It’s a well-known fact the more it snows (tiddely pom) the colder the toes. Less well known is under lockdown the more it snows the more bonkers I become.
Thanks to Matthew Byrne (Church Fonts) I find there are thirteen fonts in London in wood or stone by Grinling Gibbons, his studio or followers. They date from 1670 to 1750 and, if you need to file them, classify as Classical or Baroque.
I’m writing this on Sunday morning and my Anneka Rice challenge is to virtually see them all before the vodka and tomato juice run out. All Hallows is an apt starting point as William Laud, Thomas More and John Fisher are buried there, having being beheaded at the Tower; Bloody Mary.
Anneka used an helicopter – I must travel by Google. Next stop, St Botolph’s Aldgate where I haven’t been since August 2016.
St James’ Piccadilly was in Look and Learn, so that’s a dozen. St Edmund the King and Martyr in Lombard Street eluded me; not all masterpieces but some stunners.
Now for something completely different. Thank you Maddy.
BB,
How clever of you to choose the fine piece in All Hallows’ as a way of giving coded support to its beleaguered curate The Rev Jarel Robinson-Brown. How painful it must be for him to pass the font, should he ever enter the church of his curacy, redolent as it is of White British Nationalism. To make matters worse it is a racing certainty that among those who paid for the font will be the beneficiaries of the profits from Caribbean plantations or at least their children will have been and if the sins of the father can be visited on the sons and onwards, why not the sins of the sons visiting the fathers and backwards.
You and I are both fans of the great Peter Simple columns and Rev Jarel must be eyeing the diocese of Bevindon to succeed Dr Spacely-Trellis.
While Jarel may not tread in the footsteps of Christ, he shows every sign of being a disciple of Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark – aka, Merve the Perve, who showed me his chasubles, under supervision. I like Jarel’s dog.