online: 17 february 2006
modified: 15. 16, 17 february 2006

10 february 2006 an unusual church


16:50 seat overlooking wooded valley...

...another still dry cold but invigorating winter day... to me a special day in which i feel tired, but elated, seeing significance in everything... perhaps because on the way here i ventured into a very bulky (looking) church* that has attracted my attention for months and today i found a way in, despite it looking so locked up...

or is it because i am writing this in the church of the outdoors (able to worship everything) and in which i can enjoy an infinity...



*The Church of St Alban the martyr, Golders Green, London.

Seeing that the church doors always seem to be shut and that there are closed gates to each door, i knocked on a side door and a woman who was cleaning the church kindly let me in... i was surprised by its spaciousness and by the semi-modern quality of the interior though it is of traditional form but with a much wider tower than any i'd seen...

...then i noticed a document signed by the architect and others on completion of he church... i was surprised to see that the architect was Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, of Battersea power station, and the Bankside power station that has now become the Tate Modern gallery... and he is the designer of that antique British telephone kiosk with many tiny window panes... i used to dislike his old-fashioned designs of power station exteriors, and that ridiculous yet so popular kiosk, but now i am taken by the quality and the humanity of that church, from within, and by its well constructed details and the generosity of its interior space.

...on the bookstall in the church was a history of Celtic and Welsh Christianity with translations from The Black Book of Carmarthen and other such ancient writings - perhaps i should go back and get it?

Searching via Google i found that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a curate at this church in the early 1960s.





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