Byrne, Matthew – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk Henley-on-Thames Fri, 25 Jul 2025 17:50:35 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cropped-Bell-Background-Blue-32x32.png Byrne, Matthew – The Bell Bookshop https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk 32 32 History of English Churches in 100 Objects https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/history-of-english-churches-in-100-objects/ Thu, 10 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/?post_type=product&p=41712

Produced in partnership with the National Churches Trust, this book is a sumptuous, beautifully illustrated history of the churches of England, told through the objects within them.

]]> Published in collaboration  with the National Churches Trust, this fascinating book is a sumptuous and authoritative photographic history of churches in England, as told through the objects inside them.Arranged chronologically from the Roman era to the present day, it covers a huge range of church objects including ornate fonts, beautiful stained glass windows, carved bench ends and rood screens, precious silverware and even church organs, and each piece has a fascinating story to tell. Within these pages, you’ll discover:? The Hinton St Mary mosaic in Dorset, created in the early 4th century AD and showing the first depiction of Jesus Christ in Britain.? The full Norman repertoire of abstract geometrical forms displayed in the Tower Arch, St John’s Church, Northampton.? The Becket pilgrims represented in glowing medieval stained glass in Canterbury Cathedral.? Exquisitely carved misericords showing scenes from spiritual life through the year in Ripple church, Worcestershire.? Destruction and survival through the Dissolution of the Monasteries at Croyland, Lincolnshire.? Works of art in glass by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones in Brampton, Cumbria.? Dame Elizabeth Frink’s intimate ‘Walking Madonna’ statue outside Salisbury Cathedral.With all of this and many other glorious treasures of England’s Christian history, it’s the perfect book for architecture enthusiasts, countryside explorers, dedicated churchgoers and anyone interested in the ongoing story of English churches.

]]> Church Fonts https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/church-fonts/ Thu, 20 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.bellbookshop.co.uk/product/church-fonts/ The font is perhaps the most important part of any church. For centuries, no infant in the parish was thought to be saved from damnation until christened and fonts, as the vessels for this crucial rite of passage, were a pre-eminent tool in the Church’s fight against the Devil. Standing within the public space of the church – as with pews, rood screens and chantry chapels – fonts would have been paid for by the parishioners, and so the richness of their decoration was determined by the funds available and the prevailing architectural fashions of the time. Some of the more extravagant have elaborate multi-tiered covers, raised for use via ropes or chains and pulleys. In this fascinating introduction, Matthew Byrne explores the history of fonts in churches all over the nation, highlighting some of the most notable examples and explaining their evolution across the centuries.

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