A sunny Autumn outing with stained glass..
We woke up to sunshine, frost and temperatures of 0C/32F. Our day started by taking the van we borrowed yesterday back to the hire place which was easy. Then we set off to meet up with our Nordic walking group for a walk around a new venue for us.
We went to Hayden Country Park which is around a 30-minute drive from our house - and it was an uneventful journey, although the meeting point was quite difficult to find. Our Nordic Walking group leader was unable to come today, but we were expecting a group of nine. Unfortunately, having met up with two other couples we ended up waiting for a while for the last three to get there. The mobile phone coverage was terrible, so we kept getting broken-up voicemail messages from the others but had no idea where they were!
In the end, we decided that the six of us would go for a walk and they would have to catch us up because it was cold (4C/39F). Under the cut for some photos of the pretty Autumn views:
Poles and the sign for the park
Really lovely day - this is the fishing lake - only for club members
Absolutely lovely Barden Lake where people could fish without being a club member. We saw a lot of people fishing and many dogs jumping into the water to retrieve balls enthusiastically thrown by their people.
Around the park were various carved animals. I rather liked this frog seat.
A happy frog.
An equally happy rabbit (?)
We walked across the River Medway which goes through the park. It the distance you can see some people who were canoeing along the river.
Along the path of the river - we have decided it would be a good plan to revisit the park in the summertime.
We eventually caught up with the other three group members as we were leaving to go to the pub for our lunch, so we all met up for a very nice lunch. They had managed to walk around the park and miss us completely, but they had been really late arriving as they'd got lost (oops! LOL!).
Following lunch, we all went to visit All Saints' Church, Tudely as we were nearby. The church is renowned for the stained glass windows designed and installed by the artist Marc Chagall. Today, this is the only Church in the world to have all twelve of its windows designed by Chagall. Some photos of the church and windows are under the cut.
There has been a church on the site since the 7th Century, but the current building mostly dates from the 1700s
Inside the church was completely updated from dark Victorian woodwork in 1966 and at around the same time Marc Chagall was asked to design a stained glass memorial window for the Church.
This is the memorial window to Sarah d'Avigdor Goldsmid, the only daughter of a local Member of Parliament (Window 8 in the catalogue of the Chagall windows). Her death at the age of 21 in a sailing accident was widely reported in the news in 1963. Sarah had admired Chagall's work when she had seen examples with her mother in Paris in 1961, and so her parents commissioned Chagall to create the window in her memory in their local Church. The window was installed in 1967. At the dedication Chagall (who had travelled to England), expressed an interest in designing all the windows at the church.
Over the next 15 years, he designed the remaining 11 windows with the glassworker Charles Marq of Reims.
Window 1: Eve offering Adam the forbidden fruit (you can see the couple down on the left at the bottom, and a donkey in the bottom right-hand window = near the left-hand side in blue.
Window 2: Deep Blue with the Crescent Moon
Window 3: deep blue with green leaf, angel, moon
Window 4: deep blue with a white bird. Chagall and Marq signed this window. There's a small face on the left-hand side at the bottom which is thought to be a self-portrait by Chagall.
Window 5: warm colours, a blue fish in the quatrefoil - this is my favourite window with all the added detail painted and fused onto the glass, you can see Chagall's brush strokes in the colours.
Window 6: angel with harp, bird, and donkey
Window 7: a red tumbling angel, bird
Window 8 is the memorial window.
Window 9: a serene angel, - the window signed by Marc Chagall. The light was just perfect for this window when we visited. I love the reflections. You can see where Chagall has scratched more detail into the green fish on this with the end of a paintbrush. There is also an angel
Window 10: angel and 'Vava', his nickname for his wife. More lovely reflections on the stonework.
Window 11: resurrection, small angel, green bird, four candles at the top
Window 12: resurrection, birds, donkey, four candles at the top
There is also a rather impressive tomb of George Fane and his wife in the Chancel with their coats of arms above. George Fane was a Sheriff of Kent and died in 1572.
You can read more about the history of the Church here. There's more information about Marc Chagall's stained glass here.
By then it was nearly 3pm, and getting colder, so we decided to drive home. It was a lovely sunny day out!
We went to Hayden Country Park which is around a 30-minute drive from our house - and it was an uneventful journey, although the meeting point was quite difficult to find. Our Nordic Walking group leader was unable to come today, but we were expecting a group of nine. Unfortunately, having met up with two other couples we ended up waiting for a while for the last three to get there. The mobile phone coverage was terrible, so we kept getting broken-up voicemail messages from the others but had no idea where they were!
In the end, we decided that the six of us would go for a walk and they would have to catch us up because it was cold (4C/39F). Under the cut for some photos of the pretty Autumn views:
Poles and the sign for the park
Really lovely day - this is the fishing lake - only for club members
Absolutely lovely Barden Lake where people could fish without being a club member. We saw a lot of people fishing and many dogs jumping into the water to retrieve balls enthusiastically thrown by their people.
Around the park were various carved animals. I rather liked this frog seat.
A happy frog.
An equally happy rabbit (?)
We walked across the River Medway which goes through the park. It the distance you can see some people who were canoeing along the river.
Along the path of the river - we have decided it would be a good plan to revisit the park in the summertime.
We eventually caught up with the other three group members as we were leaving to go to the pub for our lunch, so we all met up for a very nice lunch. They had managed to walk around the park and miss us completely, but they had been really late arriving as they'd got lost (oops! LOL!).
Following lunch, we all went to visit All Saints' Church, Tudely as we were nearby. The church is renowned for the stained glass windows designed and installed by the artist Marc Chagall. Today, this is the only Church in the world to have all twelve of its windows designed by Chagall. Some photos of the church and windows are under the cut.
There has been a church on the site since the 7th Century, but the current building mostly dates from the 1700s
Inside the church was completely updated from dark Victorian woodwork in 1966 and at around the same time Marc Chagall was asked to design a stained glass memorial window for the Church.
This is the memorial window to Sarah d'Avigdor Goldsmid, the only daughter of a local Member of Parliament (Window 8 in the catalogue of the Chagall windows). Her death at the age of 21 in a sailing accident was widely reported in the news in 1963. Sarah had admired Chagall's work when she had seen examples with her mother in Paris in 1961, and so her parents commissioned Chagall to create the window in her memory in their local Church. The window was installed in 1967. At the dedication Chagall (who had travelled to England), expressed an interest in designing all the windows at the church.
Over the next 15 years, he designed the remaining 11 windows with the glassworker Charles Marq of Reims.
Window 1: Eve offering Adam the forbidden fruit (you can see the couple down on the left at the bottom, and a donkey in the bottom right-hand window = near the left-hand side in blue.
Window 2: Deep Blue with the Crescent Moon
Window 3: deep blue with green leaf, angel, moon
Window 4: deep blue with a white bird. Chagall and Marq signed this window. There's a small face on the left-hand side at the bottom which is thought to be a self-portrait by Chagall.
Window 5: warm colours, a blue fish in the quatrefoil - this is my favourite window with all the added detail painted and fused onto the glass, you can see Chagall's brush strokes in the colours.
Window 6: angel with harp, bird, and donkey
Window 7: a red tumbling angel, bird
Window 8 is the memorial window.
Window 9: a serene angel, - the window signed by Marc Chagall. The light was just perfect for this window when we visited. I love the reflections. You can see where Chagall has scratched more detail into the green fish on this with the end of a paintbrush. There is also an angel
Window 10: angel and 'Vava', his nickname for his wife. More lovely reflections on the stonework.
Window 11: resurrection, small angel, green bird, four candles at the top
Window 12: resurrection, birds, donkey, four candles at the top
There is also a rather impressive tomb of George Fane and his wife in the Chancel with their coats of arms above. George Fane was a Sheriff of Kent and died in 1572.
You can read more about the history of the Church here. There's more information about Marc Chagall's stained glass here.
By then it was nearly 3pm, and getting colder, so we decided to drive home. It was a lovely sunny day out!