14 July 2023

Daily prayers in Ordinary Time
with USPG: (47) 14 July 2023

Trinity Presbyterian Church, Cork, is set back from Summerhill North on top of a grassy bank (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (9 July 2023). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today gives thanks for the life and work of John Keble, Priest, Tractarian, Poet (1866).

Before this day begins, I am taking some time this morning for prayer, reading and reflection.

Over these weeks after Trinity Sunday, I have been reflecting each morning in these ways:

1, Looking at relevant images or stained glass window in a church, chapel or cathedral I know;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

Scenes inside Trinity Presbyterian Church, Cork (Photographs: Trinity Presbyterian Church)

Trinity Presbyterian Church, Little William Street, Cork:

Trinity Presbyterian Church in Cork is on Little William Street, Summerhill North. The church is set back from Summerhill North on top of a grassy bank. Reputedly the site was once used as grazing grounds by drovers, staying at the Grosvenor Inn in MacCurtain Street and bringing cattle to the docks.

The first Presbyterian congregation in Cork dated back to 1675 when a meeting house was built in Prince’s Street. This was rebuilt in 1717, and for many years it has been Cork Unitarian Church.

The Prince’s Street congregation split in the 1840s, between the ‘New Light’ or Non-Subscribing Presbyterians and the ‘Old Light’ or Trinitarian and Calvinist Presbyterians, who formed a new congregation.

A new Presbyterian church was commissioned by the new congregation and was designed by John Tarring (1806-1875), the architect of many non-conformist church buildings in England. The builder was Richardson of London, and the work was completed in 1861.

The church is the only known work in Ireland by Tarring, who has been styled ‘the Gilbert Scott of the Dissenters.’ Tarring was born at Holbeton, near Plymouth, and worked as a carpenter and a plasterer before studying to become an architect. He worked principally in London, where his practice was known variously as ‘John Tarring, Esq,’ ‘Tarring & Jones’ and ‘J Tarring & Son.’

Tarring was the first architect to design a spire for a nonconformist church in London, and this is thought to have influenced the Baptists and Congregationalists to begin building churches in the Gothic style.

Most of his commissions were nonconformist churches, although he had one remodelling commission for an Anglican chapel. He rebuilt George Whitefield’s chapel in Tottenham Court Road in 1856 after fire destroyed the previous chapel. Tarring’s chapel had a dome 38 metres high. It was closed in 1889 due to subsidence and was demolished later.

Tarring’s other churches in London included the Westminster Chapel, Buckingham Gate (1841), and Chelsea Congregational Church (1858-1860). He also restored Combermere Abbey, Cheshire, and Thornton Hall, Buckinghamshire. He built a large mansion block in an Italianate style at Queen’s Gate, Hyde Park, in 1860.

He returned to Devon and died at Torquay on 27 December 1875. He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London. His son Frederick William Tarring (1847-1925) continued his practice.

Tarring designed Trinity Presbyterian Church, Cork, in a Gothic style with a distinctive spire. It was built in 1860-1861 on a cruciform plan with shallow transepts, broach spire, buttresses and large windows.

The interior has a gallery to the rear, where a pipe organ was installed by the Cork firm of Magahy in 1904, and seats for a choir. The rest of the interior, with a central pulpit, no central aisle and no pillars, reflects Tarring’s work on nonconformist churches and chapels in England. Other features include the three stained-glass windows that represent the Trinity.

The spire has a distinctive kink and legend says the workers did this deliberately to spite the architect … or that it was an accident caused by their drunkenness. There is also a gruesome legend that the architect hanged himself in the tower … but this too is pure fiction.

The disused schoolhouse at the church gates is an integral part of the Trinity Church complex. This small, single-storey school was built in 1865, using the same materials and quality of building found in the church.

Most of the original features have been retained, including the cast-iron railings, gates and windows. There are gabled projecting wings, a low copper sheeted spire, limestone walls with cut stone details, gate piers, and small pane leaded windows.

Members of the congregation try to have Trinity Presbyterian Church open for visitors each weekday morning, with guided tours on Wednesday mornings.

The Revd Richie Cronin from Donoughmore, Co Cork, who became the minister of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Cork, in 2018, was the first Cork-born person to become the minister of the church since it opened in 1861.

A Trinitarian symbol in a window in Trinity Presbyterian Church, Cork (Photograph: Trinity Presbyterian Church)

Mark 10: 16-23 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 16 ‘See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues; 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me, as a testimony to them and the Gentiles. 19 When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you at that time; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; 22 and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next; for truly I tell you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.’

The disused schoolhouse at the gates of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Cork (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayer:

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Fighting Climate Change Appeal – Hermani’s story’. This theme was introduced on Sunday.

Find out more HERE.

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (14 July 2023) invites us to reflect in this way:

Today we reflect that we cannot leave the care of the planet to the young. May we all do our bit to protect our environment and God’s precious creation.

Collect:

Father of the eternal Word,
in whose encompassing love
all things in peace and order move:
grant that, as your servant John Keble
adored you in all creation,
so we may have a humble heart of love
for the mysteries of your Church
and know your love to be new every morning,
in Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

God, shepherd of your people,
whose servant John Keble revealed the loving service of Christ
in his ministry as a pastor of your people:
by this eucharist in which we share
awaken within us the love of Christ
and keep us faithful to our Christian calling;
through him who laid down his life for us,
but is alive and reigns with you, now and for ever.

The Unitarian Church at Prince’s Street, Cork … Trinity Presbyterian Church was formed after the Prince’s Street congregation split in the 1840s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Public sculpture is
part of the living
townscape in Coventry

Sir Jacob Epstein’s Saint Michael and the Devil on the façade of Coventry cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Coventry’s best-known works of public art are part of Coventry Cathedral. They include Sir Jacob Epstein’s Saint Michael and the Devil on the façade of Basil Spence’s new cathedral, his Ecce Homo in the old cathedral.

Other well-known works in the old cathedral include ‘Reconciliation’ by Josefina de Vasconcellos, the ‘Statue of Christ’ by Alain John and the ‘Choir of Survivors’ by Helmut Heinze.

But Coventry has over 50 pieces of public art, including painted murals, statues, wall art such as the Gordon Cullen mural I was discussing earlier this week, and sculptures.

‘Self Sacrifice’ or ‘Lady Godiva’ by Sir William Reid Dick on Broadgate, Coventry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Outside the cathedrals and churches, one of the best-known statues in Coventry is ‘Self Sacrifice’ or ‘Lady Godiva’ by Sir William Reid Dick.

Lady Godiva and her horse stand on Broadgate, facing the Precinct, and the work was unveiled in 1949. Lady Godiva was known as a generous benefactor to abbeys and churches. With her husband Leofric, Earl of Mercia, she paid for churches and religious houses in Leominster, Much Wenlock, Worcester, Evesham, Burton-on-Trent, Hereford, Stowe and Chester.

Although Leofric was regarded as a wise and religious figure, he was involved in the brutal pillage and destruction of Worcester in 1041 after the town defied a royal tax collector. It is said that Godiva made her famous naked horse ride as a bargain with her husband to free the people of Coventry from the heavy taxes he had forced on them.

Leofric and Godiva founded and endowed a Benedictine monastery at Coventry in 1043 on the site of a nunnery destroyed by the Danes in 1016. She had her jewellery turned into religious images and crosses, and it is said that on her deathbed she left her necklaces to the church.

The story of her naked ride through Coventry was first told in the 12th century, 150 years after her death. Peeping Tom is a later addition to the story, first appearing in the tale in the 17th century.

The statue of Lady Godiva in Broadgate is one of the few statues of horses outside London to be listed (Grade II).

‘Bucephalus’ by Simon Evans depicts the horse of Alexander the Great, but is known affectionately to most people in Coventry as ‘Trigger’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

There is a second public sculpture of a horse in Coventry on Greyfriar’s Green, near Coventry Railway Station.

‘Bucephalus’ takes his name from the horse of Alexander the Great, but is known affectionately to most people in Coventry as ‘Trigger.’ This sculpture of a black painted metal horse sculpture was created by Simon Evans who was a student at the Coventry Art College (now part of Coventry University) in 1985-1986.

Bucephalus a beautiful, legendary black horse who stood taller than normal steeds but was considered too wild and unmanageable, rearing up against anyone who came near him. Alexander the Great was the only one able to ride him.

The sculpture by Simon Evans was made from bits of steel plate, off cuts and scrap pieces. Using their unusual shapes, he welded them together to create a rearing horse that has been compared to the prancing horse in the Ferrari prancing horse. It stands at 4 metres high and 4 metres wide and is painted black.

While Simon Evans was working on the sculpture, his tutor, Dr Tim Threelfall, heard the City Council was organising a competition for students to make a work of art to mark ‘Industry Year 1986.’

‘Bucephalus’ was displayed on a brick plinth on the roundabout on the Ring Road opposite the railway station. Within two years it needed restoration as people had been climbing on it. It was then painted in anti-vandal paint and had a ‘Do Not Climb’ plaque attached.

Coventry’s citizens have always affectionately call the horse ‘Trigger’ after the horse in the Roy Rogers films and television shows. Simon Evans died in 2010. Bucephalus continues to symbolises strength and hope.

Our Lady of Coventry by Sister Concordia Scott in the ruins of Saint Mary’s Priory, Coventry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Our Lady of Coventry was installed in the ruins of Saint Mary’s Priory in 2001. It is the work of Sister Concordia Scott (1924-2014), born Caroline Scott, a Scottish sculptor and Benedictine nun of the Minster Abbey community in Minster-in-Thanet, Kent. Her works include statues in Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and Coventry Cathedral.

Caroline Scott was born in Glasgow and gained a scholarship to the Edinburgh College of Art at the age of 17. Her studies were interrupted by World War II, when she joined the 93rd Searchlight Regiment, the only regiment in the world entirely staffed by women. At the end of the war, she completed returned to study in Edinburgh and became a commercial artist.

She entered the Benedictine community in Minster Abbey in 1953 and was professed as Sister Concordia in 1955. She continued to sculpt, and her entry in the Manchester Vocations Exhibition in 1959 led to numerous commissions in the 40 years that followed. She was Prioress of the Minster Abbey community in 1984-1999, and died in 2014.

‘Minstrels’ by Michael Disley in Saint Mary’s Guildhall, Coventry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

‘Minstrels’ by Michael Disley in Saint Mary’s Guildhall looks like a mediaeval work, but is a modern work commissioned as part of a public art project.

This sandstone group is inspired by the mediaeval history of Saint Mary’s Guildhall. It depicts two entwined minstrels, drawn into a trancelike state by their music.

‘The Phoenix’ (1962) by George Wagstaffe is now located at the entry to Hertford Street. It symbolises the post-war rebuilding of the city like the mythical Phoenix rising out of the ashes of a fire.

‘The Phoenix’ was first displayed in the City Centre Precinct in Market Way, between the then British Home Stores and the Woolworth shop. Originally it was going to be a relief sculpture mounted on a building, but this was changed during the planning stage in the early 1960s to a free-standing sculpture.

George Wagstaffe, a local artist, changed the Phoenix from a bird to a young person to symbolise the new city and its people rising from the flames of the bombed and burnt city. It was first made in resin and metal and unveiled in 1962 by Princess Margaret. It was displayed on a brick wall attached to a small information display building that also symbolised the rebuilding of the city.

The statue was removed when the precinct area was being redesigned in 1987. By then, it had started to show damage by weather. A bronze cast was made and it is this new bronze sculpture that stands on a brick plinth see at the bottom of Hertford Street.

‘The Phoenix’ by George Wagstaffe, now located at the entry to Hertford Street, Coventry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)