Farewell to the Monolith

Jonathan D. Boast’s ‘Monolith’, which has been displayed in the west end of the church during early December has now been dismantled, marking the end of the official tour of the work, which has been shown in Westminster Abbey and Bury St Edmunds Cathedral. The art work and explanatory panels will continue to be used to recall the sacrifices made during the First World War and will be displayed at Dover Art College in the New Year.

Marilyn Stephenson-Knight and Simon John Chambers of The Dover War Memorial Project have provided a couple of photographs of Monolith in situ which are a fitting record of the exhibition in our church. The educational resources for the Unknown Warrior project are downloadable from Dover’s Virtual Memorial at www.doverwarmemorialproject.org.uk

 

New stained glass arrives tomorrow!

… though we will not be changing our lovely windows. As noted earlier this month (see Remembrance: Monolith below), the stained glass installation Monolith by Lavenham artist and member of our congregation Jonathan D. Boast will be erected in the church tomorrow, along with some explanatory panels. this stunning work has been shown in Westminster Abbey and more recently in the cathedral in Bury St Edmunds ; we are very lucky to have it shown in our parish church. Please come and see the work while it is with us over the next week or so.

If you want to find out more about the stained glass windows in Lavenham church, Jean Guy’s excellent and thoughtful booklet, ‘Let the windows speak’, is available from the church shop.

Remembrance: Monolith

Following last week’s Armistice Day and the Services of remembrance last Sunday, Lavenham Church will soon be hosting a significant work by a local artist. in 2010, The Heritage Lottery funded artist Jonathan D. Boast to commemorate the 90^th Anniversary of the burial of the Unknown Warrior with a freestanding double-sided window over 2m tall, installed in Westminster Abbey.

Jonathan says of the work, “ I worked with children, youth and community groups across Kent to create the window’s imagery, using local study centres we researched the lives of six soldiers to reveal and tell their personal stories and better relate to the depth of each loss. The breadth of the loss commemorated by the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is illustrated by the imagery on the reverse of the piece; a faceless soldier who looks out across The Channel as HMS Verdun brings the body back from Europe.”

There are a number of exhibition panels that accompany the artwork telling the stories of six soldiers through archival documents and artefacts, though their predominant focus is Kent and London the stories told are common to most areas of the UK. Also created and available to download is  an education pack for schools developed by Peter Daniel of Westminster Archives in conjunction with Westminster Abbey and the Dover War Memorial Project who have been a continued supporter of the project.

Jonathan lives near Lavenham and has a long association with the locality. The Monolith is currently being shown in Bury St Edmunds in the cathedral ; it will be on show in Lavenham Parish Church from November 30th to December 12th.

For more information, please click here to visit Jonathan’s website.