Sermons in stone .......

New Years Day to Unthank.

Not that we were unthanking anyone for their lovely gifts. or unthanking the congregation for their welcome or unthanking anyone for their sympathies over the past difficult weeks infused as they have been with sadness.

No, we ventured to Unthank, a village on the way to Kiln Pit Hill, through Shotley Fields, to view some wonderful paintings of the Church on Grey Mare Hill.

St Andrew's Church can be seen for miles, it stands 293 metres high above the surrounding countryside.

The church is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, it was built in 1769.

Alongside the church, and clearly visible is the Hopper Mausoleum, built 47 years earlier than the Church, reflecting the existence of an even earlier church on the site.

 We met the artist, Jackie Shaw at the Snods Edge Arts Festival last year and loved the views that she had made of the the Church, which stands across fields up from her own home which was the Vicarage, before the one we now call home.


 Her paintings of St Andrew's and the Hopper Mausoleum are striking both for the image of the Church standing over the landscape but also for the way in which the artist captures the weather on this high plateau with dark skies, wonderful light and the footsteps in the snow drawing the viewer's eyes across the fields and on up to the church standing in stark relief to what is before and beyond it. 

 As though a stranger has walked this way before you and made the rough places smooth, trodden a path and gone ahead and will be awaiting your arrival with a welcome.

 The role of the Churches Conservation Trust is key in maintaining and developing the use of the Church but it is also a challenge to reflect on the continued existence of the building and to wonder how it may be used alongside the parish church which replaced it in 1837.

Churches tell a story. 

 They are sermons in stone. 

 St Andrew's on Grey Mare Hill is no exception. 

 Part of the sermon is simply survival. 

 Another element is continuity. 

 A visit to the church tells the visitor of the prayers that that have been prayed, the words that have been broken and the ministry which has been offered, possibly even, given the location and positioning of the church going back to a pre christian era.

 A defensive position certainly but also one where light can be seen sweeping across the North Sea bringing comfort, consolation and renewal.

 This celebration of new light is enacted at St Andrew's each year at an Easter Sunday service and pilgrimage held to welcome the dawning of a New Day as the light of Christ sweeps over the countryside illuminating the churches year with the Good News that Christ is risen and that death has no more dominion.

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