Monday, June 20, 2011

Hexham Abbey


Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
Someone started practicing on the organ while we were walking around the Abbey.

Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
The music swelled and filled up the church.  The organ fits this kind of space perfectly.  Elsewhere, it seems like a stout man trying to make his way down the narrow church pew without treading on anyone's toes.

Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
These old churches take your breath away.

Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
Effigies of dead people lay in one section of the Abbey.  Their faces were worn away.  I wish I had looked up their names (I don't recall seeing any placards), though they are dead and no longer care whether they are remembered.

Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
That Anglo-Saxon man in the bottom of the picture is peering out at us.  You can get accustomed to being the anonymous person rambling about these grand old places that being noticed, even by an inanimate object, is a jolt.

Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
These stairs are still used by the choir.  When they were first built, sometime in the 13th century, they led to the dormitory used by the canons who ministered to the Hexham community.  They lived according to the Rule of St. Augustine.

Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
There was a row of these people on the outside of the Abbey, right at eye-level: the flying monks.  I'm not sure what would have been placed in the spaces above their heads.

Hexham Abbey, Hexham, Northumberland, England
They had pleasing faces.

1 comment:

Jenni said...

Do you think candles or lanterns might have been placed above their heads?