> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A Year in the Life: 23 March 2022 - URL: https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/ayear23mar/ - Published: 2023-03-23T12:35:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-19T11:05:13.000Z - Description: I’m there first thing and I feel anxious - there’s an overwhelming sense of inertia. I walk out into the churchyard to gather my thoughts and catch a dash of red text on a gravestone silhouetted against the rising tide at Y Foryd. - Author: Andy Marshall - Tags: a year in the life, st. baglans, wales, churchcrawling ## 23 March 2022 ### Cumbria --- *“There are places, just as there are people and objects and works of art, whose relationship of parts creates a mystery, an enchantment, which cannot be analysed.*” Paul Nash --- **I’m over at St. Baglan’s, near Cearnarfon to photograph the church for Friends of Friendless Churches. Access is via a thin slip of road that snakes besides the silvered flats of the wind-blown Menai Strait. It is hauntingly beautiful in its isolation. The church sits within a boundary older than itself, in a field shadowed by Snowdonia to the east and Gyrn Ddu to the south on the Llŷn Peninsula.** ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/04/CHelfie-Baglans-1.jpg) I’m there first thing and I feel anxious - there’s an overwhelming sense of inertia. I walk out into the churchyard to gather my thoughts and catch a dash of red text on a gravestone silhouetted against the rising tide at Y Foryd. I read the text, rest my hand on the stone, look across the bay at the Gyrn Ddu rise and feel calm. I’m at the resting place of another photographer. We come from different worlds, but through the camera we have a common bond. Lord Snowdon resides here in the shade of the church; behind him is Bwlch Mawr and the haunting call of the curlew. It’s a combination of these things that slows down time in places like this. The older I get, the more it feels like time is leaking from the seams. But here, enshrined by its boundary wall, the ebbing strait and the silhouette of Snowdon, St. Baglan’s is time-tight. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/04/img_1297.jpg) [Rachel Morley](https://friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/story/the-thin-place/?ref=digest.andymarshall.co) says of this place: “*when we encounter something like this, the relationship is understood and explained through feeling, rather than reasoning.*” St. Baglan’s isn’t just a building, it is a locus: a gathering of church and landscape that has the capacity to transform one’s thinking into a powerful sense of place. It explains my anxious inertia against the pull of this place. It’s a process of transition that’s best described by [Robert Macfarlane](https://www.waterstones.com/book/landmarks/robert-macfarlane/9780241967874?ref=digest.andymarshall.co) when explaining Nan Shepherd’s relationship with the Cairngorm mountains. He tells us of her body becoming a ‘*sensorium - and the intellects auxiliary \[where\] a life of the senses is lived so purely that the body may be said to think.’* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2023/04/chelfie_baglans-1-2.jpg) --- ### View next entry: [Between The Fungi and The Fallen Tree by Andy MarshallFinding Wisdom in the Yorkshire Dales![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/size/w256h256/2022/12/Andy.png)Andy Marshall's Genius Loci DigestAndy Marshall![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/posts/477865/cover-photo/cover-1654583454.jpg;resize(1200,630,crop).jpeg?auto=webp)](https://www.digest.andymarshall.co/2april2022/) --- Readers of the Genius Loci Digest ## What stays with readers > “ > > That aura, those echoes - the muted light is transporting. What a space to feel rooted in history. I'd love to make that journey myself; you've stirred the opera lover and architectural dreamer in me. > > @sonatasips via X > “ > > Genius Loci has rapidly become the highlight of my Friday morning mailboxes, Andy! > > David via Linkedin > “ > > In reading & seeing Andy's work I always struggle to know which is more impactful - his writing or photos. In truth, the two combined are greater than their parts, he allows you to explore the importance of place and time from the comfort of home. > > Peter from Bluesky > “ > > 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. > > Stephen via Email 1 2 3 4 ← Ⅱ → ![The vaulted nave of York Minster glowing with filtered light](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2025/07/GjFbo3aXoAAgtYU.jpeg) York Minster - light through the nave01 / 04 ![Ancient carved stones and timber roof at Durham Cathedral's Open Treasure](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/rt4ccpqm0nalr9e9vv5oxo8invcfxar6wbvq/original.jpg) Durham Cathedral - Open Treasure02 / 04 ![A family approaching the restored cloister at Exeter Cathedral](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/2025/06/Clews-Exeter-April-2025-134.jpg) Exeter Cathedral - new life beside the old03 / 04 ![The Iron Bridge reflected in calm water at dusk](https://storage.ghost.io/c/2e/b6/2eb6d776-18dd-41f1-a2d1-b76fa2d605be/content/images/production/photos/aii66p605mkuajmgvjdqnt9325o42kjghcac/original.jpg) The Iron Bridge - reflected at dusk04 / 04 From the heritage portfolio Three Ways to Come With Me ## Choose how to join, share or support Andy Marshall's work [ ↗ Join Free Travel with me each Friday Receive the free weekly Genius Loci Digest in your inbox - photography, place-writing and overlooked stories from the road. 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