Thank you, martle, done.

And here is the medieval font,



the parish teddy bears, and some extremely dodgy wiring underneath the pews.

And finally, the exterior from the North:

and from the South

No antheil, the nearest Starbucks is in Oxford, some ten miles away. I suspect that it was from the convent bunfight next door that was the occasion of my visit.

Here in N16 is the old parish church of St Mary, Stoke Newington


When the Victorians got Sir George Gilbert Scott to build a new church in 1858, they did not knock down the old church, but built a new one on the opposite side of Stoke Newington Church Street, viz

The spire is a bit later, in fact, but is visible from the main Edinburgh train line out of Kings Cross, behind the new Arsenal Emirates stadium (in fact about a mile away.)

However, St Mary's is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the New Church this June with a whole calendar of events, now mainly past.

So far we have posted about Churches we like or those that are interesting for their architecture.  So now I am posting about something I positively dislike.

I don’t know if anyone here has been to Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff.  Dedicated to SS Peter and Paul (whose day it is today) and also dedicated to three Welsh Saints, Dyfrig, Teilo and Euddogwy.   St. Teilo built a Church here in 560.  Later there was also a Monastic settlement.  It is one of the oldest Christian sites in Britain and there is a Celtic cross which is over 1400 years old.  Work on the Cathedral commenced in 1120 but wasn’t finished until 1290.  So far well and good and of course over the years there was the usual refurbishment and change. 

This is the reredos of the Lady Chapel which I think is very pretty.



The arch in the distance is the Norman Arch of the original Cathedral begun in 1120



This is an interesting ‘Cadaver’ tomb showing a body in a state of advanced decomposition



In 1941 a German bomb outside fell and it was very badly damaged.  The restoration was carried out by George Pace and Jacob Epstein created the figure of Christ in Majesty which is suspended above the nave on a concrete arch designed by George Pace.

And here it is, what I consider to be a complete monstrosity.  I wonder what others think?

My first reaction was 'Oh dear' (uttered quite loudly). It looks as though a spaceship has landed in the Nave   Nope, don't like.  It jars horribly with the original architecture. Only MHO, of course.

Is there some structural reason for it being there? it does jar rather with the lines of the rest of the building.

Well I agree Don B.  So many Churches and Cathedrals are a mish-mash of styles.  Are there any unadultereated examples?

Don B, If we applied the Sydney Grew scale of ranking then Llandaff would not be the Top Ranking Anglican 'Bach', so to speak, more one of Syd's 'Shoskapobitch' third raters!    I just have to say, it doesn't do it for me that Epstein.  Each to their own though.

What is interesting is that the majority of Welsh Cathedrals have such an ancient foundation.  Not only Llandaff, but Bangor, dedicated to St. Deiniol, was established around c.525,  St. David, patron saint of Wales, founded a 6th century monastery there, St. Woolos. late 470s  the soldier-prince Gwynllyw answered God's call to a life of prayer.  St. Asaph and Brecon Cathedral, (St. John) were Norman foundations.

I think it is the antiquity of these sites and the continued, over the centuries, devotion, that makes one feel humble somehow, that they kept the Faith

St. Asaph is interesting because it houses the William Morgan Bible, the first translation into Welsh of The Bible.  He was  parish priest of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant  and later Bishop of Llandaff and St. Asaph

In 1563, the London Parliament passed a bill ordering that the Bible be translated into Welsh, an act that was not undertaken with any love or respect for the language, but one that formed "an essential part of the programme of the Protestant Reformation in Britain." Elizabeth and her parliament were appalled at the slow progress of the Welsh people in learning the English language. They thought that by having Welsh translations placed next to the English texts in Church, not only would the congregations learn Protestantism, they would also learn English.

Of course it backfired and the Welsh language was given an unintended status and a place of honor by being used as a medium for the Holy Scriptures. Why would a congregation bother with English, when there was a perfectly acceptable Welsh Bible in which to worship God? (And a book from which one could learn to read and write?)

Sorry, this is turning into a very Welsh posting.

George, the concrete is horrendous!  Dylan Thomas would not have had a fit, of course