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July 11, 2014

Back to Suffolk

Thursday 3 July 2014 – the Feast of St Thomas. I was deaconed in 1994 and priested a year later. My first Eucharist was celebrated at Fornham All Saints nineteen years ago today, so I had arranged to celebrate there again today. I ended up in Suffolk after my three years at Lincoln Theological College. My sending Diocese – Ely – had the first call on me. They suggested Wisbech St Mary as a curacy; that was a long way from nowhere. In those far-off days dioceses that could not fill their places sent them to the Colleges, and Bill...
Categories Outside Northumberland/Personal/Suffolk/World War 1 Comments: 0
July 10, 2014

Lincoln – St Paul in the Bail

Lincoln is a Roman City. The Fosse Way (from the South West) meets the Ermine Street (from London) at the bottom of the hill. The Roman City was built on top of the hill – you can see the main gates, and the Ermine Street ran north through the Newport Arch and on to York. I love the fact you can still drive through a Roman Arch. In the Roman City is the Roman Forum, and the Mint Wall (the north wall of the Forum) still stands – the highest piece of Roman wall in England. (We lived in...
Categories Lincolnshire/Outside Northumberland/Personal Comments: 5
July 7, 2014

Lincoln Cathedral

Julie and I lived in Lincoln for the three years I was training at Lincoln Theological College – as you stand on Castle Square facing the Cathedral (photo above), our house was 2 minutes walk to the left, the College one minute to the right. It was a smashing three years. Harry was born shortly after we arrived, so we had three small children. I did not work particularly hard as a student, and we spent a lot of time exploring the County, visiting churches, signal boxes and windmills (what else do you visit?). We loved Lincoln as a...
Categories Cathedrals/Lincolnshire/Outside Northumberland/Personal Comments: 7
June 24, 2014

Dean Road Cemetery, Scarborough, Yorkshire

No, I am not going to start blogging about cemeteries and cemetery chapels, but I made a pilgrimage today (24 June). John Wilson Carmichael, maritime artist and railway historian, is buried here. He was born on 9 June 1799 in Newcastle, and died in Scarborough on 2 May 1868. This is a portrait of him by Thomas Ellerby painted in 1839 and in the collection of Tyne & Wear Museums. I have written an 8,000 word essay on him for the Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History, University of York – email me if you’d like the pdf....
Categories Outside Northumberland/Personal/Railway History Comments: 2
May 21, 2014

Perry Baptist Church, Cambridgeshire

OK, this one is a bit personal. Perry is village in Cambridgeshire (Huntingdonshire as was), just west of the A1, on the banks of Grafham Water. It was originally two hamlets, East Perry and West Perry, on the parish boundary between Great Staughton and Grafham. In the Nineteenth century a Baptist Chapel was built, on the parish boundary, a good way from the Anglicans! In the late 1970s the chapel had to be demolished as the back wall was falling into the pond. At the same time lots of new houses were built on the banks of the reservoir...
Categories Cambridgeshire/Personal Comments: 7
December 28, 2013

Personal pause – update

I’m sorry to have to report that Gareth died on Boxing Day – the Feast of Stephen. We are very grateful to the staff of the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, to those at Great Ormond Street Hospital who gave him his heart transplant 9 years ago, and (above all) to the donor and family who gave us all hope and life. Gareth was a chorister at St Edmundsbury Cathedral, sang in the St Cecilia Chorale, worked in the Cathedral Refectory, and was a server – one Saturday he had spent the whole day serving food in the Refectory, had...
Categories National Trust/Personal Comments: 4
December 11, 2013

A personal pause

It amazes me when I look at the statistics to see how widely this blog is read. I even had a visitor from Syria in the last few months – which bought the current Civil War there a little closer to home. If, my Syrian visitor, you read this post – be assured of my prayers (and it made a good theme for a school assembly on “It’s a small world”). Two pieces of news. My dad, Dr Jeffrey Barham, died on 3 December 2013. This photo was taken in a tea shop in Corbridge in June 2011 –...
Categories Personal/Railway History Comments: 6
October 1, 2010

Whitley Chapel, Northumberland – St Helen

I was a Suffolk Vicar, enjoyed the website Simon’s Suffolk Churches – and my old boss, Neil Collings (the Dean of St Edmundsbury), managed to visit all the churches in Suffolk before his untimely death earlier this year – may he rest in peace. Now I’m a Northumberland Vicar I thought I’d try and do all the churches in Northumberland. I was going to start a website, but my wife – northernreader – suggested a blog would be easier. So, here goes. One of the Diocesan committees I sit on had “Whitley Chapel” on the agenda. “Where’s that?” I asked. “South of Hexham” they...
Categories Evetts' windows/Northumberland/Personal Comments: 0