For several reasons, I ended up driving down to Devon for my retreat. This meant that I had the freedom to stop off on the way back and spend some time doing church visits. This didn’t go entirely to plan thanks to a massive tailback on the M5, so I shelved my original intention of visiting Tewkesbury Abbey. Before all that, I went into Exeter City Centre and looked round the churches there. Exeter seems very similar to York – similar mix of ancient and modern, shopping and heritage and with a large cathedral as a focal point. Earlier in the week someone had told me about a trail that takes yo ..read more

Observant readers may note that I am about three weeks behind in these posts. By the time I get round to writing about today, I will be back at work (Hurrah!). Did you know? You can leave comments on these posts. Click on the title of a post (e.g. “Retreat at Sheldon”, above) and scroll to the bottom of the post. One of the three aspects of Extended Study Leave is Retreat. I booked onto an R5 week at the Sheldon Retreat Centre in Devon (South of Exeter – in the Teign Valley). The five ‘R’s are: Read, Retreat, Rest, Relax, Recuperate. The community there specialise in helping clergy in distress ..read more

This week I am spending a few days at one of my very favourite places: Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden near Chester. It is a residential library, with books mainly on theology. The library stays open from 9am to 10pm and there is a restaurant on site, as well as bedrooms. When you get here, you choose a desk to sit at and then you can keep it as long as you stay, leaving the books you are referring to piled up on the desk ready for when you get back. The reading rooms are silent, so all you can hear are the occasional noises of people turning pages or typing on their keyboards. Heaven! Since ..read more

Givendale In September, I was made a Canon of York Minster. Having been appointed to the Canonry and Prebendary of Givendale, it made sense to go and find Givendale and see what is there. The only information I was given was that the prebendary is of “Little Givendale in the East Riding”. These details, although slim, were enough to keep me from heading over to the other Givendale near Ripon. Found it! There is no church or village of Little Givendale, although there is a farm called Little Givendale Farm. Having persuaded Phil to come on a morning out, we headed out in that direction and foun ..read more

Three buildings visited – or scroll right to the bottom for my reflections. St Luke’s – the Bombed-Out Church St Luke’s – The Bombed Out Church I was particularly interested to see this church building because of the parallels with our St Martin’s. St Luke’s was also bombed during the second world war, but has been treated differently. Rather than being partially restored, it has been left as a roofless ruin (officially, a redundant church), but the space has been re-purposed for community use with an emphasis on art and culture. There are QR codes on all the entrance gates that lead you to th ..read more

We use the term heritage almost without thinking about it, but it is worth knowing a bit about how the heritage movement has developed and what it is actually about. This post is based on notes I have taken from the book “The Heritage Obsession” by Ben Cowell. Heritage began with a concern for physical heritage – the bricks and stones of ancient buildings and monuments – but it has grown from that into a much wider remit. A working definition: “an ongoing concern for the tangible and intangible remains of the past, for the benefit of present and future generations” Cowell p10 The main thrust ..read more

One of the main books that underpins my project is John Inge’s A Christian Theology of Place. This quote sums up the main purpose of the whole project. But just as God can be encountered in the person of Jesus Christ, the scandal of particularity, so he chooses to make humself known to humanity in and through particular places. These encounters, as all sacramental encounters, lead to a transformation of the place as well as the individuals and communities associated with them. The role of such places is to root believers in their faith and point them towards the redemption of all places in Ch ..read more

I have been more silent on this blog than intended. I have quite a few posts in draft form but not yet ready to be published. There will probably be a whole rush of them before too long. This week marks the halfway point of my study leave. As I was warned by colleagues, the weeks are whizzing by and I am getting much less done than I expected. Still I have done quite a lot, even if I haven’t converted all those things into posts here yet. Visits I’ve been over to Liverpool and seen some of the city churches there. An excellent resource since it’s very tourist-focussed. I ventured out onto the ..read more

This is a bit of a mish-mash of a post. I’ve been trying to sort out in my mind what the influences have been on my relationship with heritage, in all its forms. Family and heritage My family are deeply committed to heritage, especially to heritage railways and the preservation of the age of steam. My grandfather was an early participant in the railway preservation movement, joining the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society in the early 1950s and spending the rest of his life building up a large collection of railway memorabilia, mostly quite legitimately (although there are stories that he re ..read more

Over the last couple of weeks, I have started my series of church building visits. Before I write them up, I thought I would write a little bit about what I am looking for. My main aim is to see what the building says about Christianity in its presentation. These are the questions I am asking so far. I expect the list will grow as I visit more places. What is the first thing you see when you walk through the door? What do the noticeboards say? What impression do the notices give of the life of the Church? Are there interpretation boards or information leaflets? What do they say about Christia ..read more