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Archaeology & Heritage Group Chairman Chelin Miller LRPS 49 Stephens Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN4 9JD 01892 670056 chelinmiller@hotmail.com Secretary Rodney Thring LRPS 27, College Ride Camberley Surrey GU15 4JP 01276 20725 rodney.thring@ntlword.com Treasurer Jim Tonks ARPS Earlton, 174, Chairborough Road High Wycombe Bucks HP12 3HW 01494 443061 francistonks@hotmail.com Editor Eric Houlder LRPS 31, Fairview Carleton, Pontefract WF8 3NT West Yorkshire 01977 702995 erichoulder@gmail.com Committee Ken Keen FRPS R Keith Evans FRPS Dr Mike Sasse Garry Bisshopp ARPS Walter Brooks Eric Houlder LRPS Editor Published by the Archaeology & Heritage Group of the Royal Photographic Society, November 2015. ISSN 0-904495-00-0. Copyright in all text and pictures is held by the credited authors, or as otherwise stated. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form without prior written permission of the Publisher.
The 2015 Annual Conference was held in The Institute, Leatherhead, on October 10th. As usual there was a varied programme, reflecting the widely varied interests of the Group members. Sadly, the attendance was down on previous years, and the Committee will have to address this problem before the 2016 event. The meeting was chaired by Group Chairman Chelin Miller LRPS, and the programme was arranged by the Programme Secretary, Dr Mike Sasse. The first contributor was Group Editor Eric Houlder LRPS, who gave a short presentation on his (and his wife’s) adventures exploring the battlefield of Agincourt by bicycle. Eric began by explaining the background to the battle, its course, and briefly its results. Then he showed how he and Joan cycled around the various parts of the field, explaining what happened where. As usual, Eric’s pictures included details of where they stayed, where they ate, and their appreciation of the local cuisine, all vital to prospective visitors. The next contributor was Dr Mike Sasse. Three aspects of Cornwall’s built heritage were presented in his talk . Churches are often small and of local granite, and exude simplicity and antiquity more than external decoration, though some notable exceptions were also shown. Sites such as holy wells remind us of Christianity’s origins in the Celtic church here. The county is rich in ancient monuments – from Neolithic chambered tombs to late Iron Age settlements, they span around 3000 years of prehistory. The enigmatic standing stones and stone circles were described as well as prehistoric remains in Scilly. Finally, industrial heritage, often dramatically situated, was illustrated. Sites such as a restored china clay works, and the many ruined engines houses and other remains from tin and copper mining, speak of the importance of industry here in the last few centuries The story ran up to the virtual cessation of mining in the late 20th century. As usual, Mike’s images demonstrated a wonderful mastery of light and its uses in architectural photography. David Bryson gave a talk looking at the role of osteological photography in documentation and communication of the lives of the Anglo-Saxons from Little Chester in Derby, including the relationship between osteoarchaeological remains and modern clinical
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conditions. David’s talk was illustrated with a number of advanced digital photographic techniques including focus stacking and HDR photography to increase the level of detail visible especially in close-up photographs, A lively discussion ensued. was presented by Robert Lincoln. Attempting to trace the origins of his Great Great Grandfather, Robert visited Old Sunderland in the North East. Here was a square of almshouses dedicated to the 76 local seamen who fought at Trafalgar in 1805. The whole locale is now a conservation area, and Robert contrasted images taken on slides in 1989, and digitally in 2013. His observations on the scanning of old transparencies were of particular interest to those of us who have large libraries of them. Like Eric’s contribution above, this presentation was particularly apt as 2015 is an anniversary year of Trafalgar. Lunch at Wetherspoons (as usual) followed, and immediately afterwards Chelin Miller, Group Chairman, presented RPS Certificates of Appreciation, with appropriate lapel badges, to Rodney Thring, Mike Sasse, Jim Tonks, Ken Keen and Eric Houlder. After lunch, Gwil Owen ARPS gave everyone’s grey matter something to challenge it. Gwil is noteworthy for his thoughtful and demanding uses of photography, and this was well up to his usual standard. The talk explored the difficulties of understanding cultures different from the common “western” perspective, cultures differing due to distance or time. How can the photographer decide what is fair and accurate comment on another culture’s world view? If we cannot be sure of other beliefs one solution is to show accurately the physical aspects of an object - but in an attractive way, to draw the viewer into further exploration. To further complicate matters, how indeed can the photographer be sure that the intended viewer is on the same wavelength and getting the message? Some images can evoke what may be universal human reactions, not dependent on time or place. The burial of an infant in ancient Egypt was one example. Even with supporting captions or text the photographer cannot always be sure that an image does to the viewer what the photographer intends. This, of course, is no reason why photographers working within cultural heritage should not persevere. Walter Brooks talked about the dilemmas facing those responsible for the care of particularly sensitive sites where visitor usage was an important factor in generating funds for their upkeep, but which brought with it serious concerns about the level of preservation, restoration or renovation that should take place. To illustrate these concerns, he showed photographs of some of the remains at Herculaneum, near Naples, where treatment could be seen to be inappropriate - the charred remains of window shutters that had been fixed to black-painted plywood, a modern tap and hosepipe fitted into the carving on a water trough and plastic covers fitted over wall paintings, with the purpose of protecting them from the elements (but which had caused condensation to damage them) were some of the examples shown. The final presentation was another short one by Eric Houlder LRPS entitled Using scans of slides shot almost fifty years ago, Eric outlined the evidence for a mast on the famous Saxon galley. He then examined maststeps on other ships he has excavated as well as those on some of the Scandinavian ships excavated during the earlier days of archaeology. The original study was prompted by the recent receipt of a large Lottery Grant to make a full scale replica of the Sutton Hoo Ship on the waterfront at Woodbridge. Although most experts now believe that the ship sailed, there is a vociferous minority who claim that it was nothing more than a large rowing boat. Unfortunately, everyone involved in the two digs of 1939 and 1965-7 at the top level is now dead, so recourse must be had to the record (not entirely clear, to be honest) and original photographs.
Heritage is what has come down to us from the past that we value and wish to pass on to the future. There is no question that photography has been, since its invention, a really important cultural change. Photography shapes the way we remember things - no longer through poems, stories and songs, but through looking at photographs. Since its invention in 1839 photography has changed immensely, and it
will continue to change. Up until then, only the very wealthy who could afford to have their portraits painted knew what their ancestors looked like. These days everybody is a photographer, everyone carries a camera in their bag or pocket. We make photographs in a different way from the way we used to. But we make them for the same reason, to preserve a memory from the past, and so preserve our heritage
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Images by Robert Lincoln and Eric Houlder LRPS Group Chairman Chelin Miller LRPS presented the Society’s Certificates of Appreciation to five long-standing Group members during the Group Conference. The certificates recognise the time and effort expended by the recipients supporting the Society in general, and the Groups in particular. Rodney Thring is the long-standing Group Secretary; Jim Tonks has served on the Group Committee for many years; Mike Sasse is the Group Programme Secretary who organises visits, meetings and the Conference; Past Chairman Ken Keen has served on Committee for many years, whilst Eric Houlder has served on the Committee most of the time since being a Founder Member of the Group. The ceremony was held at the Leatherhead Institute, and was a wonderful surprise to at least one of the recipients. Eric Houlder, currently Editor of this Journal, was (quietly) celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday, and the certificate and accompanying lapel badge made a wonderful extra present. The Group Conference is reported upon on pages 2-3..
This October being the six hundredth anniversary of Henry V’s great victory, my mind went back to our two visits to the site of the battle. Having always had an interest in the English (originally Welsh) longbow, Agincourt usually comes to my mind when discussing its impact on medieval warfare and medieval Europe.
Henry V never intended to fight Agincourt. He landed in France rather too late in the year, as became evident later. Europe still used the Julian Calendar, so all dates were actually almost a fortnight behind by 1415. Thus the battle was eventually fought in early November. The courageous defenders of Harfleur held him up further, as did the numerous casualties occasioned by an outbreak of dysentery. When he was finally free to move away
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from the coast, his advisors counselled him to return home. He felt that this would be an admission of defeat, so he decided on a quick march to the English outpost of Calais. His army of about 7000 was composed entirely of mounted men, most of whom were archers. He felt that the divisions within the French camp would keep his enemies busy, but was unaware that the national emergency had led to a temporary truce, and a massive French army was gathering. He planned to cross the Somme estuary at Blanche Taque, where his grandfather Edward III had crossed before Crécy, but the French had staked the riverbed, making crossing impossible. From this point onward his aim was to reach Calais without coming upon the French army of about 50,000 men. Hope finally ran out near the crossing of the River Ternoise at Blangy, and when his army ascended from there to the plain between Agincourt and Tramecourt on the back road to Calais, the enemy army was blocking his road. Firstly, it should be said that there is no such village as Agincourt. The location of the battle is between the villages of Azincourt and Tramecourt in northern France. The misunderstanding came about when after the battle, Henry asked the French herald the name of the castle whose towers he could see over the trees to his left. The herald replied, “Azincourt.” In medieval French the ‘z’ is pronounced as a soft ‘g,’ hence the confusion. The English immediately began to use their own pronunciation with the hard ‘g’! As a lecturer on archaeological topics, I had long wished to visit Agincourt. Our annual treck to Joan’s sister’s cottage in Brittany gave me the opportunity for using the Dover-Calais crossing which would pass the battlefield, and also that of Crécy. Spending time on these historic fields would enable us to sample the ambience, and more importantly, secure photographs for future presentations. Seeking a chambre d’hôte a short distance from the ferry terminal at Calais we, my wife Joan and I, bought Alastair Sawday’s Special Places to Stay: French Bed & Breakfast. This is how we came to meet Patrick and Marie-José Fenet who live in a mini chateau, La Gacogne, actually on the battlefield. They are proud to live on the very spot (the English right wing, where the Duke of York died during the battle. Accounts vary, but he either suffocated in his armour, or perhaps suffered a stroke or heart attack.) Patrick is a medieval warfare re-enactor, and his living room is hung with crossbows, armour etc. He is an excellent shot with a longbow, and plays the part of an English archer in the battle re-enactments! Over breakfast Patrick produced a handful of arrowheads and calthrops collected from the fields outside. Their visitors’ book has a list of battlefield experts, some of whom I have worked with on various digs over the years. Our first visit was the night of July 24th 2007. We planned to look around the battlefield the following morning, and move on to see Crécy (the site of Edward III’s great victory in 1346) in the afternoon. This we duly did, though we soon realised that a morning was not enough for Agincourt, and neither was an afternoon for Crécy. This was just before I moved into digital, so
the pictures were all taken with my Minolta SLR outfit on Fujichrome Velvia and Provia. However, anticipating the digital revolution, I had my slides scanned by the lab. The following summer we booked two nights’ accommodation, July 30th and 31st 2008, and planned to spend the whole of the 31st cycling around and photographing the Azincourt battlefield. By this time I had obtained a digital camera, a Fujifilm seven megapixel instrument, but continued to use the film outfit too. I used a Lowepro waist-pack, with two Minolta X500 bodies and 17-28mm, 28-85mm & 70-300mm lenses. The Fuji digital camera lived in a well-padded handlebar bag, whilst Joan carried our picnic in her handlebar basket. The battlefield is fairly flat with one or two steep little inclines, whilst its approach from the Ternoise river crossing at Blangy is a long energy-sapping hill. The chosen day was lovely, though as it progressed it became increasingly humid. We looked around Azincourt itself, the neighbouring village of Tramecourt and its chateau, and Maisoncelles where the English army spent the night before the battle. Many pictures were shot of all these locations using film and digital media. After eating a picnic lunch by the monument, we cycled toward Blangy, where the armies crossed the river Ternoise on the day prior to the battle. We never reached Blangy as the first drops of warm, heavy rain caught us on the long descent. Realising that the same long descent would have to be ridden back up, we turned around and sought shelter in an antiques-retailing barn at the back of Tramecourt. Luckily, the rain held back its worst efforts until we were safely under cover. I still regret not recording the bridge over the Ternoise at Blangy, as it was here that Henry waited whilst his scouts brought back the news that he was dreading: that the French were waiting for him astride his road between Azincourt and Tramecourt. There was now no alternative; he could surrender or fight. The former choice would mean that his archers would lose their right drawing fingers and England would be faced with a massive ransom demand. The latter would mean certain death for most of his army and the same ransom demand. He chose to fight. There is an excellent restaurant in Azincourt, but it is only fully open in the evenings. On both visits we used it for ice creams and drinks, but drove into Hesdin for the evening meals. Hesdin in the early Fifteenth Century was a fortified town, so Henry wisely avoided it, as he did others on his route. Today it has excellent restaurants, and on both occasions we patronised La Belle Epoque near the little river which winds through the town. Azincourt village has an excellent museum which tells the story of the battle. As the French actually won the Hundred Years War, and took many important lessons from Agincourt, they can afford to be magnanimous. Henry eventually married Princess Catherine of France, as per the treaty, but died shortly before his father-in-law. He never became king of France, though his ill-fated son did. He had brought his bride to Pontefract castle on their honeymoon tour. He left Catherine to entertain her cousin, the Duke of Orleans, who was a prisoner on parole there, whilst he himself visited Beverley and Bridlington, whose saints (both John) he had invoked during the battle. Eric Houlder LRPS.
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Taken at Rutland Water, near Oakham, Rutland.
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Church has been saved from the water and is occasionally used for concerts & weddings.
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Taken using tripod.
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Sony A99 FF camera.
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Sony Zeiss 24-70 F2.8 lens.
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Lee Big Stopper.
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Processed via Adobe CC Lightroom & Photoshop + NIK software.
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Taken in Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire often referred to as "The Ship of the Fens"
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Taken using tripod.
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Sony A99 FF camera.
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Sony Zeiss 16-35 F2.8 lens.
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Processed via Adobe CC Lightroom & Photoshop .
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As I write, the leaves are beginning to accumulate on the ground, and the best autumn for photographers I can remember is fading into memory. I hope that you have been busy recording buildings and other heritage subjects whilst the opportunity lasted, not least traditional pubs. My favourite, at Lealholm, is also a favourite amongst artists and photographers, especially from beneath the wonderful copper beech tree on the edge of the village car park (next to the public loo!). Whilst staying there recently, I could not resist the temptation, and on the pretext of moving the car nearer, I took a couple of shots, one of which graced the pages of the one day last week. is truly traditional, being Eighteenth century, so with the contemporary bridge over the Esk in the foreground, it made a lovely picture. I must admit to shooting a lot of images of pubs, especially this one. Only last year I was there when a game of quoits was in progress on the green in front of it. Either my reactions have slowed, or age is creeping up on me, for I never quite managed a shot with the quoit in mid-air and showing as a ring. Speaking of quoits, the best pub as background for the game is the at Beck Hole, in the same national park. The game is crying out for a photo essay in true style. If any members think along the same lines, I would be happy to use pictures and articles on pubs and pub games. My project to portray archaeologists and related experts (as described at the 2014 Conference and in the Autumn 2014 issue of ) is progressing. A recent subject was Dr Deborah Moretti, an expert on the archaeological evidence for magic. This image accompanied a report on her talk in the , my local newspaper. My dayschool at Sutton Hoo in June gave me the chance to portray an old friend, Dr Sam Newton. Sam is a true character, being a Harley-Davidson enthusiast and also a noted Anglo-Saxon scholar. Today he is best known to non-specialists for his work on Channel 4’s On one of the hottest afternoons of the year we both shot images of each other - at arguably Britain’s most charismatic and photogenic ancient site!
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Baconsthorpe Castle is a fortified manor house, now a ruin, to the north of the village of Baconsthorpe, Norfolk. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building, and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. It is a moated, fortified 15th century manor house which symbolises the rise and fall of a Norfolk family. In a period of just 200 years, this manor house was built, enlarged, and abandoned. Sir John Heydon started building at Baconsthorpe in 1447 on the site of an earlier manor called Wood Hall. In five years the tower was completed. It was large enough to serve as a selfcontained defendable residence. He also constructed a gatehouse, which had on the ground floor two lodges, and on the first floor there was a spacious suite of chambers, for Heydon's family. Sir John' s son Henry completed the construction of the manor house. It was originally built without a licence. Its outer walls in the form of a quadrilateral had towers, and inside it was a range of buildings. The walls of the house and the associated buildings were made of a core of mortared flint rubble and were dressed with stone and brick. On the eastern side of the quadrangle stood the service range of buildings which were converted into two long rooms in the 16th century, with large oak-mullioned windows to provided light for the spinners and weavers who worked there producing cloth.
Sir Henry's son Christopher was in 1561 granted a licence to crenelate Baconsthorpe and impark it. He also added the outer gatehouse. This was constructed to form an impressive entrance to display the Heydon family’s wealth and status. The outer gatehouse was built of flint with stone dressing. It was originally three bays wide with gable end turrets which had octagonal shaped towers on square bases and crowned with a cupola. The interior consisted of a central passage on the ground floor with rooms to both sides and a large chamber on the upper floor. The outer court was originally flanked on the eastern side by a row of cottages and on the west side by a long barn. Both the barn and cottages still remain. Sir Christopher Heydon continued to spend lavishly on Baconsthorpe and the park and in 1561 an ornamental garden and a lake were formed from the eastern side of the moat. Sir Christopher's son also a Christopher mortgaged Baconsthorpe, and with his brother John took part in the Essex revolt of 1601 against Queen Elizabeth 1, leading rebel troops through Ludgate. Christopher was held in the Fleet Prison, but was pardoned for £2,000. His finances were very low, and in 1614 he was forced to mortgage some of his estates. After the Civil War Baconsthorpe Castle fell into ruin. The Parliamentarians had seized the estate: Christopher Heydon who had been a commander of Charles I’s artillery during the war was allowed to buy it back in 1657.
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Christopher had inherited his father’s debts and also his brother William’s. In a bid to raise cash he demolished much of Baconsthorpe castle and sold the stone, much of which went to Felbrigg Hall. The outer gatehouse was bought by a London merchant who converted it into a farmhouse and called it Baconsthorpe Hall. It was lived in until 1921, when gales brought down the left tower, tearing away much of the structure. Parts of the walls of the left bay remain and also the wall footings of the projecting east and west wings which were added when the gatehouse was converted into a house.
The curtain walls of Baconsthorpe Castle are complete and include the remains of the towers. In the middle of the south wall are the remains of John Heydon's three-storey gatehouse with a two-storey projection for the drawbridge. Along the east wall are the remains of the two-storey service range. To the east is the lake, and the moat surrounds the other three sides. One of the gabled end turrets remain of the outer gatehouse as does part of the original building. The stone moulding of the inner arch is still largely intact in the north wall, as are parts of the brickwork of the outer gate arch which are visible behind the insertion of a later door in the south wall. The western wall of the gate passage still stands, and includes a partly blocked, arched doorway with its moulded stone surround. Window bays and jambs still remain in the north and south walls to the west of the gate arch. There are only small traces left of the formal gardens, and the lake, which was formed from the eastern side of the moat, is now much smaller than when constructed.
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by Eric Houlder LRPS
The bottle was found beneath the threshold of the final farmhouse on the Wood Hall site near Selby in North Yorkshire. The site was excavated throughout the 1990s and received an award in the British Archaeological Awards. The bottle is clearly modern, as it appears to have been made on an Owens machine. These were in use in nearby Knottingley during the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. Indeed, the writer, who laboured in a glassworks as a student, remembers the Owens very clearly. The contents include pins (iron) and water – probably urine, which a witch is unable to pass. Such witch bottles were traditionally placed beneath thresholds, in window frames, and in chimneys to deny access to witches. They have even been found amidst thatch on roofs. As one of the small finds on the excavation, the bottle was treated exactly like the other finds. Eventually, it had to be photographed. Finds photography has its own protocols, which the writer learned from the master: late Fellow, and friend, Brian Tremain FRPS, whose obituary appeared in our last issue. The important points are: · The scale should appear in the same plane as the subject, and be strictly parallel to the frame edge. · A pot or container should have the mouth showing as a shallow ellipse. · Any handles should always be on the right. · The main light should always be from the top left. · There should be a reflector or fill-light on the right. · The background should be unobtrusive, · The camera should be equipped with the longest focal length lens conveniently usable.
At Wood Hall, the small finds photography was undertaken in a Portakabin without mains or any other form of power. Lighting was in the form of battery-powered brolly-flashes on stands, with reflectors, also on stands. Exposure was measured with a Polaris flash meter, though sometimes TTL flash metering was used with the selection of Minolta SLRs in use. Lens was usually an 80-200mm, though a 1960s MPD f4.5 Rokkor 100mm was sometimes utilised. All exposures were made on the tripod. The writer almost always preferred to use an This is a sheet of card which is horizontal beneath the subject and curves upwards to the vertical behind it. The curve eliminates any joint which would obviously show. A variation on the infinity-curve is similar, but darkening towards the top. This can be achieved with lighting (difficult) but is more easily attained with card that is already pre-printed with a graduated tone. Today, excellent macro and micro scales may be purchased easily on-line, including reproductions of those used in CSI television programmes! Then (the ‘90s) the writer designed his own with a CAD program on his Amstrad computer, a spin-off from his work reviewing DTP software for the Examples with light and dark ends were made to suit the subjects. The original A4 sheet was scanned and copied both to the Mac he used in the early years of the current century, and later to the present Windows machine. The scale in this example was pasted onto card and cut around with a craft knife. It was held up with the ubiquitous Blu-Tak; what would we do without it? This one has clearly seen a lot of use, and could do with some work in an editing program to clean it up.
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By R Keith Evans FRPS Strolling through an unfamiliar part of the City of London's 'Square Mile' one recent weekday, looking for a sunny spot to eat my lunchtime sandwich, I happened to pass an attractive oak front door, number thirty-five Wood Street. Part-shaded by a newly planted tree, the facade with its two carriage lanterns was inviting enough to merit a quick snapshot. But when I stepped back to admire the building to which the door belonged, I was delighted to find myself looking at an entire Christopher Wren church tower... that of St Alban Wood Street. One of Wren's few Gothic towers, it alone survived when the rest of the building was destroyed in the London blitz of the Second World War. Dating back to Saxon times, the church was largely burned down in the Great Fire of 1666, and rebuilt by Wren in the 1680s. Today surrounded by modern office buildings, the tower was converted into a private residence in 1985 – though it still has no lift ! The A & H Group has made a number of visits to London's City churches, most recently in May of this year. But hitherto they have all been active churches; perhaps our esteemed Editor could prepare a future article on the City of London's forty or so 'lost' churches like that of St Alban – remembered today only as partial remains, gardens or simple memorial plaques.
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March
Photography at a cathedral in the Midlands.
August
A visit to Snowshill Manor, Glos.
April
A visit to Hartlebury Castle, Worcestershire.
October 8th
Group Conference at Leatherhead.
May 7th
Group AGM and Print Day.
October
Portchester Castle, Portsmouth.
May
West Stow Anglo-Saxon village nr bury St Edmunds.
November
A second printing workshop
June
Churches on the Pilgrims’ Way in Kent Tudely & St Thomas a Becket.
Details & confirmed dates will be published on the Group website and in the as soon as finalised.
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Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire The (Anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title:
).
This is the name traditionally given to the subject in the Nativity of Jesus in art in which the three Magi, represented as kings, especially in the West, having found Jesus by following a star, lay before him gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, and worship him. It is related in the Bible by Matthew 2-11: "On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, They left for their own country by another path". This event is commemorated in Western Christianity as The Feast of the Epiphany (January 6). The Orthodox Church commemorates the Adoration of the Magi on the Feast of the Nativity (December 25). Christian iconography has considerably expanded the bare account of the Biblical Magi given in the second chapter of The Gospel of Matthew (2:1-22) and used it to press the point that Jesus was recognized, from his earliest infancy, as
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