Tag Archives: church

They came from Spain and worshipped here in Istanbul

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IN 1492 THE ANDALUSIAN Arabs were thrown out of Spain. Just like some of the Jewish people who were expelled at the same time, some of the Arabs came to Istanbul, which had been under the rule of the Islamic Ottomans since 1453, when they captured the city from the Byzantine rulers.

In 1475, Fatih Sultan Ahmed converted a church in Beyoglu to a mosque, known as the Galata Mosque. Today, this mosque, whose interior feels (but does not resemble) more like that of church, is now known as the ‘Arap Camii’ (Arab Mosque). This is because the Arabs forced to leave Andalusia settled in the area around the mosque, and used it for worship.

From the outside, the mosque could easily be mistaken for a church. This is because of its shape and what had once been a tall square bell tower. The tower is now topped with a conical feature, such as is found on the tops of most minarets. However at the Arap Camii, the conical object could be mistaken for a church steeple.

We visited this large mosque. The interior is rich in timber features, and looks as if it has been recently restored or renovated. An informative sign outside the mosque stated that when the building was repaired in 1913, Christian gravestones commemorating the deaths of people from Genoa (Italy) were discovered, and placed in a museum of archaeology.

We would have been unlikely to have visited this interesting mosque had we not taken a wrong turning. As the saying goes ‘every cloud has a silver lining ‘.

Shops and shrines on a busy road in old Bangalore

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I KNOW OF TWO Avenue Roads. One is in London. Lined with the homes of the wealthy, it runs between Swiss Cottage and Regents Park. The other one is in Bangalore. It runs between KR Market (aka City Market) and a large Hindu temple (mandir) where Kempe Gowda Road becomes District Office Road. Both the road in London and its namesake in Bangalore carry much traffic, but there the similarity ends.

Avenue Road in Bangalore (‘AR’) is mainly lined with all kinds of shops, especially those dealing in paper goods (stationery as well as printed books). It runs through one of the oldest parts of the city: Chickpet. The lines of shops are punctuated by small lanes and alleys that lead away from AR.

Old pillars in a mandir on Avenue Road in Bangalore

As you stroll along the thoroughfare, you will pass mandirs and one church. And near the KR Market end of the road, a short lane leads to a Muslim shrine, the Dargah-e-Hazrath Manik Mastan Sha Saherwadi. It is well worth removing your footwear to enter this peaceful place. The grave it contains is in a small room with a mirrored, domed ceiling.

Some of the mandirs on or near AR are also worth looking into. Although some of their facades look fairly recent, the carved stone columns within the buildings look quite old. Near the street entrance of one of the mandirs on AR, I saw two intricate stone carvings of Hindu subjects. Both looked as if they might have been carved several centuries ago.

The Rice Memorial Church stands in its own small grounds, separated more from its neighbours than the mandirs on AR. Named after the British missionary, the Rev Benjamin Holt Rice, this Church of South India place of worship was built between 1913 and 1916 on the site of an earlier chapel first constructed in 1834, and then later rebuilt before being demolished. Although I have passed it often, I have not yet been able to enter it.

Not far from the church and a couple of picturesque mandirs, there is a branch of the Kamat chain of eateries. You can stop there for snacks and a variety of beverages. This place is in the midst of the numerous bookshops on AR. Proclaiming discounted books, these stores mainly stock textbooks and computer programming instruction manuals. Incidentally, AR is a good place to find a wide variety of diaries and calendars.

Bustling Avenue Road in Bangalore is a far more colourful and interesting thoroughfare than its rather elegant but staid namesake more than 5000 miles away in London. The street in Bangalore and the lanes leading off it give one a good idea of the ‘flavour’ of the parts of the city which existed before the arrival of the British imperialists. It makes a fascinating contrast to the newer Cantonment areas that became established after the British began settling in Bangalore.

An infrequently opened church in London’s Bermondsey

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AS FAR BACK AS the 8th century, there was a priory in London’s Bermondsey district, just south of London Bridge. Like most other monastic institutions, it was dissolved during the reign of King Henry VIII. By 1296, there was a church close to the monastery, the ‘St Mary Magdalen Chapel’. This was built to serve the needs of the workers in the Priory and Convent of Bermondsey. It was the forerunner of the present church of St Mary Magdalen on Bermondsey Street. Please note that the name is Magdalen, rather than Magdalene.

In 1680, the church was deemed unsafe, and most of it was demolished. The late mediaeval tower was retained, and was encased in plaster, which hides its original surfaces. By 1690, a new church had been built. This incorporated the old tower, and is what can be seen today. There were a few later modifications made to the edifice, but most of what one sees, is how it was in 1690. The church was damaged both in WW2 and in a fire in 1971, but it has been faithfully restored. The wood carvings on the reredos beneath the Victorian stained glass eastern window might well have been created by the famous wood carver Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721), who was born in Holland and died in London.

The church feels spacious inside. We were lucky to have been able to enter it because apart from Sunday mornings, when a service is held, it is only open to the public between 12 noon and 2 pm on Fridays. We entered at about 1.45, having just eaten a tasty Vietnamese meal at the nearby Caphe House on Bermondsey Street.

A grave anagram in a church in Cornwall

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ON OUR WAY TO LOOE (in Cornwall), where we hoped to buy fresh fish – and we did – we passed through an extraordinarily picturesque village called Lerryn, which lies on the banks of the River Lerryn (a tributary of the River Fowey). The shopkeeper in the village store recommended that we took a look at the church in nearby St Winnow (aka ‘St Winnoc’). On our way to this place, which is at the very end of a narrow country lane, we were first slowed down by a flock of pheasants which refused to get off the road, and then by some workers felling a tree.

The parish church of St Winnow was built mainly in the 15th century and is positioned on a slope overlooking a stretch of the River Fowey. It is named after a saint, who is new to me. According to a website (www.anglozuluwar.com/images/Journal_10/St_Winnow_Church.pdf):

“St Winnow was one of the tireless band of Celtic priests and evangelists who consolidated and extended the Christian Church in Wales, Ireland, Cornwall and Brittany after the withdrawal of the Roman legions in the 5th Century. St Winnoc probably grew up in Wales and came here in about 670 AD to begin his missionary work, forming a small religious community and establishing a Lan or sacred enclosure. Eventually he moved to Northern France and founded a monastery at Wormhout, not far from Dunkirk.”

The church contains pews with beautifully carved endings. Two of its east windows have stained glass that dates from 1500. One of these windows contains a good display of the types of clothing worn at that time. The carved granite font, created in the 15th century, has bas-reliefs depicting angels with outstretched arms. All these features and others including the gothic architectural style make the church worth seeing. However, one thing struck me as being particularly unusual. It is an inscribed slate memorial on the north wall of the Lady Chapel.

The slate commemorated the death of William Sawle, who was buried on the 16th of February 1651. Beneath his name there is an anagram of it, which reads:

“I was ill: am wel”

‘Wel’ being a variation of the spelling of ‘well’.

Below this, there is the following verse:

“When I WAS sick, most men did deeme me ILL

If I had liv’d, I should have beene soe still.

Prais’d be the Lord, that in the Heav’ns doth dwell

Who hath received my Soule. Now I AM WEL.”

And beneath this, there is information, carved on the slate, that informs the viewer that Sir JSG Sawle Penrice repaired it “… out of respect to his Maternal Ancestors …” in 1838.

The Sawle family have lived in Cornwall since the time of William the Conqueror. By 1620, they were living at Penrice House near St Austell (see: http://www.sole.org.uk/sole2/penrice.htm). As for William Sawle, whose memorial bears an anagram, I cannot tell you anything yet because I have not found any information about him. However, his memorial in St Winnow is a great example of grave humour.

A faceless baptismal font in a small town in Hertfordshire

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HITCHIN IS A SMALL, attractive town in Hertfordshire. When we first visited it in 2020, despite an easing of the covid19 lockdown rules, we were unable to enter the town’s 14th to 15th century church of St Mary’s. On the 26th of August 2023, we spent a couple of hours in Hitchin and were able to enter the church. It contains many items of interest including a large painting created in the studio of Ruben’s.

It was the 15th century carved stone font that particularly interested me. The column supporting the bowl, which contains water with which children are baptised, has twelve carved figures. These depict the 12 apostles. Looking at these closely, you will see that they are all mutilated. Their faces have been chipped away, leaving the figures faceless.

The very helpful and informative gentleman who was looking after the church was not sure whether the faces were obliterated by Thomas Cromwell during the Reformation of Henry VIII or during the time of that other iconoclast Oliver Cromwell.

Luckily the carved angels that adorn the ceiling of the Chapel of St Andrew and a finely carved 15th century wooden screen escaped the attention of the iconoclasts. In one or two Suffolk churches we have visited, angels such as these were destroyed as part of the attempts to ‘purify’ the English Church.

Apart from what I have described, there are plenty of other things that make a visit to Hitchin’s church worthwhile. And if you enjoy ‘Olde Worlde’ British buildings, the town centre is rich in them.

A battle and a window in Essex

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IN THE YEAR 991 AD, the Anglo-Saxons fought a battle with Viking invaders in Maldon (Essex). The Vikings, who often raided for looting and plundering rather than conquest, won. Rather than continue to struggle with the Vikings, the Anglo-Saxon king Æthelred the Unready was advised by the Archbishop of Canterbury to pay them off. He paid the Vikings an enormous sum of money, which satisfied them.

Recently, we visited the church of St Mary the Virgin in Maldon. It stands on a small hill that overlooks the mudflats and rivulets of the Chelmer River where the battle was fought. In its north wall there is a striking, colourful modern stained-glass window. Designed by Mark Angus, it was installed in 1991to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Battle of Maldon. It is a great addition to an otherwise unremarkable church.

No, not the former Prime Minister

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AT THE WESTERN END of Chiswick’s Turnham Green, there is a striking church, which was designed in the Arts and Crafts style by the architect Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) and consecrated in 1880. It served the community that was beginning to settle in the recently established Bedford Park, which I described as follows in my book “Beyond Marylebone and Mayfair: Exploring West London”:

“Bedford Park near Turnham Green is probably the first example of what has become known as a ‘Garden Suburb’ development, although originally it was not known as such. Pevsner noted:

‘Its reputation as the earliest garden suburb needs some qualification. Trees and green spaces … are found in many earlier suburbs; the novelty of Bedford Park is their combination with ‘artistically designed’ houses … inspired not by classical or Gothic pattern books but by the red brick and tiled idiom derived chiefly from the home counties vernacular of the c17 and c18…’

He added that the idea was to recreate the:

‘… relaxed informal mood of a market town or village…’, in ‘… a completely speculatively built suburb.’

And, in the case of Bedford Park this ideal has been almost but not quite fully achieved, because the suburb, attractive though it is, has a somewhat staid, bourgeois feel about it. Created by Jonathan Thomas Carr (1845-1915), its development began in 1875 …”

If you want to know more, you can find it in my book.

Returning to the church, which we re-visited today (20th of June 2023), I showed my wife the interesting clock on one of its exterior walls. It is held away from the building by a sturdy beam on which there are some words. On one side, you can read: “Spion Kop Africa 1900”, and on the other, you will see: “In memoriam Harold Wilson”.

In case you are wondering, the clock has nothing to do with the former Prime Minister Harold Wilson (1916-1995). Instead, it commemorates 2nd Lieutenant Harold AC Wilson, who fell at the battle of  Spion Kop in January 1900 during the 2nd Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902).

[My book is available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/BEYOND-MARYLEBONE-MAYFAIR-EXPLORING-LONDON/dp/B0B7CR679W/ ]

A surprise in Stamford

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WHEN I WAS A YOUNG child, I remember going with my parents to south London to visit a Spanish sculptor, who had escaped to Britain as a refugee during the Spanish Civil War. Although we only visited him once, I recall that his name was something like ‘Alberti’. That is all I can remember, and I do not believe that my parents ever spoke about him much since that visit made maybe more than 60 years ago.

Today, the 20th of May 2023, we spent a couple of hours in the Lincolnshire Town of Stamford. This attractive place has several lovely old churches, one of which is St Martins. This edifice contains a chapel filled with glorious funerary monuments of members of the Cecil family, which was of great importance during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and other Tudors.

When we were about to leave the church, I spotted a modern wood carving of the head of a man with a beard and moustache. Although it was not nearly as attractive as the Cecil monuments, I decided to examine it. I do not know why I did, but I am glad that I did.

I was surprised to discover that the carved head was created by Jose Manuel de Alberdi Elorza (1922-2008). Beneath the head there is a notice with the following words written by Alberdi:
“A kind of anti-war protest… The face at the moment just when Christ died on the cross … The deed is done. We have killed.”

The sculptor was two years younger than my mother, also a sculptor. All that I can discover about Alberdi on the Internet is that he was Basque and a refugee from the Spanish Civil War. Also, he taught sculpture at the St Martins School of Art in London from 1948 to 1958 , which is where my mother made sculptures during that time.

Although I cannot be certain, I am pretty sure that this head in Stamford was made by the Spanish sculptor we visited in South London so many years ago.

English Church in Madeira

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THE FIRST RECORDED Anglican service in Madeira was held on a British ship passing by in 1774. Randomly occurring services were officiated by chaplains of passing ships until about 1807 when some British soldiers were stationed on Madeira as part of the war against Napoleon. Thereafter, the British garrison’s chaplain held services for British residents in the island’s British consulate.

In 1813, a plot of land was purchased close to the already established English Cemetery. The land is where the English Church stands today. Designed by Henry Veitch, the church was completed by 1822.

From the outside, the domed neoclassical building does not much resemble a church. Square in plan, inside it contains two concentric circles of supporting pillars. The top of the dome is above the central point of the church’s floor. The interior of the church is simple but elegant. Veitch, who was a freemason, might have been influenced by freemasonry in his choice of design, or possibly by the round style of temples favoured by the former Knights Templar.

When the church was built, it was attended by members of Madeira’s British residents, who numbered about 700 in 1822. Currently, there are only about 70 British residents. It was not until William Reid opened his hotel in the 1890s that the flood of tourists from Britain and elsewhere began in earnest.

Currently, the English Church, set in its lovely gardens, hosts many musical events – classical and otherwise.

Queen of Hearts maybe?

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HOLY TRINITY CHURCH in the Suffolk Town of Long Melford is a grand perpendicular gothic affair built in the 15th century when the town was prospering because of the then thriving wool trade. Fortunately for us today, several of the original stained glass windows have survived in reasonably good condition.

On one of these mediaeval windows, which survived the iconoclastic behaviour instigated by Henry VIII, depicts Elizabeth Talbot, the Duchess of Norfolk, who was born in about 1442. Her daughter was married as a child to Richard, one of the two princes murdered in the Tower of London in about 1483.

It has been suggested that John Tenniel, the Victorian illustrator of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, might possibly have visited Long Melford, seen the portrait of Elizabeth Talbot, and then modelled his illustration of the Queen of Hearts on that image on the window. Whether this was actually the case or just pure coincidence is up to the viewer to decide. I remain undecided.