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| Church of St John the Evangelist, Hoylandswaine |
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| Good Lord! |
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| Oh. Rats. |
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| Ta dah! |
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| Angels, Angels, Angels... |
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| More Archangels at the top... |
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| Christ, Mary and John in the window |
They have managed something remarkable, turning back time and bringing back to life something amazing and inspiring. The way that the village has embraced the work of Stanhope, a local lad, is an awe-inspiring thing to a Pre-Raphaelite lover like me. As I have reported before, the whole village got involved in the project, responding to the work with paintings, textile work and generally learning more about the treasure they had. I was really impressed by the sheer scale of the work and achievement when I went to see the mural. Also, there was a hint that the work has not finished and further adjustments could take place to restore the setting of the mural, repainting the roof to resemble one of its previous incarnations, more in keeping with the heavenly motif.
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I encourage you to make the journey up the M1 to see the mural, and while you are there have a jaunt around the Roddam Trail, a copy of which can be downloaded here. Congratulations to the good people of Hoylandswaine and I look forward to seeing you again.
I love old churches, and it is great to see this restored so much to what it looked like in the past! How ghastly they painted over it in the 60s! :( No accounting for taste! What a shame I am in the wrong country to see this, I could make a trip and have a picnic in a nearby field!
ReplyDeleteSome odd stuff took place in the 60s, but then I wasn't born yet so I take no responsibility. It is splendid and I look forward to visiting again if they get to do more work. Lovely part of the world indeed.
ReplyDeleteThankfully the murals at St. Mary's on the Bridge in Henley-on-Thames didn't get painted over in the '60s! I really think you ought to visit that church; most of it was re-decorated in the late Victorian era. The design on the ceiling are very similar, but the entire walls of the sanctuary, above the beautifully carved choir stalls, are painted, and just before the sanctuary, above the misericord, is a fabulous mural of the Adoration of The Lamb, which while designed by the parish curate and not an 'artist', has figures in fabulously Morris-esque Pre-Raphaelite style. It almost looks like one of Morris' tapestries, but painted. For a chap that was not trained as a painter, it's a really amazing mural.
ReplyDeleteI painted a Commonwealth Games mural at the school where I work and had to be all modern and bold graphics in my design. It's left me with murals on the brain, and left over paint, so I'm hoping to persuade the school to let me do a second mural in a slightly more artistic design (it's their paint, I have to use it at the school). Maybe I'll manage to get something Morris-esque done myself, with enough time!
How nice that they were able to retrieve it under the whitewash. Thank god they didn't scrub it off! Thanks for posting an uplifting story!
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