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Built when Bede was a baby. Light and shade at the Anglo-Saxon church at Escomb in the Wear Valley which was built around 675AD. It is thought to be one of the most complete Anglo-Saxon churches in England.
“If our interest in buildings and objects is indeed determined as much by what they say to us as by how they perform their material functions, it is worth elaborating on the curious process by which arrangements of stone, steel, concrete, wood and glass seem able to express themselves - and can on rare occasions leave us under the impression that they are talking to us about significant and touching things.”
Alain de Botton The Architecture of Happiness
A Chance Encounter
When in gallery mode, my photography software turns all of the photographs I’ve taken into thumbnails. Often whilst scrolling through them at pace I start to see patterns beneath the movement - a certain scene captured in a particular composition, verticals in similar locations. There is a kind of visual echo within the work when seen at speed. The experience is akin to a zoetrope where turning the cylinder brings the images to life. The patterns I see might be said to be a reflection of my style or it might be said to be showing something far deeper than that.
Recently, my interest was piqued whilst observing some watercolours by local Bury Artist Geoffrey Fletcher. Although Fletcher’s subjects shift from churches and markets to ruins and streets, the same underlying arrangements seem to reappear. Certain visual relationships persist beneath the surface, suggesting that the drawings are revealing not only the places he visited, but the patterns that repeatedly drew his eye towards beauty.
The more I reflect upon Fletcher’s drawings and my own photographs, the more I begin to wonder whether these recurring patterns are revealing something beyond artistic preference. What if the repeated compositions, relationships and visual echoes are not just traces of an ongoing conversation between observer and observed, but also a wider reflection of a deep-seated pattern within the world we live in.
There are certain places that contain patterns that have moved me time and again. As a photographer and artist, I have been drawn towards environments that seem to tug up the very foundations of what it is to be human and I’ve become increasingly convinced that there’s something fundamental at play other than the material. Whilst photographing them the impetus becomes less to capture and record and more to inhabit. It’s something that aligns the outer world with the felt sense rather than our critical faculty.
The physicist Paul Dirac spent much of his life searching for hidden relationships beneath the surface of reality. Widely regarded as one of the founders of quantum mechanics, he believed that beauty is not merely decoration but is evidence that we are glimpsing something fundamental. One of his most quoted remarks is:
“If one is working from the point of view of getting beauty into one’s equation, … one is on a sure line of progress.”
Recent developments in quantum mechanics have only deepened these questions, revealing a universe that is far less detached and logical than once imagined. The role of the observer remains a subject of debate, but perhaps Dirac points towards something larger. If beauty is evidence that we are glimpsing something fundamental, then our attraction towards it may not be accidental. Intuition, imagination and the felt sense may be more than companions in the search for understanding. They may be among the means by which hidden relationships first come into view.
It was at St. Mary's, Lastingham, late last year, that I had my closest glimpse of the things that underpin the universe. I cannot stop thinking about it. The place seemed to behave less like a church and more like a web of relationships spinning out through time and space. Every element appeared to be connected to something beyond itself: the layered progression of silence and solace through the village, the churchyard, the nave and finally the crypt.
The worn step, the dragon door, the filtered light, the stranger waiting above the crypt - each appeared to belong to a wider pattern extending far beyond the walls of the church. For a fleeting moment I sensed a continuity running through them all, as if the place had briefly revealed the hidden threads that bind time, building, memory and human experience together.
Reading more about recent interpretations of quantum mechanics, I was struck by the notion that intuition, uncertainty, fuzziness and probability are not seen as flaws in the system, but fundamental characteristics of it. Looking back, I wonder if something similar was taking place at Lastingham. For all the geometry, symbolism and continuity contained within the church, it was the arrival of a stranger that completed the pattern. He entered the story unexpectedly - a seemingly insignificant interruption - yet his presence above the crypt became the final thread connecting the sacred to the everyday. The revelation was not waiting in the Romanesque. It arrived through a chance encounter with another human being.
I remember driving out of Lastingham and, uncharacteristically, repeating the words: “It’s all going to be ok.” They didn’t seem to appear from any rationale, they simply arose out of the ether. A few miles down the road, Lastingham still felt like a cloak I had pulled close around me. The place had left me with a strange sense of coherence, as though for a moment I had glimpsed something usually hidden beneath the noise of everyday life; something that made even my own mortality feel less of a burden.
In today’s shapeshifting world, I hesitate to call my experience a kind of truth. The word has been turned upside down and burdened with ideological loyalties. And yet there is an ancient Greek word that seems to describe far more accurately what I experienced at Lastingham. The word is aletheia. Often translated as truth, its deeper meaning is closer to an unveiling, or a bringing-into-the-light of something that was always present but not fully seen. It is a concept that not only helps explain my experience at Lastingham, but may also offer a way of navigating a world increasingly uncertain about what truth itself means.
What first appears to be personal preference slowly reveals itself as something deeper: relationships that were present all along but waiting to be seen. Perhaps that is why certain landscapes, buildings, stories and encounters continue to call us back. They reveal a continuity running beneath the apparent fragmentation of life.
Photography, painting, writing, music and all the other ways we attempt to capture and convey our worlds may be more than acts of expression; they may be acts of aletheia.
Through attentive looking, listening and making, patterns begin to emerge before we possess the language to explain them - the patterns that I saw in my image gallery and in Geoffrey's art. If beauty really is evidence that we are glimpsing something fundamental, then perhaps art has a role to play here too. In a universe that appears to contain an irreducible element of uncertainty, art may be one of the means by which hidden relationships first come into view - the fuzzy mediums that allow us to hang on to the coat tails of the hidden relationships that shape our world.
And what that means is a revelation, for the impulse many of us feel (but may not have put into practice) - the urge to photograph, paint, write, sing, dance, weave, carve or create in whatever medium calls to us - may not be as arbitrary as it seems. They are not simply acts of self-expression, nor performances seeking approval from others. They may be signs that we are already participating in a larger web of meaning and relationship. If that is true, then the task is not to silence the impulse through fear, self-doubt or judgement, but to follow it.
And when, however briefly, the hidden connections reveal themselves, we can all participate in what I felt driving away from Lastingham: a comfort cloak of coherence; the feeling that we belong within the pattern of things; and that somehow, against all odds, it is all going to be ok.
Help me continue exploring the places that change the way we see the world.
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A Call To Arms
So, if you’re hovering on the edge of things - feeling the urge to create - it’s going to be ok - but the biggest piece of advice I can give you after so many years working as an artist - is to loosen the grip of the curated, the influencer, the Instagram or the TikTok. Think through what Dirac was saying - and capture things that you personally find beautiful - things that make you feel happy before even knowing why.
There is something else. Through the lens of aletheia, stepping into a gallery and spending time with the work of others becomes a real privilege. Each artist offers a different way of seeing the world, revealing patterns, relationships and hidden connections that might otherwise remain concealed. Through their work, we learn to see beyond the surface of things.
There is a caveat, though. Once you begin this journey, you may find it difficult to stop. The act of paying attention has a habit of leading somewhere unexpected. It can carry you beyond the merely material into worlds of relationship, memory, imagination and meaning. It may loosen your everyday perspective and change the way you see things forever. This might be your Narnia moment.
To be brave enough to follow that impulse - and to pass it on to our children and younger generations - is to offer something increasingly rare. Not simply an antidote to a curated world, but a way of seeing beyond the surface of things. A way of recognising patterns, relationships and continuities that might otherwise remain hidden and a way of putting something back into a world that feels increasingly hollowed out.
In an age of distraction, that capacity for attention may be one of the most important gifts we can share with our younger generations, as if our lives depend upon it.
If any of you are contemplating becoming more creative or want more advice on how to develop ways of seeing, I'm happy to help - just contact me via the contacts above.
Aletheia Places (in no particular order)
Rievaulx Abbey, Yorkshire
St. Baglan’s, near Cearnarfon, Wales
Hexham Abbey Saxon Crypt, Northumberland
The Yew at Crowhurst, Surrey
Beverley Minster, Yorkshire
Llandaff Cathedral, Wales
St. Patrick, Patrington, Yorkshire
St. Mary's, Warwick, Warwickshire
The trees at Birnham, Dunkeld, Scotland
St. Govan's Chapel, Pembrokeshire, Wales
St. John the Baptist, Inglesham, Wiltshire
Nellie's Pub, Beverley, Yorkshire
The Holy Ghost Church, Crowcombe, Somerset
Chapter House, Lincoln Cathedral, Lincolnshire
Loch an Eilein, Scotland
St. Clementine's, Old Romney, Kent
The site of Richard III's burial, Leicester
The Cheesden Valley, Greater Manchester.
Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire
York Minster
Sea of Steps at Wells Cathedral, Somerset
The Merchant Adventurers' Hall, York
St. Melangell, Wales
Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire
The Saxon Crypt at St. Wynstan's, Repton, Derbyshire
All Saints', Billesley, Warwickshire
The Denny Glass at Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire
The consecration plate at St. Oswald's, Ashbourne, Derbyshire
The Farm at Cowside, Yorkshire Dales
The Wykeham Arms, Winchester
The Monolith at All Saints, Rudston, Yorkshire
Friends Meeting House, Fairfield, Yorkshire
St. Mary Magdalene, Boveney, Buckinghamshire
And finally...Woody Time Travelling Machine
Rachel Aroesti
Jamie Grierson
The Visitor at Lastingham
"And then, after this momentary journey into the ether, my mind is snapped back into focus by the slamming of a door above me. Somebody has entered the church."
Read here:
Andy Marshall
The Member Pages are now available for St. Oswald's Ashbourne - including a first - full access to my pro site gallery of the church.
For Members - Member Powered Photography: St. Oswald Ashbourne - Members Page Now Available
The full set of pro photos, video and more...
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For Members - Video: Walk up to the crypt at Lastingham
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For Members - Lastingham in glorious VR
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Kind words from a subscriber:
Andy your work is becoming wonderful, remarkable. A so-called breakdown has been milled into its constituent parts, becoming profound construction: through perception, architecture, the lens and the pen. In your Repton crypt essay a deep description of our social anxiety - and our reason to be....
Recent Digest Sponsors:
Andy Marshall
I recently photographed the remarkable St. Oswald's in Ashbourne, Derbyshire for Member Powered Photography - thanks to all members for making this possible. It really does make a difference. Here's some words from Nicola, Parish Administrator at Ashbourne:
Andy has a gift - he can capture the atmosphere of a place and tell the story of the people who have been there. His photos have made me think differently about how we share the history of St Oswald's and welcome visitors. We are working on a Tourism project which is now heading in exciting new directions, thanks to Andy's insights. The photos are starting to be used on our social media. We get much greater engagement when we share photos of the church. Using Andy's photographs will be instrumental in helping us continue this trend which, ultimately, leads to more visitors in church and a larger congregation.
We're in the middle of a rebrand, and some of the images will be used on the website, and also as part of the Walk of Words - a meditative walk through the church grounds. We've often spoken, over the years, about essence and genius loci. I always describe conversations with Andy as 'sitting at the feet of a Master'. I'm privileged to know him, and all at St Oswald's are immensely grateful for the way Andy captured this much beloved church.
Nicola, Parish Administrator, St. Oswald, Ashbourne.
Andy Marshall
Thank You!
Photographs and words by Andy Marshall (unless otherwise stated). Most photographs are taken with iPhone 17 Pro and DJI Mini 5 Pro.
🔗 Connect with me on: Bluesky / Instagram / Facebook / X / Tumblr / Flickr / Vimeo / Pixelfed / Pinterest / Flipboard/ Fediverse: @fotofacade@digest.andymarshall.co
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