Welcome from the Editor Welcome to the first edition of The Church Mouse , a magazine about churches and cathedrals. A cathedral is easy to define; it is the seat of a bishop. A church however is more difficult. In this magazine we are going to use the word to denote any Christian place of worship, although I expect that much of the time we will talking about Anglican buildings. I spend a lot of my time, retirement is one long holiday, on coach trips and whenever possible use the stops to visit a church. Unfortunately this can be a very brief time and not very much is seen. Sometimes one can make new discoveries at places one has visited before. I hope that I can find plenty of interest to most readers.
Church Mice The work of Robert (Mouseman) Thompson (7 May 1876 – 8 December 1955) of Kilburn, North Yorkshire, is too well known for me to write at length about it. It is said that the trademark carved mouse came from a conversation between Thompson and a friend about "being as poor as a church mouse", during the carving of a cornice for a screen in 1919. This remark led to him carving a mouse which became his signature. It is worth making a point of looking for his work during your church visits. Bangor Cathedral, for example, has several pieces. The guide leaflet says there are six, but doesn’t say where, suggesting that you look for them, I haven't found them all.
What is it called? Visiting churches can be very confusing if we don’t know the terminology used by the guide or guidebook. The same thing may have different names in different churches; a simple example is chancel, quire, choir. We are currently preparing a dictionary of the terms used in a church building and hope to include the first instalment in the next issue of The Church Mouse
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