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Rise, radiate, rest - light blessing the cloister at Chester Cathedral.
'We are here to be eccentric, different,
perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece to the great mosaic of being.
As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.'
James Hollis
A million-petalled moment.
I’ve been commissioned to photograph some conservation work in the beautifully phonetic village of Bunbury. I’m over at the medieval church of St Boniface and, after photographing pirouetting pinnacles, I head inside.
St Boniface, Bunbury - alliteratively - feels as though it should be in the county of Buckinghamshire. But it’s not, it is in Cheshire, and I should probably stop letting my mind rearrange maps based on whimsy.
I have a peculiar way of engaging with a building’s interior, and this place is no exception. Firstly, I’m drawn to pockets of light and space - spaces that hint at something beyond, a suggestion of mystery. Then I’m compelled by pattern and decoration, both deliberate and unintentional - a painting, a panel of stained glass, a carving, or a textured wall surface. My mentor, the photographer Edwin Smith, spoke of using his camera as a divining rod, guiding him into pockets of atmosphere. I feel the same pull.
I rarely reach for a guidebook because it’s the visual drama of older buildings that engages me. I seek out stories through the literacy of light, reading the visual narrative in the prose and poetry of its pattern and patina. There is real joy in surrendering to a space and allowing it to lead the way.
I walk the length of the nave, step beneath the rood screen, and scan the chancel. My gaze settles on a monument on the north side - the recumbent effigy of Sir Hugh Calveley. As I move around, something else catches my eye - a door, set within a chantry screen.
This door, along with the screen and chantry, dates to 1527, built by Sir Ralph Egerton. I step into the chantry and carefully close the door. The first thing I notice is the linenfold decoration on the panels, then a brace of intricate monograms adorned with incised patterns.
But then my attention shifts to the wood itself - the natural pattern of the medullary ray is revealed in the oak. Quarter-sawn, the timber was cut in such a fashion as to bring out the best of the tree’s beauty.
The simplest way to explain the method is to use an apple - cut it one way and it shows the stalk, cut it another and it reveals a star...
It's the same with wood.
With the door shut, the atmosphere shifts. I’m drawn to the specks of light streaming through a lattice in the door. I follow the contours of the lattice with my hand, feeling the tiny ridges and furrows left by an artisan centuries before. In these channels of wood, the trace of their labour lingers. They have whittled this out of a single piece of wood, I think. Not just whittled—shaped, envisioned, perfected. The skill, the ingenuity, the intention, and the beauty ignite a sense of wonder. They've added their small piece to the great mosaic of being.
I step back and give myself permission to stand and stare - to occupy this space.
And in the way that the fusion of a particular time and circumstance can open up conduits to other parts of the mind, I think of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, and then of the lattice work on Mum's apple pie. My thoughts shift to the melody of Chad Lawson’s Fields of Forever, then to the filigree partitions of the Alhambra and the fine fretwork of Hockney's winter tree-tops. Finally, I’m reminded of Holman Hunt’s The Lady of Shalott - something in the quality of the light, its temperature, its fleeting presence.
To anyone quietly entering the church, I must look like a man entranced, swaying slightly to an unheard melody, staring at a door. But this is who I am when no one is watching. These are my colourful, warming chants that evaporate into the ether.
My last thoughts are of a poem by W. B. Yeats - its rhythm tracing the latticework of the chantry door:
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
I think of the carpenter. Not just the skill of their hands, but the generosity of their craft. How unwittingly, through the quiet labour of their work, they have left behind a gift: cloths of oak, woven not with gold and silver thread but with the golden stain of time itself.
And through this, I am led to a moment of connection - the ‘million-petalled flower of being here’*. It has helped me re-ignite the rapture of being alive.
I think of how fortunate we are to have these places. I’m grateful for the spaces that engage us, that challenge the mundanity of the everyday. I’m also grateful for the little details that are saturated with joy, details that help us transcend into other worlds.
But more than that, these places give me a purpose: to share them with those who may never step inside - to convey the rapture and the joy, the highs and the lows of what it is to be human.
*Vidyan Ravinthiran
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St. Boniface, Bunbury, Cheshire.
What a little pocket of delight this village church is - nestled within a grouping of gorgeous medieval, Georgian and Victorian buildings with the added bonus of a pub opposite.
Church Interior
The Chantry Door Metalwork
More little details that sparked my curiosity.
The Chantry Screen to the Egerton Chantry Chapel
Built in 1527 and elaborately decorated with inscriptions and traces of original paint.
Medieval Parclose Paintings
Dated to around 1450 including the patron saint of dentists - St. Appolinia. Some restoration work was carried out in the 1980's.
Rood Screen
The Rood Screen is C20th - an addition to the building after it was badly damaged during WWII.
Love these little details besides the Rood Screen - including the rabbit.
Calveley Tomb
Sir Hugh de Calveley (1315-1394) was, apparently 7 feet tall. Principal founder of the collegiate church in Bunbury. Beautiful intricate work on the stone.
Beeston Tomb
It has been disputed but Sir George Beeston is said to have lived to the age of 102 and lived in three centuries. Born in 1499 and died in 1601. If true, that would mean that he commanded the Dreadnought against the Spanish Armada at age 89.
Jane Johnson effigy
Jane Johnson was the wife of the dancing master of Nantwich. But in the mid C18th the effigy was secretly buried. The vicar was 'disturbed by...the bulging udders of Jane.' It was rediscovered in 1882 and placed back inside the church.
Cathedrals in the Spring
Exciting news about a commission to visit several cathedrals in April. I'll be sharing my journey in the digest.
Andy Marshall
Matt Growcoot
Zoe Williams
It's a wood thing.
Doors showed me the way out of breakdown and depression.
Members can check out the door sanctuary knocker at Brougham Hall.
I place my thumb upon the latch and press. It makes a delicious ‘click and clump.’ I think of the person I’ve just seen walk in through the door before me. They pressed it too.
The Foliate Head Comperandum has been updated with new entries. More here:
Andy Marshall
Andy Marshall
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Andy Marshall
Just a note to say thank you for all the subscribers that got in touch (after last weeks digest). I've been hobbling about a bit this week - but am feeling much better and getting stronger.
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Photographs and words by Andy Marshall (unless otherwise stated). Most photographs are taken with Iphone 14 Pro and DJI Mini 3 Pro.
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