My Other Interests

I have many other interests as well as my ‘SNAPPING, SCANNING and STITCHING’ and will add a little about these on this page.

One of my other interests is visiting, photographing and reading about MISERICORDS. If you don’t know what they are, see the albums on this page. I have given talks about Misericords to the U3A Architectural History group, Cheadle (Staffs) Historical Society and Leek Art Appreciation U3A Group.

I am adding more images as I am able to photograph them. Please return to see more.

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More interests

Among my other interests are:

Writing, as Group leader of Cheadle (Staffs) U3A, Writing for Pleasure group.

Poetry and am a member of the U3A Verse or Worse group.

Geology as a member and contributor to the U3A group.

Architectural History as a Member of the U3A Architectural History group run by my husband, David Slade.

Reading as a member of an independent Book Club which also involves baking cakes!

Making AVs as a member of Staffordshire AV group. My work to date is shown on the PRESENTATIONS page of this website.

Emboiderers’ Guild Ashbourne branch as a member, occasional contributor and IT rep with responsibility for making and updating the pages on the regional website.

I must not forget my long-standing interest in wildlife and the natural world, in particular in the smaller, often insignificant creatures and plants. I love spiders and insects, tree flowers and much more.

I belong to the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and the RSPB and ran ‘Nature’ clubs when I was teaching.

I am also a long-standing member of the National Trust.

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Misericords

MISERICORDS (25)

June 25, 2014

I have become very interested in Misericords over the years and recently have given talks about them. Misericords, or ‘mercy seats’, can be found in the choir stalls of some Cathedrals, Abbeys and churches. They are small ledges on folding seats which could be used to support monks when they should be standing at their devotions. At first, they were very plain, but soon they were carved with an amazing range of subjects, mostly secular rather than religious.

It is great fun to look for them and lift the seats to reveal often quite skilful and surprising carvings.

The images are from my visits to some cathedrals and churches. In this album, they are from Ripon, Cartmel and one 19th Century from Sheffield. There are many hundreds which I have only seen on the internet.

http://www.misericords.co.uk/ is a good site to find misericord locations and see more images of varied quality.

MORE MISERICORDS (25)

March 13, 2016

More examples of misericords in cathedrals and churches we have visited. They include Ely Cathedral, Tideswell and Bakewell in Derbyshire and Great Malvern Priory.

OLD MALTON PRIORY MISERICORDS Yorkshire (19)

March 21, 2015

We visited East Yorkshire in 2014, and I was able to enjoy many misericords which I had seen in books and on the internet. One of my favourite places was OLD MALTON PRIORY with its collection of medieval and 19th-century misericords.

I was interested to see that these misericords are more like European misericords without supporters, the smaller carvings at the side.

YORK MINSTER (5)

March 13, 2016

York Minster has a good collection of misericords, but unfortunately, the general public is not allowed to see them. There are three on a wall – not at all the same as seeing them in the Choir, although they are easier to photograph!

BEVERLEY MISERICORDS (25)

May 19, 2015

We visited Beverley in East Yorkshire in November 2014. St Mary’s Church has a very good collection which they were happy for me to look at and photograph. Beverley Minster has a larger collection, but there are not many on view, and permission has to be sought to lift the seats. I was fortunate to meet a keen misericord fan who had taken photographs of all of the Minster misericords and had produced a CD which I bought. He lifted some for me, and I was able to photograph a few that I am including in this album.

Notice that the Minster ledges are more ornate than those at St Mary’s, which were earlier. More complex ledges are an indication of later medieval misericords.

CARLISLE MISERICORDS (7)

March 13, 2016

I was delighted to visit Carlisle Cathedral in 2015 and to see these misericords, which I have seen so often in books.

Carlisle is a good cathedral to visit as most of the misericords are ‘open’ and can be seen by everyone. I wish that all cathedrals had the same liberal policy.

I have more images to add to this album.

MY OTHER INTERESTS

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