Grand Tour of England Day 22

We underestimated the time it would take to drive the 30 miles to Tudeley which was more or less on our way to the M25 and north. The Kent congestion took 1.75 hours, despite it being an A road with some duel carriageway. They were cutting the verges so 2 lots of traffic lights were in place causing miles of tailbacks.

However the little church was a gem. Originating from 11th century it had been renovated over the years but now it is visited because it is the only church in the world to have all its windows designed by Marc Chagall, the French/Russian artist. The story behind how the windows came into being is a sad one.

Although the local lord of the manor was Jewish, his wife, Lady Rosemary d'Avigdor-Goldsmid and the daughters were Anglican and worshipped in the local church. She and her daughter Sarah visited a Paris exhibition where they saw Chagall’s window designs for a synagogue. 2 years later Sarah died in a sailing accident near Rye. The family approached Chagall who accepted the commission to design a memorial window in the village church. By then Chagall was in his 80s but he accepted the commission and Charles Marq translated the design into glass which was installed in 1967.

When Chagall attended the dedication ceremony he was apparently so charmed by the church that he offered to replace the other 11 windows with his designs. Over the next 10 years he worked on them in collaboration with Marq. The last window was installed just before Chagall’s death in 1985.

We were lucky enough to have the church to ourselves so we were able to take our time examining the detail of the fascinatingly different windows.

By the time we’d emerged it was lunch time so we made our sandwich before proceeding to get stuck in more queues on the M25 till we got over the Dartford Crossing. (Must remember to pay the toll by tomorrow night or we’ll get a fine!)

We had intended to visit Lincoln Cathedral before heading to Marion and Steve’s drive for our night’s park-up but with the hold-ups there would not be time. So it’s another stained glass window Blip. The top left I’d part of the window dedicated to the drowned daughter, the one on the right is a set of the smaller windows and below are details from some of the other windows.