the site for the filming of Hilary Mantel’s impressive Reformation novel  Wolf Hall detailing the contribution of Thomas Cromwell to Henry V111’s  court and to the Reformation.  The chapter house and church were both substantially used in this BBC production and the church was turned into Westminster Abbey for Henry’s marriage to Anne Boleyn

Moving on from Bristol we crossed over into Wales via the amazing suspension technology of the bridge over the Severn River.

Our first goal was Llandaff Cathedral in the city of Cardiff. It is approached from a carpark high above the building by a series of steps …”The Dean’s steps” and one then arrives at a quite small front door which opens to four or five steps down to the floor of the cathedral so that you enter with a total overview of the whole interior from above.

A church has stood on this site since 546. The C12th early Romanesque/early Gothic building fell into decline during the Reformation and Puritan era and was severely damaged by wild storms.  In the mid C18th restoration began but the building was again severely damaged by a German landmine in World War 11. Architect George Pace lead the reconstruction after the war which included a brand new chapel (The Welch Regiment Memorial), strengthening of the C19th tower and the extraordinary introduction of a concrete chancel arch which holds the former organ case on which was suspended the figure of Christ in Majesty  by Sir Jacob Epstein.

Artistically there are many treasures here including a set of porcelain panels by C19th Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones  showing the six days of creation above the communion tabel in the Dyfrig Chapel, and “The Seed of David” triptych in the Euddogwy Chapel by another Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rosetti. In addition there is the very modern “Annunciation” by Clive HIcks-Jenkins completed in 2010 and a memorial of St Francis of Assisi in bronze. This is a cathedral of surprises and it is completed by the installation in 2010 of a huge new organ  (the largest wholly-new British built organ to be commissioned in a UK cathedral for 50 years).

After lunch we ventured back into Cardiff Central, past the beautiful homes in Cathedral Place and the sensational Millennium Stadium and found a lucky park near to the C12th Norman Cardiff Castle and keep.

This huge walled site has also had a chequered history through all the wars and ups and downs of Welsh and British history too complex to describe here. Eventually it came into the hands of the Marquesses of Bute and one John Stuart who employed Capability Brown and Henry Holland to create a Georgian mansion on the site alongside the fortified castle keep. With wealth from the coal industry this family continued to expand the buildings, destroying most of the mediaeval components in the process.

In the first half of the C19th John Crighton -Stuart employed archtect William Burgess to create a bizarre Neo-Gothic Revival house superimposed on the existing mansion and this is now what the National Trust cares for today. It has a romantic, almost Disneyland happy feel and on a beautiful summer’s day it was a nice place to be.

Tuesday 25th August

Today we headed south east from Chippenham past the thatched rooftops of the homes of ancient Laycock and its even older abbey and later on past the even more ancient stones of Stonehenge to the relatively “new” C16th house of the Herberts, the Earls of Pembroke.

Once again it is the homes of families who have somehow been able to maintain hereditary continuity who have most been able to cope with the vagaries of political religious upheaval and C20th Government taxation/death duties policy. The Herberts have hung on in Wilton House, very near Salisbury although they have had their moments as did many other royalist sympathisers during Cromwell’s Commonwealth.

The current Earl and Countess of Pembroke are a young couple with young children and a youthful approach to “Stately home leadership”.  They open the house and gardens regularly for charity and hold many functions of various types on the property. They also refuse to “rope off” sections of the State and other rooms so when paying visitors come they don’t feel “kept out” of the rooms but are able to freely walk around. Indeed all of the house is still used by the family and apparently the family can often be seen mingling with the visitors. We were not sure if that was the case while we were there. I think it may have been possible. Another impressive feature was that special exhibitions were not charged at an additional rate.

On our visit two exhibitions were open as well as a professionally made film of the history of the house which was quite outstanding. The exhibitions were firstly, the current Earl of Pembroke’s fast car collection and secondly an exhibition of Cecil Beaton’s photographic works. Cecil Beaton was an English fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and academy award winning stage and costume designer for films and theatre. He also often photographed the Royal Family for official publications. The cars were to die for and some have been successful in races.

Cecil Beaton loved Wilton House, visited often, and his view of Wilton bears repeating:

Wilton House is perhaps the most wonderful piece in all Wiltshire’s heritage of domestic architecture. Formerly an abbey and later designed at various stages by Holbein the Younger, Inigo Jones, Watt and Wyatt, with its cube rooms and the crimson velvet curtains, with its fantastic Palladian bridge and the lawns flanked with cedars of Lebanon, its gardens where Shakespeare acted and Philip Sydney wrote “The Arcadia”, Wilton is at every time of the year , in all weathers , unfailing in its beauty.

I can’t add to this except the impressive collection of paintings (Rembrandt painting of his aged mother, the largest collection of van Dyke portraits in England, Brueghel the younger and older, Titian, many Italian Renaissance paintings, over 100 classical busts and so on), the pair of Fred Astaire shoes, the wonderful Japanese inspired water garden and the wonderful front gate with a sculpture of Marcus Aurelius atop the gate!  Shakespeare did have a special connection with Wilton House and the house has a history of dramatic performance. Like many British stately homes Wilton was used as a hospital during World wars.

Once again photography was not permitted inside the house so no serious pics inside. The gardens and cedar lined lawns are to die for and the quality of the internal presentation of the house  has few peers.

A small highlight for me is that in one bookcase in a drawing room Ann spotted  two beautifully bound volumes of the Revd Humphrey Prideaux’s Prideaux’s Connections. Humphrey Prideaux was a distant ancestor of mine and became the Dean of Norwich. I have a copy of Prideaux’s Connections, found for me by the late Bishop John Wilson, much less grand than the two volumes in Wilton House. The work is a scholarly attempt to relate the the Old and New Testaments theologically and historically. It was good to see them there.

Monday 24th August

Today we experienced our first seriously rainy day of touring and it certainly makes a contrast to the high thirties we experienced for a month in Italy.  We drove from Chippingham 35 minutes south to the C15th mansion of Longleat, ancestral home of the Thynne family who survived Tudor politics, serious Cromwellian warfare and the ups and downs of aristocratic life and who still own their house today.

The present Marquess is an artist and patron of artists who has added to the over 1000 paintings and portraits in Longleat his own quite impressive political and social comment art as well as two mazes and many other garden additions. In 2010 he handed over the running of the estate to his son Viscount Seymour.

The estate is vast although not as big as in Elizabethan days.  It still measures 1000 acres of immaculately kept parklands initially established by famous English landscape designer Capability Brown. In addition there are 4000 acres of farmland which includes a running farm and another 4000 acres of woodland.

It was Henry Thynne (1905 -1992) who saved Longleat from the English death duties  taxation system (and in the process many other stately homes).  Against significant ridicule he opened the house to the public on a regular paying basis thereby setting a standard for many eventually to follow. In addition as an amazing entrepreneur he created an impressive wildlife safari park and a holiday campsite. Many major public events are held at Longleat and many films have been made there. Longleat is generally regarded as the most impressive still standing Elizabethan house in England.

The House itself contains just one space, the baronial  hall  remaining from Elizabethan times but that itself is an impressive space. Many ot the changes that have been made were completed in the C19th by architect Sir Jeffrey Wyatville  but what made an impact on us were the rich furnishings throughout the house and the high standard with which the interior and furnishings have been maintained. In addition the very committed and enthusiastic staff made an impact by their passion for the house. What made an impact on me was the library of over 44 000 books in seven extraordinary rooms! Hmm…

Leaving Longleat after a very pleasant lunch in the crypt of the mansion, we journeyed back to Chippenham via the beautiful small Cotswolds town of Bradford on Avon which contains three very historic churches.  We were able to visit two of them. The most ancient is a small and simple Saxon Church, the Church of St Laurence whose existence is noted by William of Malmesbury in the 1120’s but thought by him to date back to the time of St Aldheim (died 709) although this date is contested and the original Saxon site may have been on the site of the present Holy Trinity Anglican Church. This is an ancient church indeed and reminds me of the simple chapel we saw in Glendalough Monastery in southern Ireland some years ago.

Holy Trinity is also an ancient church in Bradford on Avon although substantially rebuilt in the 1860’s. It certainly dates from the C12th on this site and ancient features include a faded wall painting in the sanctuary dating from c1300, the C15th tower, a funeral tomb for Anne Yew dating to 1601, the memorial to Charles Steward who fell off his horse in 1698 and the amazing “squint” or “hagiograph”…a long small corridor with a window into the sanctuary to enable leprosy sufferers to see the priest and hear what was happening in the sanctuary. In the former monastery in which the chapel was built there was a leprosy hospital. The Church will soon celebrate its millennium and is a lively and spiritually active community.

Saturday 22nd  and Sunday 23rd August

Saturday was a total chill out day for us in magnificent 28 degree Kentish sun.  We commenced a lengthy search for a prescription for Voltaren for Ann which is  not available off the shelf in Europe or the UK. We managed to find an online medical service to help but the prescription was sent to a pharmacy which was closed by the time we got there and re-routing of the prescription was not completed until 5.00pm in the delightful village of Faversham.  I managed to find a second-hand bookshop with titles in English at last!

The rest of the day was spent doing Richter genealogies in the garden at Forge House. We have now traced Ann’s father Murray Richter’s father Robert back two further generations to his first generation Australian father Adolphus  and his German grandfather Carl from a village near Hamburg.

We had an early start on Sunday with an emotional farewell to Ann’s cousin Joyce and husband Brian, Jack Russells Badger and Harvey and much loved Forge House and the tiny village of Frinsted. It is a long way from Berwick to Frinsted and we have come to love them very much over the last twenty years.  The beautiful Kentish sun which has been with us for the whole of our stay began to fade as we drove westwards into an Atlantic rainstorm.

We drove the 90kms to Guildford Cathedral and shared in the 9.45am Holy Communion Service led by the Dean the Very Revd. Dianna  Gwilliams.  Guildford is one of England’s newest cathedrals having been consecrated in 1961.  Begun much earlier,  its completion was seriously delayed during the Second World War.

The Cathedral holds a commanding position on a high hill overlooking the university city of Guildford and looks the more austere in its position for the lack of surroundng gardens or trees.  The interior of the cathedral is Gothic in style and again very austere with subdued and small stained glass on the narrow windows and a beautiful Rose window in the sanctuary.

The Dean preached on Ephesians 6, the Christian’s defence described by Paul in terms of the armour surrounding a Roman soldier.  It was a spiritually helpful and clear address. and we were warmly wlecomed by members of the congregation and clergy.

We drove on through England’s gorgeous South West and Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen country  in the rain to Wiltshire and our home for the next five days Chippenham in the Cotswolds, one of the prettiest regions of England and very close to the Welsh border.

Chippenham is at the southern end of the Cotswolds and is quite a large town built around the wide and free flowing Avon River of Stratford fame. It has many fine streetscapes and fine old homes. The rain cleared in the afternoon and we were able to wander around the town, fairly quiet on a late Sunday afternoon.

Friday 21st  August

Today we drove with Ann’s cousin Joyce and her husband Brian from Frinstead to the extraordinarily well preserved C14th Gothic stately home Penshurst in its own village of Penshurst high up in the Weald of Kent. This vast house was commenced in 1341 by Sir John de Pulteney and survived the Black Death, the peasant’s revolt and the hundred years war all in the hands of various Dukes of Bedford, Gloucester and Buckingham, the third of whom Edward Stafford fell out with Henry V111 and was hanged for treason leaving the Estate in the hands of the crown. Henry V111 used it as a hunting lodge and a place from which to woo Anne Boleyn.

Eventually the Estate came to Edward VI after Henry’s death and he rewarded his tutor and Steward of his household by handing it over to Sir William Sidney. The House has been in the Sidney household ever since…remarkable continuity for such a stately home and its Tudor apartments are still used by the 2nd Viscount De L’Isle  Phillip Sidney and his wife Isobel. Phillip is the son of William Sidney , the first  Viscount De L’Isle and the former Governor General of Australia.

The Capital of New South Wales is named after this family of whom perhaps the most famous is the Renaissance scholar, poet, soldier and courtier Sir Philip Sidney, of whom C S Lewis in his role as Renaissance historian and literary critic writes: Even at this great distance Sidney is dazzling. He is that rare thing, the aristocrat in whom the aristocratic ideal is really embodied.

This remarkable estate sits in 2.5 thousand acres of pasture and forest high up in the Kent weald and the family own effectively the whole village of Penshurst, St John the Baptist’s Church and the vast house and garden. Once again no photography inside the house is allowed so no pics of the interior which is a pity because the house is entered through a front door leading to a Baronial hall of monumental proportions…timbered ceiling trusses and original huge roughly hewn C14th banqueting tables.  A small crypt contains the costumes used for the filming of the BBC production of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall which was created at Penshurst in 2014.

The State rooms begin with a vast dining room set with an unknown but early service, family  and royal portraits including James !, Anne of Austria and a copy of Van Dyke’s portrait of a mounted Charles 1, the original being in Buckingham Palace.

Several drawing rooms follow with early and magnificent furniture, a substantial Chinese porcelain collection, early tapestries; complex early embroidery, unusual European cabinets and tables of all  shape and sizes, and paintings from a range of periods but all rare and unusual, nothing can be taken for granted. The Long Room again has many family portraits and leads down a narrow stairway to a small panelled bedroom with again significant paintings and furniture. The Nether Gallery includes a substantial collection of arms and armour.

A feature is two exhibition rooms with a photographic gallery of the last 150 years of the Sidney family including many significant historic events and the damage to the house in World War 11. The photos are kept up to date and help viewers to understand that Penhurst Place is still a living and lived in home.

The gardens are quite remarkable and beautifully tended by a team of gardeners. There is the formal lime tree entrance drive,  a formal parterre garden with a beautiful oval pond well stocked with golden fish.  Terraced down the hill the gardens include wonderfully productive fruit trees of all kinds, large topiary gardens, a substantial rose garden, the heraldic garden, the nut garden, the magnolia garden, many paths with impressive herbaceous borders, Union Flag garden, Diana’s bath and the Porcupine statue.

Penshurst Place is a personalised dwelling of peace and tranquility in a beautiful weald setting with wonderful views all around. It is an exceptional achievement to have house and gardens lasting 600 years through largely one family and a fine tradition of expert gardiners.

Thursday 20th August

Today we drove to The Down House, the family home of Charles Darwin in the leafy village of Downe not that far from us in Kent.  I have had a life-long interest in Darwin from university days studying Biology.  All of my studies in Biology and Biogeography and genetics forced me to realise that there is a deep unity in the organic make up of all living things and indeed that living things themselves are the product of natural substances found in the environment of the universe. At the same time I was getting excited about my university studies in the history and philosophy of science and realising that in relation to faith and science issues there were thinkers on both sides and all shades in between. Then again majoring in English Literature I soon began to see the need for the different kinds of literature in the Bible to be taken seriously for their original purpose and, for example, it was not necessary to ask historical questions about the parables, or the Book of Revelation, the last chapters of Ezekiel or indeed the first three chapters of Genesis.

This all became very clear to me in university but once I began teaching religious studies to senior students I became immediately aware that one of the biggest barriers to evangelism for thinking students was the issue of evolution and the Bible. How can we believe in this faith if we are required to adopt a literal view of the very important foundational stories in the Bible. I set myself on a course of studies which I have never left to delve deeply into Biblical hermeneutics, the Biblical text and its meaning, approaches to understanding Genesis,  evolutionary theory and the philosophies such as creationism that were so inimically opposed to it.

It is still no easy task because the mass media and indeed many secondary teachers in the Humanities  continue in their presentation of Christianity to regard Christian faith as being totally opposed to evolution and never bother to look deeper. This is frustrating because students by and large are unaware that a vast array of modern geneticists and evolutionists are also very thoroughly committed Christians including leading Geneticist Dennis Alexander,  Francis Collins the key player in unravelling the human genome, Owen Gingrich, Harvard’s Professor of Astronomy and many others.  See my book on this blog for a detailed bibliography.

In the process of thinking over the years I amassed a rather large collection of books and studies on the science and religion debate and in the end, with the late and much loved Dr Tony Pepper, physicist and former teaching colleague at St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School, we wrote a book on the subject. I remain convinced that as Augustine,  Schaeffer and McGrath have clearly shown there is “no final conflict” in being fully committed to a physical understanding of human origins and having a high view of the Scriptures as being written to help reveal the true and loving nature of the creator God to all mankind.  I was pleased to find a remarkable coherence between the books in the Down  house study centre and the books on my shelf at home!

This is not to suggest that everything that Darwin wrote stands without modification as written. Biological science has added much since 1859 when the Origin was published and the science of Genetics was non-existent then. Factors other than “natural selection” may well be at play in the evolutionary process and on the other hand, Darwin himself would have and did object to some of the sociological uses “Darwinism” has been put to especially in the areas of eugenics, economic theory and psychology.

With all this in mind I went to the Down House with some trepidation fearing a polemical view on one side or the other. I found instead a thoroughly researched and beautifully preserved and presented exploration of the man, his family, and the methodologies he employed and a very fair treatment of the response to his work and the explosion in the church which resulted.  Most of us think of his “work” as the major books such as the Beagle notebook, the Origin, and the Descent of Man. We are often unaware of his detailed research into plant biology, barnacles, beetles, earthworms and many other areas of biology.

The three storey house is full of various experiments he undertook,  his greenhouse, beekeeping, wondrous grounds with fruit trees and forest walks as well as beautifully manicured gardens, the old mulberry tree outside his study is still there and much else besides.  It is an eerie experience to be in his study which was set up with help from photographs provided by his son Leonard who died in 1943. No photography is permitted inside the house so all we have a some external shots.

Darwin was a loving family man and there is much about his family in the house and of course the tragedy of the death of his much loved first daughter Annie. Her death was the big factor in denting Darwin’s religious faith, not the complexities of nature for which indeed he at times does seem to point to a bigger story.  We saw “Annie’s box” which has been much written about, especially by Randall Keynes and to be in this peaceful house and to walk the “sandwalk” through the woods which apparently he often did to ruminate and think was a wonderful privilege.

18th and 19th August

We packed up our London apartment  at the Barbican and handed in our Oyster cards for a refund. London is such a diverse, exciting and “learned” city that you could spend a year here and not scratch the surface. We have had many happy visits here and are sad to leave but we are looking forward very much to being with Ann’s cousin Joyce and her husband Brian in Frinsted, Kent

Taking  the overland train from London’s Victoria Station to Maidstone East,,a very pleasant journey,  we soon left the suburbs for the rolling hills  and fields of the Northern Downs of Kent. Maidstone East is a major service town and here we picked up our 6 on the floor manual Vauxhall Estate Car, England’s GMH Holden equivalent. It is a curious feeling for me to be driving a Vauxhall because my father always drove Vauxhalls ..four of them over the years. This one looks a bit sharper than our old grey and white family Vauxhall Cresta.

It was wonderful to drive again through the leafy narrow lanes of the Northern Downs through places called Hollingbourne and Wormshill to the Forge House in Frinsted, a tiny village of 18 homes and a C17th church surrounded by cropped fields and bluebell forests (no bluebells in late Summer!).  Forge House is the original blacksmith’s house of the estate of Lord Kingsdowne, of the Leigh-Pemberton family who just recently died. We had met him at a parish dinner on a previous visit. He was a leading British financier and finished his career as Governor of the Bank of England. He and his family have done a great deal for the village and for the church and he is greatly missed here. His wife continues to run the estate with her eldest son John and his family.

This is our fifth visit to Joyce and Brian’s lovely home. Joyce is an Aussie but met Brian, a Brit in 1954 on a ship travelling to England. Brian joined the ship in Singapore and they had cabins close by.  Their romance evolved slowly as Brian was a sailor and away many months and sometimes years at sea. They finally married in 1961 and prior to children Joyce joined Brian, a senior engineer, sailing all over the world.

Some 30 years ago they bought the Forge House in Frinsted because they needed a horse paddock for their daughter. It is a magic three storey home including a cellar. Apart from the odd car passing through the village the only sound here is birdsong, occasional church bells (Monday evening practice, Sunday morning and weddings!) and that’s about it.

I especially love the lovingly tended “English country garden with its summer flowers, wonderful vegetables and shady trees. Joyce  and Brian are readers, explorers and thinkers and the bookshelves here are full of yummy books on art, porcelain, history and architecture. It is a treasure trove for me in every way. They are wonderful hosts and have sheltered many Aussies far from home over the years. We feel privileged to stay here once again and have a rest from hard core touring. I enclose some pictures of their wonderful garden.

Monday 17th August

Today is our last full day in London and so far we have spent it hunting down Southwark Cathedral.    An easy task I thought …just take the underground to Southwark and ask someone where the Cathedral is.  Turns out the only Southwark Cathedral they knew was St George’s Southwark Cathedral (Catholic) which is itself an ancient Gothic cathedral in the process of substantial renovation. Inside it has an unusual painted roof with the chi rho symbol repeated and in general it is a restrained Gothic style interior with a beautiful modern stained glass window on the West face.

We retraced our lengthy walk back to Southwark metro and found the map at the station we should have looked at in the  first place and saw that Southwark Cathedral is actually to be found at London Bridge, one stop closer to London central. We arrived there through the busy Burrough Market at lunchtime and found a ready welcome from all staff.  Southwark Cathedral lays claim to be the oldest Gothic cathedral in London and who am I to argue?

It is beautifully cared for and has many historic associations with old London. It is one of the sites of Chaucer’s pilgrimage in the Canterbury Tales,  Dickens writes about it  and Will Shakespeare and his brother allegedly were members of this parish in the C16th.  In addition Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, a Biblical scholar who was part of the Westminster team who worked on the King James Bible is buried here as is one John Gower, who was poet laureate to both Richard 11 (when he was not away fighting or imprisoned in Europe) and to King Henry1V. The Cathedral also has a magniicent new stained glass in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee.  There is a very swish cafe here and we had a light but excellent lunch there.

The Cathedral has a mellow and warm  feel with clearly a very caring congregation busy in and around the Cathedral in many roles. The interior is marked by a remarkable bronze and wooden screen behind the altar which features individuals who have played a significant role in the church’s long history. The simple pulpit and modern brought down communion table make an impact as does the beautifully painted and sculpted ceiling in the Crossing. This is an ancient Gothic church with warmth and love.

After lunch we watched the boats plying their trade under London Bridge for a while then ventured back into the city for a final wander through the streets of old London Town. We got out at Oxford Circle which is at the junction of Oxford and Regent Streets and absolutely retail centre. We walked the length of Regent St on one and a half sides including past Piccadilly Circus and down to Waterloo Place and the astonishingly tall tower of the Duke of York looking out over Green Park and Buckingham Palace.  The traffic of mainly double decker buses and taxis was busy as ever in London and the fashion shops like Burberry and Calvin Klein were in full expensive swing. We managed to resist buying anything and returned to our pad at the Barbican.

Tonight we had a very happy reunion  dinner with Beaconhills staff Colleague Amara Jensen.

Tomorrow we train to Maidstone to pick up a car to travel to Frinstead Village in Kent, home of Ann’s cousin Joyce and her husband Brian. Not sure what the wifi situation will be there so there may be a five day gap in the blog. Regards to anyone who is still reading occasionally!

Sunday 16th August

Today we took it quietly in the morning after five days of quite hectic activity. We slept in; organised a date with Beaconhills staff colleague Amara Jensen who is also on leave in London; caught up with some overdue washing and generally rested our aching feet and backs!

We had the privilege today of worshipping in English!  for the first time in six weeks, not once but twice in two very different settings both with congregations of over 500.  The first was the 11.30am Sung Eucharist at St Paul’s Cathedral in London. What a privilege to worship in this place where folk have gathered for 1400 years in one building or another and in this building which through heroic efforts of staff and fire-fighters survived the bombing raids of the Battle of Britain.

The choir for the service was a visiting all female choir, Aurora Nova, because the Cathedral choir is on a Summer break. The choir was superb and they sang arrangements by the ‘Oxford’ composer Cecilia McDowall who is ‘composer-in-residence’ at Dulwich College London. Her music for the Communion Service has been described as having a freshness, brightness and fidelity about it, combining flowing melodic lines and occasionally astringent harmony with rhythmic vitality.  That’s exactly as I found it and a wonderful aid to meditation and worship. The voluntary was an amazing Toccata from Symphony No 1 by Rachel Laurin (born 1961). A magical piece well received by the congregation. The organist was not named in the service notes.

The Preacher was the Reverend Paul Arbuthnot, a “minor canon”  of St Alban’s Cathedral who preached on the Gospel for today..John 6:51-58 “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”  In a service occasionally interrupted by backpackers and family groups lurching around oblivious to a service being in progress I thought he did a brilliant job reminding us of the advertising slogan “You are what you eat!”  Yes, Jesus may have been referring in some pre-emptive way to the eucharist but the eucharist is no use to us if our lives are not reflecting our spiritual bond with Jesus, who he was, what he taught, and how we live the faith we profess. It was clear, concise and to the point and we appreciated it especially after  a drought of teaching in the last month. We were greeted warmly by the preacher as we left the service.

The second service we attended today was the 5.00pm service at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Brompton, once again with well over 500 in attendance at this 1829 neo-Gothic parish church in the middle of London’s Sloane area near the Victoria and Albert Museum. This parish of course has been made famous by the outreach media work of its Vicar and leader Niki  Gumble of Alpha fame. The church has three other centres and has planted upwards of ten new churches in greater London.

Other than the ancient feel of pointed arches, wonderful frescoes in the sanctuary and beautiful stained glass in the East wall windows there could not be a greater contrast in the worship.

First of all it was an outreach service very directly aimed at the younger set (although the congregation consisted of quite a few greybeards like us!)  A vast high screen filled the front of the sanctuary and a very bright light show illuminated the whole sanctuary making St Pauls’ rather dainty candles look a little pale.  No photography was permitted so I cannot illustrate this service.

Beneath the screen right on 5.00pm  miraculously appeared a substantial rhythm band fired by an even more substantial sound system and after a brief opening prayer we moved quickly and emphatically into a series of Gospel songs enthusiastically taken up by the congregation.   At Berwick Anglican we are used to a good sing at the start of the 10.15am service (nearly always two songs and an outstanding band and singers).  But this was something else again…sustained singing of six songs which included free singing and the creation of a mood of seriously asking the Holy Spirit to be present in and through the whole service. It was powerful and strong and made a significant impact on many present who seemed to know what to expect and what to do as did our niece Naomi with whom we went to the service.To us as outsiders it was demanding but also helpful although (again as an outsider, maybe too long! especially after a long day. If I was 17 I wouldn’t have cared!)

After readings and an intercessory prayer the sermon was given by one of the Parish curates the Revd Rob Hall and  was based on an exegesis of Psalm 27 ..David facing overwhelming enemies but trusting God and going to God first rather than going to arms. Rob’s theme was fix your focus and feed your faith and his presentation was equally communicative as the morning service, establishing a real intimacy with the huge congregation (which sits in two levels upstairs and downstairs) and using no notes but very clever AV and online illustrations.  At the close of his address there was a call for conviction and repentance and a significant number of people responded. The service closed with more vital singing and a blessing.  We thoroughly enjoyed both services even though they were at opposite ends of Anglican expression. For me personally the joy of Anglicanism is the breadth of its worship and I would dearly love to see greater love and understanding shown by both sides in our very polarised Melbourne Diocese. Each type of liturgy has much to offer different types of people. Viva la difference!

In between these two services we visited the  very impressive (and free! yippee!) National Portrait Galley near Leicester Square. It was so exciting to see so many of my favourite people in wonderful portraits both modern and ancient.  Photography is difficult and I know I should be giving credit to the artist rather than the subject but most were unknown to me so I focussed on the people being painted. I did note what a successful portrait painter pre-Raphaelite John Millais came to be.  The photography is dodgy but I include a few. The highlight was the tiny drawing of the reclusive Jane Austen, carefully encased in glass and impossible to photograph.  Here are a few of my heroes in no particular order!

William Wordsworth was missing and the staff member agreed there was a portrait and it was probably on loan.