Each week I send out a short, fresh reflection from the road – photographs, sketches, and observations from old places that still have something to teach us. What follows is a moment from that ongoing journey.
"If you look at Paleolithic cave paintings, you see how people were depicted inside nature, not outside it. It was a kind of dream time. That's what I'm exploring."
It’s a day between commercial photo shoots so I have a bit of time to explore. I’m in Buckinghamshire and have some churches on my list that have been recommended by subscribers.
The first is a church at All Saints', Hillesden, a small village just a few miles south of Buckingham. The day is dawning and the light is at its best.
Inside, the light is prismatic, percolated by the imperfections in the glass quarries and softened by a hazy bank of cloud to the south. It’s like being inside the eye of an insect. Trees that are moving in the breeze are motioning shadows on the north chapel wall.
I think I see a mark on the wall behind the effigy, but then it’s shrouded in shade, until the tree shadows move away, and there it is again.
It’s a consecration mark - a blessing in stone, made at the start of the building’s journey. It is barely legible - but it's there.
This light is the key to finding more treasures on the walls.
Were these the hands that carved the monuments?
Or were they the hands that fired the Civil War musket that put holes through the church door?
Or were they responsible for carefully fashioning a dowel to plug the draft?
Did they forge the snaking door clasp, itself a symbol of protection?
Or did they etch into the wall a pattern of great intricacy to ward off evil and protect the maker?
We are detectives.
I’m reminded of the thrill of the mudlarker and the detectorist when they find treasure; but surely these are greater finds? They reach beyond the silence of their presence, and reveal the magnetic pull of intent from somebody that lived centuries ago.
This space, this light, this time is dream time - where the invisible becomes visible, where the accidental and the intentional marks of others become corridors to the past.
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Each week, this Digest offers a small pause – photographs, sketches, and reflections from historic places that still carry meaning. It’s a weekly practice of noticing, continuity, and learning to see more deeply.
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Andy Marshall
Spirit of Place * History * Material Culture * Heritage * Continuity * Photography * Travel * Architecture * Vanlife * Ways of Seeing * Wellbeing * The Historic Environment * Churches * Art * Building Conservation * Community * Place Making * Alternative Destinations * Hidden Gems * Road Trips * Place Writing *
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