This sculpture by David Wynne shows the moment when Mary recognises Jesus on the morning of his resurrection.

A sign next to the sculpture states that the figures are so thin it is as though everything has been stripped from them except the core of their being.

Jesus said: ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ Supposing him to be the gardener she said, ‘Sir, if you have taken him, tell me where you have laid him and I will go and get him.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Mary.’ She turned and cried out, ‘Teacher!’ Jesus said to her, ‘Do not try to hold on to me because I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brother and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ So Mary Magdalene went and told the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord!’

John 20:15-18

Ely lies in the heart of the Fens and was once an island surrounded by marshland and water that contained many eels. It is thought that the abundance of eels led to the name that the city bears to this day.*

Eels were historically part of the local staple diet as well as a valuable source of income. Jellied eels were popular until recent times and clients would come from London such was the reputation of Ely’s eels.*

Eels are still caught in the Great River Ouse although only one commercial catcher still remains. *

The eel art pictured is a 3m high galvanised steel eel sculpture by local sculptor Pete Baker. It was a gift from Ely Rotary Club to the people of Ely to mark 100 years of Rotary International.*

*From the Eel Trail leaflet

At the end of the picturesque terrace stands the Temple of Ceres, goddess of the Harvests. The pavilion marks the entrance to the Terrace of Infinity. On account of its location the Terrace of Infinity has earned the title of ‘the Doorway of the Sun’.*

You will have to wait until my next post for my views of the Terrace of Infinity.

*From the Villa Cimbrone guide leaflet

Banbury Cross

In the middle ages three crosses stood in different locations around the town. All three, The White Cross in West Bar, The Bread Cross near Butchers Row and High Street and finally The High or Market Cross in Cornhill were destroyed by puritans at the star of the 1600’s. The puritans disliked religious imagery and the superstitions associated with it.

There are no remains of these crosses visible today but plaques mark their likely locations.

The current cross which was erected in 1859 to celebrate the marriage of Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria to Prince Frederic of Prussia, reaches a height of 16 metres.

The carvings on the lower section of the cross display the arms of the Town at different times and include the Town’s  motto ‘Dominus sol et scutum’ – which translates into ‘God our sun and shield.

The statues of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V were added in 1914 to mark the coronation of George V.

On the upper sections are the coats of arms of people who have a strong connection with the town.*

The Fine Lady Upon a White Horse Statue

This statue was funded and erected by the people of Banbury to commemorate the nursery rhyme which has made Banbury famous throughout the English speaking world.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse;
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes.

The rhyme contains three essential elements Banbury Cross, the ‘cock horse’ and a Fine Lady Upon a White Horse.

One explanation of the ‘Cock Horse’ is the children’s hobby horse and Banbury holds a Hobby Horse Festival in the first weekend of July each year, with a parade of hobby horse ‘beasts’ through the town and Hobby Horse Races held in People’s Park.

The statue of the Fine Lady upon the White Horse now brings the rhyme to life all year round.

The statue was designed by Artcycle Ltd, cast in bronze and mounted on a plinth of local Hornton Stone.

The horse, which was sculpted by Denise Dutton is modeled on a Welsh Cob. The Fine Lady is depicted as the ‘Queen of May’ and incorporates many symbols of spring.

She wears a crown of thirteen spring flowers, alternating daffodils and wild roses, symbolising the thirteen ancient calendar months. A butterfly has landed among the flowers and a moth has settled on her hood.

The bells on her feet are interpreted as both musical bells and by seven bluebells representing the days of the week. She drops petals from her raised left hand to bring us prosperity. The rings represent power.

The frog represents metamorphosis, the cycle of nature and community.

The other symbol to look for is the Sun, which has been the symbol of Banbury since the sixteenth century.*

*From a sign board next to the statue

The church was built in the 1840s to a neo-Gothic design by architect August Welby Pugin, famous for his work on the Houses of Parliament in Westminster. It was paid for by halfpenny donations from the poorest community of immigrants on Tyneside, and was enhanced in the following decades by bequests from the Dunn family (especially by the addition of a steeple): the Dunns are remembered in several windows. Very recently it has been further beautified by bequests from various benefactors, most notably from Martin Ballinger (d.2007), who paid for the new floor and organ (installed in 2012-13).

A statue of Cardinal Basil Hume (a much loved Archbishop of Westminster) is situated in a memorial garden on the south side of the Cathedral. The garden recalls the Northern Saints and Holy Island (Lindisfarne). The sculpture is the work of  Nigel Boonham, a British portrait artist.

The Cardinal Basil Hume Sculpture and Memorial Garden was unveiled by the Queen on 7th May 2002, in the year of Her Majesty’s Golden Jubilee. They were commissioned by the Cardinal Hume Memorial Trust in April 2000 to celebrate Cardinal Hume’s life and work and are situated at the southern end of St. Mary’s Catholic Cathedral, Newcastle upon Tyne, opposite Central Station.

The three-metre bronze sculptures shows Cardinal Hume in his Benedictine monk’s habit, wearing a cardinal’s skullcap and the cross of St. Cuthbert. The statue is set in a garden that reflects his love of the holy landscape of Northumbria and of the Northern Saints and stands on a sandstone platform in the shape of Holy Island (Lindisfarne). Hume welcomes people into the garden, indicating with his left hand the way to Lindisfarne. Nearby is the shape of Inner Farne, the remote island where the first monk-bishops of Lindisfarne, St. Cuthbert and St. Aidan, lived as hermits.

The garden features a small boulder taken from Inner Farne and a three-ton boulder taken from below Lindisfarne Castle inscribed with a facsimile of the Moore Manuscript of the 7th century Cædmon’s Hymn – the earliest Christian poem in Old English. Below the bronze plaque is a stone that was once part of the monks quarters at Ampleforth Abbey, Basil Hume’s monastic home.

The Hymn provides a link to two other Northern Saints admired by Hume: St. Hilda, who encouraged the illiterate herdsman Cædmon to become a monk at Whitby and St. Bede who told his story. The translation contains references to a landscape made by God and is the inspirational key to the design of the garden.

The memorial garden is a space for peaceful contemplation with levels of spiritual symbolism that reflect Basil Hume’s life and work. Each level is progressively higher and smaller in area, representing the proportion of men, physically and spiritually, in each state. Hume admired the hermits but his symbolic place in on Lindisfarne as a man of the church acting as a spiritual beacon, indicating the path to the land God made for man.*

Cædmon’s Hymn

Northumbrian Dialect
Nu scilun herga/hefenricæs uard,
metudæs mehti/and his modgithanc,
uerc uuldurfadur/sue he uundra gihuæs,
eci dryctin,/or astelidæ;
he ærist scop/ældu barnum
hefen til hrofe,/halig scepen,
tha middingærd/moncynnæs uard;
eci dryctin/æfter tiadæ
firum foldu, frea allmehtig.

English Translation
It is meet that we worship/the Warden of heaven,
The might of the Maker,/His purpose of mind,
The Glory-Father’s work/when of all His wonders
Eternal God/ made a beginning.
He earliest established/for earth’s children
Heaven for a roof,/the Holy Shaper;
Then mankind’s Warden/created the world,
Eternal Monarch,/making for men
Land to live on,/Almighty Lord!

*From a leaflet about the garden, the statue and the sculptor.

Strolling along the River Dilje on our way back to Hotel Klooster I noticed the side view of this rather striking statue. The statue caught my eye because it was set off by the neighboring tree trunk which to me presents a similar profile and this intrigued me.

When I moved round to the front of the statue I found the image disturbing but I did not know what it represented. After a bit of research when I returned home I found the following information:

Stone sculpture of a woman with a dying son in her arms, overlooked by a man.

The work is one of the lesser known images of Leuven. The statue commemorates a part of the resistance movement of Leuven during World War II. The initiative came from the National Royalist Movement Leuven (NKB), and it was inaugurated on 4 October 1959. The creator Willem De Backer from Berg. He was a teacher at the Academy of Louvain between 1942 and 1970. Hence, the location of the image.

Now I know the context I think that the monument presents a powerful image. I would be interested to know your thoughts…

During the middle ages, jesters had to liven up things. They were often either deformed (e.g. a lump), small of posture, and had a big mouth and ears. Paep Thoon, who lived in Leuven during the 15th century (1430-1487), was such a character. He was an organist at the fraternity of the Holy Sacrament at St. Peter’s church. He was known to blurt out the truth either by means of a joke or a sarcastic remark. He never lost his sense of humor and on his dying bed reportedly asked to be buried in upright position, and beneath a gargoyle – so that he would never be thirsty.

In 1991, a Paep Thoon statue by Peter Vanbekbergen was placed at the Leie where the river Dyle crosses / runs under Brusselsestraat.

Previously referred to as the ’roundabout’, in 2012 the Roundel was restored and turned into a beautiful water feature.

The late 1890s and early 1900s saw the Roundel at its finest, but the 21st century saw this garden feature in need of restoration and rejuvenation. In early 2012, the 11th Duke of Malborough, with the generous support of the USA Blenheim Foundation, undertook the task of restoring the Roundel. The statue was restored , and an ornamental pond was created with 12 water jets added to create additional splendour.

This sundial is in the style of one commissioned by William III. It represents Africa, one of the four continents known at the time. The figure depicts a Moor, not a slave, and he has knelt here since before 1750.*

*Information from a signboard next to the statue.