Country Church Monuments

Product Information

The oak effigy of Sir Robert du Bois at St Andrew, Fersfield, Norfolk, (below) retains most of its mid- fourteenth-century painted decoration. Subtitled A Photographic Album Of The World’s Largest Animals, this enormous volume rather does what it says on the tin. I am a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, an information technology consultant, author of the popular Keyholder app and Director of the Parish Church Photographic Survey.

It is a scene of private devotion, and only the viewer who is willing to crouch low on the floor may glimpse it. He has a prodigious wealth of knowledge about English and Welsh parish churches, is director of the Parish Church Photographic Survey and has an archive of more than half a million photographs to draw on, the product of visits to nearly nine thousand churches. Newham's pictures are a revelation -- Christopher Howse * Telegraph * This is a true labour of love and one of the most wonderful books I have ever seen -- Marcus Berkmann * Daily Mail * A tour de force. They may house ashes to ashes and dust to dust, but as this lavishly illustrated survey shows, the churches are far from grey.

Just about every type of material has been used in creating these memorials, ranging from the basics such as wood and stone through to alabaster, various marbles (both local and imported), bronze, brass (including latten, an alloy used for monumental brasses), copper, ceramics and glass.

O ne of the joys of visiting parish churches in England and Wales is discovering the monuments they contain. He visited 9,000 rural parish churches and has come up with his best 365 monuments, one for every day of the year. No truer words express the sentiment behind CB Newham’s tour de force Country Church Monuments, a study of funerary monuments, the underappreciated and overlooked treasure of our nation’s parish churches. Dimitrijevic and Nachoum, wildlife photographers with 70 years’ experience between them, have pooled their portfolios and produced a book of rare wonder.She has the ability to make you feel that there is no one more amazing to be with and nowhere better and more beautiful to be than at her side. The range of types and materials is simply extraordinary and has afforded artists through the ages superb opportunities to show off their skills. B. Newham FSA has visited and photographed more than eight thousand rural churches, cataloguing the monumental sculptures encountered on his quest. Knights lying with their faithful dogs or wives, busts coolly neoclassical or lavishly periwigged are all accommodated in miniature showhouses in the architectural style of their period. There have been quite a few books this year celebrating the Queen, but this is one of the most unusual.