Our Lady of Tintern
Tintern Abbey is in the Wye Valley and Wordsworth has written a wonderful poem about this magnificent ruin. Fr Michael Seed asked me to attend the meeting in the Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey of the Ecumenical society of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Philip Chatfield the sculptor gave a fascinating talk with slides about his background and the work he has done particularly in Wales. He spoke of his training in Newcastle with Jonah Jones a pupil of Eric Gill's and how he inherited Gill's hammer which Jonah Jones passed on to him. Philip worked as a crew member on the brig Maria Assumpta and he was saved when the sailing ship was wrecked on the North Cornish coast in 1995. A few days after the wreck his mallet was returned to him! He scuplted a figure of Mary at St Thomas's cross, Monmouth and then a statue of Mary for St Mary's church, Monmouth. He worked in the churchyard in public. The stone was blessed at the quarry by local clergy. He was told of fragment's of ...