William Morris Tour day one

Welcome wherever you are.....here is a brief summary of a couple of things we did today. We started in Burford with first stop at St John the Baptist church where the history was mind boggling. Stories of Oliver Cromwell (around 1649), who Larry says was "not a very nice man"!! But seriously history tells us he imprisoned 300 of his own soldiers in the church when they refused to go to Ireland to fight.  They were locked up for 3 days when Cromwell selected three of them and took them out to the churchyard and had them shot.

 Above is a scratching of an autograph that one of the soldiers did in the lead font rim and below where they scraped out nine holes in a stone tomb to create a game form of tic tac toe

 Medieval embroideries.......

  and a very old clock made in 1685 and reassembled more recently

 This textile below created some discussion as it was thought to be original William Morris....I am not so sure but maybe someone "out there" might know?

 Now you might ask what is the relevance of this church to Morris? It just happens that Streeton, an Oxford architect had been employed to make some renovations to the church. Morris called in one day and was unimpressed with the tiles that he was using to replace the original floor. (Morris was actually an architectural apprentice to Streeton when he left Oxford University). So it was here that Morris formed the Society for the Protection of Ancient buildings. If you click HERE you will go to their website where you will see they are still very active today!

 We left the church for a wander and called into Burford Needlework. Luscious colour and I was thrilled to find bell pull ends. Contact them if you are wanting some as I know they are so hard to find......

A box of divine bellpull ends........

I will leave you with some exquisite real estate from Broadway....swoon, swoon!!

 And this is for you Faye.....

See you tomorrow