During the first COVID-19 lockdown, a member of St Brandon’s Prayer Team envisioned a candle of hope as a focal point for visitors to the church.

With no end to the pandemic in sight, there was a need for both hope and peace. Remembrance Sunday and Christmas offered a reason to create a second candle with peace at its centre.

The final three candles are a triptych, inspired by the final verse of the familiar passage in 1 Corinthians 13: ‘Now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love’.

The colours chose themselves: faithful green; yellow for hope; and the ubiquitous red for love.

The outside of St Brandon’s looks like many other English churches and I was surprised at what I saw when I stepped inside. The interior is stunningly beautiful but modern in contrast to the exterior. I learned that this was due to a devastating fire that almost completely destroyed the church.

In 1998 raging fire devastated the interior of thousand-year-old Saxon church St. Brandon’s in Brancepeth, England. Temperatures reached 1200° Celsius at the height of the conflagration, melting the lead from the roof and virtually vaporizing the beautifully carved wooden interior.

The massive oak beams from the roof were the only remaining wood, and they too were so charred they may or not be datable via dendrochronology (tree ring dating).

St Brandon’s is the Parish church serving Brancepeth village and the surrounding area. It is set in the beautiful village of Brancepeth some six miles south west of Durham City. The church building has over 900 years of history, including its recent stunning restoration after a devastating fire in 1998. The now modern interior contains a display of one of the largest collection of medieval grave slabs in the north of England (discovered during the restoration) which bear a variety of beautiful cross designs.

• History of the village of Brancepeth can be found here.