We’ve begun our learning with an introduction to the complex nature of assigning values to an object. Here’s a photo of Astley Castle in Warwickshire, a great example we were given and indeed the class were split, some loved it, some hated it.  

Very briefly it’s a fortified 16th Century Manor House, a Listed Building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Damaged by fire in the 70’s, it went onto the Buildings At Risk register. It was renovated and went on to win the RIBA Stirling Prize for Architecture in 2013. I like it, I think it’s secured its future successfully. 

Another interesting example we discussed was Kelburn Castle, the graffiti castle , take a look!

I took advantage of the Heritage Open Day at Bradford Cathedral. There was a guided tour around the Stained Glass Windows and a talk by Helen Elletson, Research Curator from the William Morris Society.

Both were really informative, we were shown so many interesting features, the wheatsheaf signature used on the glass by Charles Kempe, and symbolism such as the Pelican which I’d read about in my new book How to Read a Church by Richard Taylor. Also the flora and foliage background work preferred by Morris and the yellow and green colours so typical of his work.

The East Window in particular has examples of glass by so many well-known Pre Raphelites Edward Burne Jones, William De Morgan, Rosetti and more, it was the third commission for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company which went on to be Morris and Co.

The Education Team have produced detailed leaflets on the windows which can also be seen on their website. I’m definitely planning to go back as there was more than I could absorb in one visit. I also discovered a recorded talk on pre-Raphaelite stained glass by the De Morgan collection

It began with a lovely day in August in York with Church Crawling and Sharon of NU_B Design. Sharon is a fellow student from the Stained Glass Conservation and Heritage Management Course at The University of York and together we joined Rob Andrews ( Church Crawling) for one of his walking tours of Medieval Churches in York. He’s just so incredibly knowledgeable about the Art and Architecture of Historic Churches.

The sun was shining and we had a great day visiting four churches All Saints Pavement Church, Holy Trinity Church, All Saints North Street and St Marys BishopHill Junior. The last one was an added bonus and not too far away from the last stop, the pub! The Golden Ball pub Rob took us to is a community-run pub with fabulous Victorian features exterior tiles and a Victorian layout.

Like a true geek, I used an App, Google Keep to save photos and take notes on my phone. It syncs with my Uni Google account so now I have a lovely record of notes and photos with a separate folder for each church on my phone.

We saw the reuse of stonework and glasswork, the medieval waste hierarchy at work and I was struck by the wealth of information there is to decode in each church, I’ve since bought How To Read a Church, a pocket guide by Richard Taylor which I think is going to be helpful interpreting common features and symbols.