The Painted Church

As befits a post in the commemorative 10th year of this blog, this post has a number of links to previous ones.

Over the years, I have produced a number of "Tourist in my Town" posts, which basically gave me carte blanche to wander around Cambridge with a camera, just  like a tourist. Examples of this are the 2017 Tourist in My Town - Turrets and Towers and the appropriately named 2019 Tourist in My Town 2019. There are others.

I also have a thing about the Arts and Crafts movement, as you may have gathered if you have seen last year's Kelmscott on A Rainy July Weekend .

So, what better way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this blog than to be a tourist in my town, yet again, and visit Cambridge's own Arts and Crafts church.

This is All Saints' Cambridge, The Painted Church You can click on the link to find the church's website, and you should. All Saints' needs the love. In summary, and to borrow from the website:

"The Painted Church is one of Cambridge’s hidden treasures, designed by George Frederick Bodley. It remains one of the finest examples of Victorian Gothic in the country, both for its exceptional hand painted walls and for the spectacular stained glass."

To accompany images of the "interior decoration which showcases the work of master decorator Frederick Leach of Cambridge and his firm of decorative artists" and the stained glass by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown and Philip Webb, Charles Eamer Kempe, Douglas Strachan and Ward & Hughes, there are images of ecclesiastical fabrics created by Watts & Company (no relation - that I know of). The church was hosting an exhibition of the company's work on the day I visited.

Kelmscott on A Rainy July Weekend

So, lots of things to say, as well as photographs to share.

I'm an admirer of William Morris. I have been for a long time: the writing, the designing, the art, the philosophy and politics of the man. If you want to know more, I commend the Fiona MacCarthy biography of William Morris. Really - go, read it.

On a rainy Saturday in July, I finally got to visit Kelmscott, the beautiful cotswold house where Morris, his family and (from time to time) assorted Romantic artists lived and worked for many years - an important, almost-pilgrimage, for me. There would have been more photos, but, hey, dark and rainy does not make for ideal photographic conditions and juggling a camera, a handbag and a huge, very wet umbrella presents its own challenges.

In the village of Kelmscott there is a rather lovely and very old church. The family of the owners of Kelmscott Manor (Morris rented) are buried there. William and Jane Morris are buried there themselves and, yes, I visited their grave, though it's difficult to find behind a large bay tree. The exceptionally wet weather didn't make for a reasonable photograph of the craft movement style grave, but I delighted in the re-discovered medieval frescos in the church.

And so to Kelmscott Manor, via a rather attractive, warm and comfortably dry village pub that served excellent beer and sandwiches (The Plough Inn, if you are asking, and it has Hooky on draught, amongst other delights).