Bali (7) - Monochrome Weekend

For more monochrome madness, visit Dragonstar's Weekend in Black and White. 

Bali (4)

More from Tirta Empul, the holy spring temple.

Bali (3)

Tirta Empul

Bali (2)

Tirta Empul, the holy spring temple, believed to have healing powers and where people go for purification.

St Andrews (3)

St Andrews (2)

One of the interesting features within St Andrews.

St Andrews

Sydney's Anglican cathedral, St Andrews, is a much friendlier place than its Catholic counterpart, St Mary's. Unlike St Mary's which strictly forbids photography, in St Andrews I had no problem at all. These were with the unobtrusive point and shoot but I could probably have used the SLR with no problem. While not as magnificent as St Mary's, the cathedral is far more welcoming and equally beautiful when you look closely.

Taphophile Tragics

I came across this tomb tucked into a corner of St Andrews Cathedral and thought it was a very strange place to put a tomb. Turns out its not the real thing but a copy of the tomb of Bishop William Grant Broughton who built the Cathedral. The original tomb is in Canterbury Cathedral as the Bishop died while on a visit to England.

In the year after his enthronement Broughton began to build his cathedral. Macquarie had laid the foundation stone of a great metropolitan church of St Andrew in 1819 but Commissioner John Thomas Bigge had very soon stopped the work on it. Broughton enlisted strong support for his project, and Governor Bourke laid the stone anew near the same place at the old George Street burial ground. In the prosperous times good progress was made, but it faltered with the depression and revived only in 1850. Broughton did not see his cathedral completed, but used St James's until a temporary wooden church, the second on the site, was built in 1842 as the pro-cathedral. Broughton had some success with parish churches and schools, of which he was an indefatigable promoter. Although the Acts of 1836-37 gave material impetus to church expansion, Broughton's organizing ability and lengthy travels proved invaluable in a situation where the population was newly arrived and thinly spread. During his episcopate Broughton consecrated or dedicated almost a hundred church buildings on the Australian mainland.

There is much more about Bishop Broughton in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

This is an entry in Julie's Taphophile Tragics meme.

St John's Anglican Cathedral, Parramatta

After visiting the old cemetery I thought I'd take a look at St John's Cathedral. It wasn't open so I have no idea what the inside is like. Some history:

On 23rd July 1802 St John's was declared an Anglican parish by Governor King. While the Reverend Richard Johnson, Chaplain to the First Fleet, came to Parramatta on the fortnightly basis to conduct a service on the banks of the Parramatta River, Reverend Samuel Marsden was the first resident minister of St John's. In 1796 he dedicated a makeshift building of two old huts at the corner of George & Marsden Streets as the first church building in Parramatta. These huts no longer exist.





The original church building on its present site in the Church Street Mall, was opened in 1803 but as the needs of the church family changed, so did the building. The twin towers which stand today were constructed by 1818 making them the oldest surviving part of any Anglican Church in Australia. They are built from handmade sandstock bricks, possibly by convicts, and overlaid with a stucco render giving the appearance of stone. The choice of design is attributed to Elizabeth Macquarie, the wife of Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who was inspired by a ruined church in Reculver, Kent in England.

The church building of the early 1800s, except the towers, was demolished in the early 1850s after a severe storm and subsequent deterioration meant that the building was no longer fit for use.

The new building was opened in 1855 and by 1882, the church family had expanded so much that the building needed to be enlarged. The well-known architect firm of Blacket and Son was commissioned to design transepts which completed the building as it is seen today.

Nowdays the congregation is very different to what it would have been when the church was first established.

Taphophile Tragics

The Martyrdom, Canterbury Cathedral, England

The Martyrdom - A modern memorial, at the place where he was slain, marks the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. Two ragged steel swords and a broken sword point throw a striking shadow behind a bare stone altar - it is visited as much today as it ever has been.

The best known event in the Cathedral's history was the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170. Canterbury, always on the medieval pilgrim route to Rome, became an end in itself, as thousands came to worship at Becket's tomb, especially after his canonization in 1173. Geoffrey Chaucer's pilgrims in his poem, The Canterbury Tales, were by no means unique. They represented the hundreds of thousands who travelled to the Cathedral to pray, repent or be healed at his shrine. (The word canter comes from the pace of the pilgrims' horses as they rode to the Cathedral.) The tradition of pilgrimage is very much alive today, although the journey is faster and considerably more comfortable. Thomas' shrine was destroyed in 1538 on the orders of King Henry VIII; today, a simple candle marks the place where it once stood and the pink stone before it bears the imprint of thousands of pilgrims' knees. When Becket was made Archbishop of Canterbury by King Henry II in 1162, he changed his total allegiance from the King to the Pope and the Church. Henry had expected his full support, and there were many conflicts between them, the final one being Thomas' excommunication of the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury for their support for Henry's attacks on the rights of Thomas as archbishop; not only had the king’s agents used Thomas’ property while he was in exile in France but, in the summer of 1170, King Henry had his son crowned as his heir by these and other bishops, usurping a long standing right of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Four knights, Richard Brito, Hugh de Moreville, Reginald FitzUrse, and William de Tracy overheard the King's rage and took seriously his shout of "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" On 29 December 1170, returning from France where Henry had held his Christmas Court, they entered the Archbishop’s lodgings from Palace Street; the monks persuaded Thomas to enter the Cathedral from his Palace through the Cloisters and into the North West Transept. Vespers was in progress when the knights burst in, and found Thomas kneeling at the altar. According to Edward Grim, a monk who watched the murder, Thomas refused to absolve the Bishops and told the Knights that "for the name of Jesus and the protection of the Church, I am ready to embrace death."It was not long before he did so. The knights wielded their weapons and administered three mighty blows, the last one breaking off the tip of a sword. Three days after his death, there began a series of miracles attached to his martyrdom. These are depicted in the miracle windows of the Trinity Chapel. In 1173, Becket was canonized by Pope Alexander III. Pilgrims began to flock to Thomas' shrine in the Cathedral; a year later Henry, in sackcloth, walking barefoot, was among them.

The Black Prince

A notable feature of the ambulatory are its many tombs of archbishops and royals. The most famous of these is the Tomb of the Black Prince (1330-76), topped with a bronze chainmailed effigy of the knight, in the south ambulatory. It's not clear how he got his romantic nickname; his contemporaries knew him as Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales. He was the eldest son of a king (Edward III) and the father of a king (Richard II), but was never king himself because he died before his father.

Archbishop Henry Chichele (I think)

English archbishop, founder of All Souls college, Oxford, was born in the Borough in 1362, the youngest of the 3 sons of Thomas and Agnes Chichele. Thomas Chichele was a yeoman farmer and was Mayor of the Borough in 1373. The family lived at 67 High Street, Higham Ferrers - the property still remains.

Chichele was taught in a small school by Henry Barton, the Schoolmaster, and in view of his outstanding abilities he was introduced to William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, who was working in the Castle on plans for the building of New College, Oxford. He accompanied the Bishop to Winchester to continue his studies and later to Salisbury. His further appointment was to the Archdeaconry of Salisbury, then Chancellor of Salisbury. His further appointment was to the Bishopric of St. David's, and in 1414 he became Archbishop of Canterbury.

During his career he practiced as an advocate in the principle ecclesiastical court and from that time an extraordinary number of posts fell to him including a much heralded diplomatic career. He acquired livings and canonries wholesale. He was with the English force under the Earl of Arundel which accompanied the Duke of Burgundy to Paris in 1411 and there defeated the Armagnacs; and in 1413 was sent by Henry V., with the Earl of Warwick, to France to conclude peace. He was certainly at the Battle of Agincourt with Henry V and there was a charge, versified by Shakespeare (Henry V. act 1, sc.2) from Halls Chronicle, of having tempted Henry V. into the conquest of France for the sake of diverting parliament from the disendowment of the Church.

Chichele was present at the siege of Rouen, and the King committed to him the negotiations for the surrender of the city in 1419 and for the marriage of Katherine. He crowned Katherine at Westminster in February 1421 and in December of the same year baptised her child, Henry VI.

Chichele is renowned chiefly for his educational foundations. He endowed a chest or loan fund for poor scholars at New College, and another for the university at large. He founded at least three colleges, one at Higham Ferrers and two at Oxford. The licence for the first was given by Henry V in May 1422 and was closely modeled on Winchester College, and to it was attached an alshouse for 12 poor men (more of the Bede House later).

He retained the position of Archbishop of Canterbury until his death in 1443, at the age of 81 years. He was the longest serving Archbishop of Canterbury.

This is an entry in Julie's Taphophile Tragics meme.

Taphophile Tragics

These were taken at Lakemba Mosque Open Day last year. People were sitting and standing around listening to the talk when a child's coffin was wheeled in and left at the back. Noone paid any attention to it except that the speaker was asked to hurry up so the ceremony could be held. After the regular prayers finished the coffin was moved to a more central position, the family came in and a very brief ceremony was held. Still with all the visitors in the mosque. Its something I felt very uncomfortable with. To me a funeral is (unless its of a well known person), if not private, at least for family and those who knew the deceased. I know that its imperative that the body is buried within a short period of time but it seemed disrespectful and that little coffin sitting at the back on its own was so terribly sad.

This is an entry in Julie's Taphophile Tragics meme.

Pitt Street Church Uniting Church

I thought that this buiding, which I thought was a hall, was part of the church featured yesterday as it seemed to sit behind it, but its not and google maps shows me that it doesn't adjoin that church but is a few buildings further down in the street behind. This is Pitt Street Uniting Church the interior of which quite took me by surprise.

St Georges Presbyterian Church

I've always wondered what was inside this old, run down church in Castlereagh Street but I've never seen it open.

Taphophile Tragics

St Peters churchyard, on the busy Princes Highway in the suburb of St Peters, is my kind of graveyard. Overgrown and falling into disrepair, I think its absolutely beautiful. I've known of it for years, always intended to visit but never had. I'm glad I did.

Cooks River Parish was named after the river which flows through it. On 13 May, 1838 the first service was conducted in a temporary church. The foundation stone of the present church was laid on 7 July 1838, and the building was completed in November 1839. Thomas Bird was the architect and the builder Henry Knight, of Macdonaldtown. St Peters is one of the oldest churches in the suburbs of Sydney. Built of sun-dried bricks, by free labour, it represents the English Commissioner’s Gothic style in Australia. Twelve pillars, made of ironbark, support a plaster vaulted nave. The church itself, which I remembered as being quite run down, has had a new paint job and seems now to be Evangelical Christian.

Adjacent to the church is the graveyard which was in use from March 1839 till April 1896. Bishop Broughton consecrated the graveyard on December 26th, 1840. There are 2,515 people listed in the burial register. Two thirds of these burials are of children under the age ten. Of the two thirds, more than half are under three years. There are many memorials to the pioneers of the district and beyond. Symbols of a past era – draped urns, hourglasses and broken branches are carved on the headstones. The graveyard is not only a place of burial, but a great source of social history.

Unfortunately, I don't know anything about the individuals buried there but the St Peters Cooks River History Group has an open afternoon on the first Saturday of every month which would be worth a look.

Stories behind the graves can be found on the St Peters Cooks River History Group website.

The text at the other end of this grave reads "Erected by his brother officers to the memory of Henry Reeve, Money Order Department. Son of Lieut L(?) A Reeve RM. Born in England 1 November 1821. Died at Newtown 21 June 1875."

For more taphophilia please visit Julie's Taphophile Tragics.

Monochrome Weekend - Sydney Festival - First Night - Travelling Colony

These zig zag projections were part of Travelling Colony, inspired by creator Brook Andrews' Wiradjuri tradition.

 

For more monochrome madness, visit Dragonstar's Weekend in Black and White.

 

 

Weekend Reflections

For more reflections visit James' Weekend Reflections.

Sky Watch Friday

Finally, blue sky. Its not upside down, I was lying on my back looking up.

For more Sky Watch from around the world, drop in to the home of Sky Watch Friday.

Christmas Lights (2)