A blog about church history and related matters, particularly unitarian and non-subscribing history, as well as matters of faith, theology, liberal christianity, non-creedal religion and related topics. By the editor of 'Faith and Freedom' and the 'Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society'.
Just as we approach the start of Advent we were delighted to welcome to Dunmurry the Choir of Malone Integrated College who, guided by their Head of Music, Mrs Mitchell, and teacher, Mr Lennox, sang a wonderfully varied programme of pieces in the McCleery Hall for our regular Thursday Warm Space Coffee Morning on 30th November.
Malone College Choir singing at Dunmurry
It was great having the Choir with us, they had also walked all the way from their school to the church on a very cold day. But everyone was really impressed by their achievements as a Choir and the evident joy and enthusiasm they brought to their music. You can see some of their performance in the McCleery Hall on the following video:
Click on the video to see the Choir perform at Dunmurry
We wish the Choir every success in the future. It was a real pleasure to be able to start our Christmas celebrations in the company of the Choir.
Another video recorded at Dunmurry recently features a prayer from Orders of Worship. You can see this short video by clicking on the image below:
The latest issue of our journal is out now and will be with subscribers shortly. Anyone can subscribe and an annual subscription costs only £16 in the UK ($32 in the USA), details of how to subscribe can be found below.
Our cover picture contains a cartoon from the Manchester Evening Chronicle of 26 January 1911 and features Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, one of the founders of the National Trust, shown here trying to save some oaks on the bank of Thirlmere Reservoir in the Lake District. It links to Graham Murphy’s Review Article of a new biography by Michael Allen and Rosalind Rawnsley – Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, An Extraordinary Life, 1851-1920, (The New Beaver Press, 2023, pp 476. ISBN 978-1-7392194-1-3, £20 pbk.) The cartoon is strangely appropriate for today because it is also being used by campaigners trying to keep the public road along Thirlmere Reservoir open to walkers, cyclists and motorists. The Canon was not successful in his attempts in 1911 and the conifers which replaced the oaks now regularly blow down and block the road. You can read about the current campaign to keep the road open by clicking here.
Our journal opens with Sandra Gilpin’s pen portrait on the Rev William Hugh Doherty (c.1810-1890). His career began as the first minister of the Unitarian/Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church in Comber county Down. He moved to the United States and embarked upon an unusual career firstly as a Unitarian minister in Rochester NY then moving to a denomination known as the ‘Christian Church’ where he became quite a prominent educator. But the suggestion of some scandal was never far away in his life and he managed to serve on both sides of the Civil War as well as hold views, at different times, that were both pro and anti slavery! His career ended with him becoming an assistant in the US Patent Office.
Other articles include Imran Usmani’s fascinating discussion of ‘The Crucifixion of Jesus in Islam’. Looking afresh at the traditional Muslim view of the Crucifixion the author presents ‘novel textual and contextual analysis of the Crucifixion Verse based on the Quran and traditional Muslim sources’ and concludes that the traditional view is actually a misunderstanding of the original intention. He concludes that the Quran does not deny the historical fact of the Crucifixion of Jesus, rather it denies that the Crucifixion was rightful. The author believes that ‘Crucifixion denial in the Muslim tradition created a chasm between Muslims and Christians because it made both parties sceptical of the other’s scriptures.’ His aim is to help bridge this chasm dividing the two religions.
Other articles include Dan C. West’s encouragement to Christians to turn from ‘preoccupation with the past to focus instead on the future is a courageous act of faith and hope’, in ‘With Courage and With Hope’; and a sermon by the editor, ‘Telling Our Stories’, which asks whether those of us in a liberal theological tradition fully understand and articulate our identities.
There is also a good number of reviews including:
Maria Curtis (ed.), Cherishing the Earth – Nourishing the Spirit, Lindsey Press, 2023, pp 264. ISBN: 978-0-85319-098-1, £12.00 pbk. Reviewed by Oscar Sinclair.
Stephen Hart, James Chuter Ede: Humane Reformer and Politician, Pen and Sword History, 2021, pp 352. ISBN 978-1-52678-372-1, £25.00, hbk. Reviewed by Derek McAuley.
George D. Chryssides and Dan Cohn-Sherbok (eds.), The Covid Pandemic and the World’s Religions. Bloomsbury Academic, 2023, pp 256. ISBN 978-1-3503-4963-6, £19.95 pbk, £65.00 hbk. Reviewed by Marcus Braybrooke.
Marcus Braybrooke, Interfaith Pioneers 1893-1939. The Legacy of the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, Braybrooke Press, 2023, pp 118. ISBN 9798392406180, £9.95 pbk. Marcus Braybrooke, Jewish Friends and Neighbours. An Introduction for Christians, Braybrooke Press, 2023, pp 367. ISBN 979-8397750776, £19.95, pbk. Both reviewed by the Editor.
An annual subscription for each volume (two issues) costs £16.00 (postage included) in the United Kingdom. Single copies can be ordered at a cost of £8.00 each (postage included). Cheques should be made out to Faith and Freedom and sent to the business manager:
Nigel Clarke, Business Manager, Faith and Freedom, 16 Fairfields, Kirton in Lindsey, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. DN21 4GA.
Which of the churches in our tradition do you think was the first to be filmed? Well, there is good evidence that this distinction belongs to Dunmurry. Indeed First Dunmurry (Non-Subscribing) Presbyterian Church must be among the first of all churches to appear on film in Ireland.
The original manse which appears in the film when viewed from the level crossing which itself can be seen slightly right of centre underneath the rainbow
In 1897 the famous Lumière brothers came to Ireland, or to be more precise their cinematographer Alexandre Promio did. Among other places, he filmed in Belfast and filmed segments of the rail journey from Belfast to Dublin. One day in 1897, sometime between June and October of that year, he filmed the view from the train as it pulled out of Dunmurry station. You can see this film – Départ de Dunmurry – in the video below.
The film lasts only 37 seconds and seems to have been made on a bright, sunny, probably summer’s day. As the train starts to pull out of the station the viewer sees the area around Upper Dunmurry Lane which is very hard to recognise, most of the buildings are quite different today compared to the complex of mills that were visible then. At about 22 seconds, though, you can quite clearly see Glebe Road from the vantage point of the level crossing. The wall of the Church is immediately identifiable as it curves round towards the gate, behind it you can see the grave yard and then you can see the Church through the trees as the train picks up speed. This is followed by the edge of the old manse before the view is taken up with more trees until the vista spreads out to an open field.
This film was first shown at Gatti’s Music Hall on Westminster Bridge Road, London on 21st October 1897.
It is a real piece of history and it does evoke a strange emotion to see a moving image of a place so familiar to us but as it looked 126 years ago. Yet, there we are, as we looked in the year of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Even then our Church was nearly 120 years old but caught in a fleeting glimpse as a steam train powers its way towards Lisburn. It is a reminder of the continuity of our witness and the unchanging core of our message set amidst an ever-changing world.
First Dunmurry, built in 1779, and possibly the first Church in Ireland to appear on film
On Sunday, 8th October we celebrated our service of Harvest Thanksgiving at First Dunmurry. There was a good attendance and the church was beautifully decorated. The choir sang Great is thy faithfulness and the hymns included were Come, ye thankful people, come, All things bright and beautiful, Fountain of mercy, God of love and We plough the fields, and scatter.
The whole service can be viewed on the following video:
Click on the video to see the Harvest Service
The organist and choirmaster was Allen Yarr and the service was conducted by the minister, the Rev Dr David Steers.
All donations of tinned and dried food were given to the Foodbank and fruit and vegetables were donated to FareShare.
Hale is a pretty little place close to Liverpool and now in Cheshire, although traditionally located in Lancashire. Without doubt though, its most famous son is John Middleton, the ‘Childe of Hale’.
Click on the video above to discover the story of the Childe of Hale
Visiting the village recently I made this video to record the story of John Middleton who was said to have been 9 feet 3 inches tall, so tall that at night his feet were said to protrude out of the windows of his house.
John Middleton’s house
His life story is bound up with that of Sir Gilbert Ireland, whose body guard he was, and through whose connections he visited Brasenose College, Oxford and was presented to King James I in London.
Brasenose College, Oxford which has a number of portraits of John Middleton and still names the eights boat of the rowing club ‘The Childe of Hale’.
Modern statue of the Childe of Hale by Diane Gorvin
Although the village pub is named after him it used to be that there was a lot less visibly connected to him there, apart from his grave. Nowadays there is a plentiful supply of plaques and notices and a more than life size statue. But his grave is still the object of everyone’s visit to Hale. Strangely lettered the inscription reads, once you have worked it out, ‘Borne 1578 Dyede 1623 Here Lyeth the Bodie of John Middleton the Childe Nine Feet Three.’ Locally, in recent decades, he was always more associated with Speke Hall because his most famous portrait was long displayed there, but he had no direct connection with Speke Hall. The Ireland family, the local landowners whom he served, lived at the long demolished Hale Hall.
The grave of the Childe of Hale
Hale Hall, now demolished
Hale still has its Manor House, which once inspired John Betjeman to verse, and the local church is well worth seeing but you can hear the full story of the Childe of Hale by clicking on the video at the tope of this page.
The Manor House, Hale
St Mary’s Church, Hale with John Middleton’s grave in the foreground
Until 1867 there were two Unitarian churches in Dublin. Both could trace their history back to at least the mid-seventeenth century and both had a succession of distinguished ministers and comprised congregations that had a significant role in Dublin life. After the restoration of 1660 the English Independent and Presbyterian clergy who had occupied the prime positions in religious life in Dublin during the Cromwellian interregnum were removed from their posts. This really was the start of the congregations of Wood Street, which later moved to Strand Street and ultimately to St Stephen’s Green, and New Row, which later built a new church on Eustace Street in 1728. In 1867 the congregations of Eustace Street and St Stephen’s Green amalgamated at St Stephen’s Green and have been a single congregation ever since. But the building on Eustace Street remained, for most of its history being used by Brindley’s the printers, and it is still there today, although today it is really little more than the façade.
The history of this building deserves to be better known and properly understood. I first went to see it in the early 1990s when it was empty but looked intact and was still recognisable as an old meeting-house. I took this picture which was published in the Inquirer at the time.
Within a few years, however, the whole area around it in Temple Bar underwent massive refurbishment and changed from a run down backwater to a busy cultural quarter. In about 1995 the building was turned into the Ark, a children’s theatre space.
The meeting-house today
Undoubtedly this is a good use for the building although it is a shame to think that so much of the original building had to be demolished to allow it to happen. Only the façade and the two side walls remain from the building of 1728. All the rendering from the old building has been removed to expose the brickwork both inside and out. But it is still a very impressive building.
One of the two entrances to the building
Christine Casey, in her book Dublin in the Buildings of Ireland series, says of the building: ‘The C18 facade is a handsome essay in retardataire Carolean classicism…A red-brick two-storey six-bay front with entrances in bays two and five and large segment-headed sash windows.’ It’s always good to see a bit of retardataire Carolean classicism. But it is a very fine frontage and even if the rest of the building is gone, it remains as an impressive testimony to the people who built the church.
Not everyone approved of it when it was built. According to Thomas Witherow a Quaker remarked (there was also a Quaker meeting-house on the same street) that ‘When there is so much vanity without, there cannot be much religion within’.
Visiting Eustace Street over the summer I took some pictures of the interior. We can see the bare brickwork which once echoed to the sound of the sermons of such luminaries as John Leland and James Martineau.
Upstairs window brickwork
Looking through one of the downstairs windows
Apart from the windows there is nothing remaining that tells us how the interior of Eustace Street looked. However, about 110 years ago the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian magazine published two engravings of the interior without giving any source for these interesting views. The first showed the position of the pulpit.
The Eustace Street pulpit as it may have looked
The foyer of the building today
The windows that look on to Eustace Street are topped by a gentle arch but according to the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian images the now demolished windows at the back of the building were flat topped. At the back of the church there was a gallery which housed a clock and the organ.
The organ and gallery of Eustace Street as they looked before 1863
When Eustace Street was built times were difficult for Dissenters, they could frequently be the target of violent attacks, and from the earliest days there was a wall in front of the meeting-house. At some point before 1835 this was changed to the low wall and attractive railings which still stand there to this day. But neither the walls nor the railings were of much use when James Martineau added his name to a declaration in favour of Catholic emancipation which resulted in the windows being smashed by a mob.
The wall and railings today
It is good that this much has survived and that the space is obviously put to such good use. However, there has not always been such a clear understanding of the historical place of the meeting-house. Not long after the Ark was opened in 1995 members of Abbey Presbyterian Church were invited to hold a special service on the premises complete with baptisms of children as a way of connecting with the original history. This was a nice thing to do but rather misunderstood the nature of the history of the premises.
Inside the foyer today
James Martineau was ordained in this meeting-house on 26 October 1828. Back in 1992 I contributed an article to the Inquirer entitled ‘Martineau’s First Ministry’. If you would like to read it click on this link: Martineau’s First Ministry
Recently, when in Oxford, I visited the Christ Church Picture Gallery where one of the exhibitions, entitled ‘WISH YOU WERE HERE!‘ (1 July – 30 October 2023) The attraction of Christ Church in early photographic postcards, caught my eye. It is always interesting (and rare) to see a serious art exhibition that contains items that you could afford to buy yourself. There are around 70 postcards in the Christ Church exhibition but seeing them encouraged me to start my own small collection. Prices can vary but generally cards like this should be quite cheap, they were produced and sold in vast quantities by a variety of printers and are hardly rare. So I decided to create my own small collection and focused on cheap examples of pictures of the West Front/St Aldate’s view of Tom Tower. I picked this view because although every postcard from 1900 to 1950 (or indeed to the present day) looks superficially the same you realise when you investigate closely that this is not the case. Since Tom Tower is situated on a main thoroughfare there are plenty of social changes that can be observed and a multitude of minor small details that are worth exploring in the foreground. I will work out the best way to display these images of the West Front.
But I allowed myself a small diversion into a handful of pictures of Tom Tower itself. Mainly this was because I managed to get one picture that I had seen in the exhibition which must be quite rare and was accordingly slightly more expensive than the others. This is it:
‘Christ Church Oxford under Repair, Aug. 17th 1909’. No publisher named.
I think this is a wonderful postcard. All the pictures of Tom Tower alone, largely taken from over the road, somewhere near the entrance to Pembroke College, are basically the same. There might be a vehicle of some sort somewhere in view, or a bowler hatted figure standing under the entrance to the college, but not much more.
This picture, however, is very different. The publishers give us the exact date and show us Tom Tower, not as you would expect, but covered in scaffolding. If you had turned up in Oxford to do the touristy thing and saw the tower covered in scaffolding I imagine you would be disappointed. I don’t think you would want to buy a postcard that also obscured the view. If you turned up after the work was completed and the scaffolding had been taken away I don’t think you would want to buy a picture of how it looked during restoration, unless you were very interested in scaffolding. It can’t have had a long shelf-life and it can’t have been many people’s favourite view. And yet it is a compelling image, intriguing and lively. I am glad the unnamed publisher took this view and glad to get a copy for my collection.
This card, dated 14th January 1910, was sent by Emily to ‘Mr Hammond, “The Lilacs”, Skipton Cliffe, Andoversford, Glos.’ Mr Hammond appears to have been Emily’s uncle since she also included ‘love to Aunt’ at the end of the message. And it doubled as a birthday card – ‘With every Good Wish for Many Happy Returns of the Day’, she begins. Emily might have been a student in Oxford, she was certainly resident there because she also says ‘I sent you the paper for you to read Mr Whale’s speeches our Liberal Candidate for Oxford’. ‘Mr Whale’ was George Whale who stood in Oxford in the 1906 election and lost by just 100 votes. He stood again in January 1910 but a swing of 6.4% saw him lose by over 1,200 votes to Arthur Annesley his Conservative opponent. George Whale was a freethinker and the chairman of the Rationalist Press Association. A former Mayor of Woolwich he was never successful in getting elected to Parliament.
But this was the card that Emily chose to send to her uncle for his birthday along with news of the freethinking candidate on the eve of the election in Oxford. It was, I think, an inspired choice.
‘Tom Tower Christ Church, Oxford’. Published by Vincent of Oxford. Posted 4th September 1915. Sent to Mrs Ewan Jones of Cricklewood by ‘All’, they were planning to drive to Oxford ‘with little Julian’ in the afternoon.
The other postcards of Tom Tower are all difficult to date precisely, especially when they were unposted, but they were mostly taken before the First World War, although similar examples could remain in print right up to the 1940s.
‘”Tom” Tower Christchurch, Oxford’ by J. Salmon Ltd., Sevenoaks. Unposted.
‘Christ Church, Oxford’. Published by Penrose and Palmer. Posted by Dorothy to Mrs England in Acocks Green, Birmingham on 12th November 1926.
This last photograph, published by the local firm of Penrose and Palmer, is another favourite of mine. The road is wet after a downpour and the photographer has caught a reflection of the building in the road. It’s a fine photograph. It falls somewhere between the direct images of Tom Tower on its own and the wider (landscape) views of the whole West Front but it is actually a more characterful and interesting picture than most of them.
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This memorial near Liverpool’s Pier Head is dedicated in honour of the Heroes of the Marine Engine Room. It is often referred to as the ‘Titanic Memorial’ because the original intention was to commemorate those lost in that disaster. The RMS Titanic was registered in Liverpool and the headquarters of the White Star Line was not far from the Pier Head, indeed the building is still there to this day. Although the Titanic didn’t visit Liverpool there were many local connections with the ship and there are a number of Titanic memorials in the city to this day.
But the original idea of the memorial was to commemorate the 244 engine room staff who remained at their post after the ship struck the iceberg on 15th April 1912 keeping the ship’s systems running as long as possible to help people escape as the ship sank.
However, by the time it came to be erected, two other major naval disasters needed to be commemorated. The first was the sinking of the Empress of Ireland which was another Liverpool-registered ship which had regularly made the crossing from Liverpool to Quebec between 1906 and 1914. On 29th May 1914 it sank after a collision in the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River with the loss of 1,012 lives. The next year, during the First World War, another ship with very close Liverpool connections was sunk by a German U-boat on 7th May 1915. This was the Lusitania which was sunk about 11 miles off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 1,201 lives. It was a brutal attack on a passenger ship which also included a number of American citizens at a time when the United States had not yet entered the war.
The Memorial to Heroes of the Marine Engine Room in front of the Liver Building
So when the memorial was unveiled in May 1916 it was dedicated to ‘All Heroes of the Marine Engine Room’. It was designed by Sir William Goscombe John and is seen as one of the first memorials to commemorate the heroism of working men who are depicted on the memorial. As Terry Cavanagh puts it in his Public Sculpture of Liverpool it is ‘a rare example in Liverpool of the commemoration not of a single, high-ranking individual but of the “ordinary” workers of the city’.
The west face of the memorial: Two engineers, one holds a stoking-hatch lever and the other a spannerFigures on the east face: Two stokers, one holding a cloth, the other a shovel. The four figures above, on the corners, represent the elements and, at the very top, four female figures represent the sea
Something like £4,000 was raised from donations around the world before August 1912 to build the memorial. When it was finally unveiled on 9th May 1916 it was done with very little ceremony although it still attracted large crowds, many of them mourners of people who were lost on the Titanic and the Lusitania, although by then the intention was to honour all maritime engine room fatalities incurred during the performance of duty.
Memorial to the Missing of the Naval Auxiliary Personnel of the Second World War
Many more memorials have been added to the Pier Head since the Second World War including the Merchant Navy War Memorial (Memorial to the Missing of the Naval Auxiliary Personnel of the Second World War), the Merchant Navy Memorial dedicated to the men and women who gave their lives in both World Wars and have no other grave than the sea, and an area with a succession of memorials of sailors of different nationalities who served in the Second World War including Belgian, Dutch, Chinese, Norwegian, and Polish merchant seamen and other servicemen and women. In addition there are plaques remembering the sinking of the SS Arandora Star, torpedoed off the coast of Donegal in 1940 with the loss of over 800 people, mainly non-combatants; HMT Lancastria which was sunk while evacuating servicemen at St Nazaire on 17th June 1940 with the loss of about 6,000 people (said to be the worst disaster in British maritime history); and a memorial to the ships that repatriated 20,000 people held in captivity in the Far East up to the end of the Second World War.
Merchant Navy MemorialIn memory of members of the Polish Navy and Polish Merchant Fleet
Video: The Royal Liver Building clock strikes 4 o’clock
I was pleased to be present for the inauguration of the new statue of Frederick Douglass on Monday, 31st July 2023. I only found out about it by chance but it was good to be there for the formal recognition of Frederick Douglass as part of Belfast’s history.
Frederick Douglass was born a slave in February 1818, on Holme Hill Farm, near Easton, Talbot County, Maryland. Although slaves were not supposed to be taught to read he was taught the alphabet, taught himself to read and developed a life-long reading habit.
In 1838, at his third attempt, he successfully escaped from slavery and managed to get to New York where he married Anna Murray (1813–1882) of Baltimore. He became a preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and an associate of William Lloyd Garrison and an activist in the anti-slavery movement.
The Lord Mayor introduces the speakers
In 1845 he published the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, the first of three volumes of autobiography, and became so prominent in the anti-slavery movement that threats were made against him which led to him travelling to Britain and Ireland on a speaking tour. He spent two years speaking all over England, Scotland and Ireland. In Dublin he shared a platform with Daniel O’Connell and British supporters raised $700 to buy his freedom in the United States. This in itself was controversial as many thought it wrong to give any recognition to the idea that a human being could be bought or sold as someone’s property.
Some of those present
In the words of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, during his speaking tour:
He filled public halls, private homes, chapels, and churches, his audiences sometimes numbering thousands, and he often spoke on different subjects at more than one meeting a day. As well as making the abolitionist case, he spoke on women’s rights (he felt that he could not accept the vote as a black man if it was denied to women), temperance, land reform, education, and capital punishment, issues on which he never ceased to agitate.
Alan Beattie Herriot, sculptor
Of his time in Belfast he wrote:
I shall always remember the people of Belfast, and the kind friends I now see around me, and wherever else I feel myself to be a stranger, I will remember I have a home in Belfast.
Words which are among those inscribed on the plinth of his statue.
At the opening of the statue Professor Christine Kinealy said that in Belfast he spoke in Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church. But this is ambiguous because there were then three churches on Rosemary Street, two non-subscribing and one orthodox. The booklet available at the opening also suggested that he spoke in First Church on Rosemary Street. In fact he spoke at the meeting-house of the Second (Non-Subscribing) Congregation which stood behind First Church and was finally demolished in the early 1960s. He was granted the use of the meeting-house of the Second Congregation on 7th December 1845 ‘to lecture on behalf of the Anti-Slavery Society’. But it is very fitting that he should have such a fine statue erected in his memory so close to Rosemary Street.
The view looking towards Rosemary StreetLooking down Lombard Street
You can’t help but be impressed by Coventry Cathedral, impressed because everything is given such height. The entrance area that connects with the old cathedral; the glass entrance screen featuring angels and saints; the baptistry window; the Chapel of Unity; Graham Sutherland’s tapestry of Christ in Glory; the walls themselves – everything is so high. And it is all so redolent of the cutting edge of art in the mid-1950s. Of course, absolutely every building can only reflect the times it was built in but I think for a building as important as a cathedral some attempt at transcending the contraints of the present day are necessary. Now I may be very naive to imagine that a medieval Gothic cathedral ever did this, or any other type of cathedral for that matter, but if you want to be pointed to some deeper experience of the divine through the medium of a building you need something that says more than ‘This is 1954’ writ large. Even Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral, which speaks volumes for the 1960s and the heavy constraints placed by money and circumstances on building a cathedral by that date, still communicates very well a more profound encounter with the truly spiritual.
Coventry Cathedral has developed a living and active ministry of reconciliation which has reached out to the whole world. Its response to the horrors of the blitz and the destruction of the old cathedral has been an inspiration to many. But as a visitor to the building, a very occasional one, I am never really sure how to respond.
The thing I remember most about visiting as a child is Jacob Epstein’s figure of St Michael conquering the devil. I think I found it a bit unsettling as a kid and I am not sure I feel any better about it now. What is it meant to communicate? Of course, I know literally what it is meant to mean, but what did it say to the world in 1962 when it was unveiled? And what does it say now? Outside the cathedral there is a slightly cloying poster which stresses the extent of the welcome given to visitors but what the ‘keep-fit mums, football dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegans, junk food eaters…those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or are here because granny is visiting and wanted to look round’ will make of Epstein’s work is a difficult question. Cutting edge art of the 1950s has now become the imagery of horror, fantasy, comic books, movies, cartoons and anime. Does anyone feel liberated by seeing St Michael with swan’s wings getting one over the character from Hellboy? One thing we know for sure today is that evil in the world does not take that form.
But some parts of the cathedral are breathtaking. The baptistry window, designed by John Piper, floods that part of the building with an explosion of light and colour. Again its immensity hits you full on.
The same is true when you look back at the entrance screen with its dozens of ascending figures flying up in front of the old cathedral.
Again part of this is the scale, and the combination of massive candlesticks, the very high choir stalls and the stained glass that is only visible when you look back from the altar all contribute to this impressive immensity.
Even what might be termed the brutalist elements of the structure continue to impress. The wall that lets light on to the chancel and the tapestry has a grandeur and a solidity still, but if it had been placed out of doors in a housing estate or in a car park or shopping centre it would have had to have been demolished years ago:
The focus of the cathedral is Graham Sutherland’s tapestry of Christ in Glory. Once again this is so impressive because of its size; a massive tapestry, woven by hand in a single piece, weighing around a ton, it’s a remarkable piece of work. Standing between Christ’s feet is the figure of a man, emphasising humanity’s smallness before the grandeur of God.
The great height is continued in the Chapel of Unity
but not so much in the Chapel of Christ the Servant which is lined by walls of plain glass, giving a brightness and an openness to the chapel. When I was there a very moving exhibition of quotations from letters home from Indian soldiers serving in the First World War was on display, one on each window.
The Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane is also different, it resembles a cave and the sculpture on the wall by Steven Sykes shows Jesus being ministered to by an angel. It is viewed through a crown of thorns.
The ruins of the old cathedral emphasise the horrors of the blitz
and fittingly a memorial records the sacrifices of those who served on the home front in the Second World War.
One of the few things to survive the blitz in the old cathedral is the tomb of Bishop Yeatman-Biggs, the first Bishop of Coventry. He holds a model of the cathedral and, curiously, his mitre includes a swastika in its decoration. The guide book doesn’t call it a swastika but names it as a fyflot. But as the guide book also says this was an ancient religious symbol, used in different cultures before it was adopted by Nazi Germany. But it does look strange on his mitre and it has gradually become shiny as generations of visitors have pointed to it in shock or surprise.
As a building it is somewhere that I find impressive and intriguing. It does represent a positive response to the horrors of war and an affirmation that faith can overcome suffering and reach out where there has been hatred, and this is all for the good. Parts of it are wonderfully impressive and uplifting but I can’t say that, as a building, it really speaks to me in the way other cathedrals do. But it will always communicate a certain kind of optimism and fortitude that came out of the immediate post-war period.
velvethummingbee 