London & Non-London Shorts

Ian in the Deer Park at Tatton














Robert Blaney at the Neo-Classical Mansion at Tatton.




















Real Fathers 4 Justice at the Abbey.















Truck collision damage to the Abbey Bookshop.

Lily Humphrey's Belles and Bad Boys Party Cambridge March 2006.

The rendition of the Rendez-vous-des-Amis portrait - February 2006.

Right Royal Jaunt to Eton & Windsor

It is always worth taking the tour when visting somewhere you do not know about. My turn was taken with a class of Mediterranean schoolchildren, with one of thier teacher's translating, Eton slang and all.

The main court at Eton with the founder's statue. The tradition is for Eton boys to pass on the left so that their heart is closest to the founder.

The present warning.
















Past transgression.
















The Chapel. Having been commissioned in parallel with King's College Chapel Cambridge, its completion suffered worse that its brother from the dynastic changes of the Wars of the Roses, and ended up much smaller than originally intended. It displays rare wall paintings, mainly modern glass (because of most of it being blown out in 1940), a host of memorials, and a grand decorated organ. Its fan-vaulting is more of a recent build than is apparent, it being built in the twentieth century to replace the much deathwatch beetle eaten wooden roof.

Double-decker memorials for the First and Second World Wars.

















Studded doors.





















Bishop Waynflete, a Provost and Patron of Eton College.




















An old classroom which has been used as such since before Columbas discorvered America. There are names all cut into the heavy wooden benches. The names in the window shutters are supposed only to be those boys who were granted admission into the Univeristy of Cambridge (a tradition which continues in a seperate room today). Unfortunately, due to the decline in uniformly rarified handwriting and the discontinuation of the bearing of knives as arms causes the graffiti of todayto be not so elegant as in times past.

Francis Cleyn's painting of the Last Supper in the iron ribbed 1822 parish church of Windsor.














Windsor Castle & its near rival, the stoney keeps and crenallated parapets of Legoland (the latter not my picture).



















The Long Walk in Windsor Park.

The sights from Windsor's public convenience.

The Gothic Hordes at the gates.

Jaunt to Arundel

Arundel is a quiet little place dominated by two buildings closely linked to the Dukes of Norfolk: the Castle, and the Roman Catholic Cathedral.
















The train station is situated a good mile away from the centre of the town as any settlement worth its name is apt to provide for. As I came towards the centre I found a small market outside this shop, selling fresh apple juice, some breads and crafts. The town crier was doing some of her subsidiary duties in the vicinity.















Market traders and custom.














Local school appeal continues in earnest.

The Parish and Priory Church of St Nicholas


















The vicars of Arundel















The several remains wall paintings uncovered from the fourteenth or fifteenth century:

The Coronation of the Virgin



















& the seven works of mercy

What is really quite anomolous about the Priory Church is that behind the altar there is a transparent screen and metal grille with the Fitzalan Chapel, the burial place for the Dukes of Norfolk, beyond. This chapel, from 1380 the Church's Chancel and Collegiate Chapel of the College of priests until 1544 with the dissolution of the Priory. It fell into disrepair, was used as a workshop, was used as a stable by Cromwell's troops and was restored in the nineteenth century. In 1874 an iron curtain descended between it and the church and a case was fought in the High Court over its ownership. There has only been several openings of the grille since that date, the two halves representing the only example of the Roman catholic and Anglican churches worshipping under one roof in England.

The (Roman Catholic Cathedral) Church of Our Lady and St Phillip, gift of Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk, commissioned in 1868 and opened in 1873. The stlye is the French Gothic of about 1400, the architect was Joseph Hansom, widely known as the inventor of the Hansom Cab.














Great Rose window.














A shrine for Phillip, 13th Duke of Norfolk, sentenced to death by Elizabeth I, but who died in his imprisonment, one of forty English martyrs canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970. Written into the step to the shrine

Quanto plus afflictionis pro Christo in hoc saeculo, tanto plus gloriae cum Christo in futuro. Arundell - June 22, 1587.

translates to "The more affliction we endure for Christ in this world, the more glory we shall obtain with Christ in the next." which Phillip cut into the fireplace over the fireplace in Beauchamp Tower which can still be seen in the Tower of London.




















This is not a Hansom Cab, but it was parked behind the Cathedral. For getting back after those late night masses.

Folly.



















The party at large.



















Some old machinery (for pumping water?).



















Swanbourne Lake (my batteries had run out of power so what follows is an artist's impression). A lake mentioned in the Domesday Book. One of the subjects of a painting by Constable. There is a dredging project ongoing to try and restore the water levels here. You can walk all the way around it, there are rowing boats when there is sufficient water and a tea shop (when there is sufficient tea). I sat down for quite a while on a bench close to the water's edge. One young couple were quite happily feeding the ducks some morsels of dry bread. As they continued to make thier way around and ensure a wide dispersal of their charitable giving they got to a part of the lake where the ducks were just not interested, and despite lobbing lumps into thier breasts, the birdlife was not taking any. The couple, from looking fully contented, moved away in silence, and put away their bags of crumbs.