: St Teilo’s Church

Just another short-ish post to highlight the arrival of our new, updated Tudor packs.

A colourful detail from the reconstructed Tudor church at St Fagans National Museum of History

These resources were designed with teachers and school groups in mind, but contain some lovely illustrations and ideas suitable for families as well.

We've put them together for use during, and after, visits to the site's Tudor buildings.

Through the Learning Department's training days for primary teachers, we've been able to get a fair bit of feedback regarding the contents - but we're always happy to hear more. What kinds of resources for learners, of all shapes and sizes, would you like to see at St Fagans: National History Museum?

I was up at St Teilo's Church this morning with Darren the photographer, taking pictures of our Tudor handling objects for use in a post-visit picture book for children. I'm excited to see what the designers will make of the photos, and how the finished product will turn out. I'll keep you posted!

For those of you wondering what other opportunities we currently offer primary schools and teachers, here's a handy guide: Opportunities for Schools (.pdf file)

Happy St Teilo's Day!

For those of you wondering which particular kind of festivity to bestow on to this day, know this: St Teilo is the patron saint of apples and horses. Adjust your schedules accordingly.

See his life story depicted in an intricate, technicolour carving at the

.

Master Carver Emyr Hughes with his oak carving of St Teilo

It was really refreshing to see so many people out in the sun at St Fagans on Friday. The place really felt revived and busy - it's so easy to forget, over the winter, quite how many visitors we see once Spring kicks in.

Even though there's been plenty of coming and going over the last few months, it has been work done behind the scenes: securing thatch, digging trenches, conserving and installing objects. The site seems to have been reclaimed, by now, by the general public. A trip down to Cosmeston lakes over the weekend confirmed that half of the south east had finally emerged from hibernation, as there were more people about than mallards.

In St Teilo's church, artist Fleur Kelly has been back again to work on some painted panels in the chancel. Since this part of the church was - and still is in some cases - considered as the most sacred, the decoration relfects the taste and preoccupations of sixteenth century Clergy, rather than Laity. The wall-paintings depict the Archbishop Thomas Beckett, and the chaste, pious St George (for those of you wondering why St George appears in a Welsh church, there'll be a post on that soon!). We have chosen musical angels, playing instruments sourced from 1500-30, and linenfold motifs for the wooden panels on the parclose screens.

I took the Learning Department's new camera up to the building in the hope of getting some footage of Fleur at work, to share with you on the blog. Scorsese I am not, and so I present you with some stills from my otherwise wobbly film debut. Fleur will be back in a few weeks' time to put the finishing touches on the paintings. Traditional pigment paint dries very slowly indeed - hopefully by then I will have had a chance to practice with the camera and can bring you a little film that's more 'The Agony and the Ecstasy' and a bit less 'Pollock'...

Line drawings, or 'cartoons' of musical angels used in St Teilo's Church

Artist Fleur Kelly working on a parclose screen at St Teilo's Church

The St Fagans site isn’t usually this quiet: even on blustery November afternoons, determined (but soggy) visitors can be found walking the site, exploring the galleries and the historic buildings. This week, however, the only surge in visitors has been the amazing array of birds we’ve seen reclaiming the hedgerows and, out of necessity, brazenly venturing near the offices and mess rooms in search of food. Only last Friday I was kept company by a pair of Lapwings, who were enjoying the last of the afternoon sun outside the museum's main entrance.

The only human traffic on our pathways has been a small army of Museum Assistants, Craftspeople and Agriculturers, busy clearing snow and gritting. The textures, colours and smells of our Christmas Nights event* are now long-gone; tipp-exed out and muted. The site is eerily empty - though it is incredibly beautiful, it has not been safe enough to let visitors in on several occasions during the last week or so.

In the snow, St Teilo's Church does not look as dazzling as last year: as is the custom with traditional buildings, the bright limewash covering the outer wall has taken the brunt of the season's weather, and will be re-applied next spring when it is milder. The interior, as ever, is still as vibrant as it was when the reconstruction was officially opened in 2007, and, we hope, as it would have looked in 1500-1530.

The wall painting scheme is now finished, bar a few Latin inscriptions, which are proving harder to decipher than previously thought. The north chapel design, including figures of Saints Dewi and Teilo, as well as what is thought to be male and female portraits of local patrons, were composed by copying fragments plaster from the church in its original location. Where the plaster had deteriorated, or the pigment faded, we looked at better preserved mural sequences in Wales in order to come up with appropriate evidence for the missing parts.

While the north chapel is not directly accessible to the visiting public (partly because the east end of the church houses some of the oldest furniture in our collection), these murals are visible through the carved screens in the church. These, too, have had a new lease of life, through the work of Fleur Kelly, who has worked with our own in-house painters on several aspects of the church’s painted carvings.

If the snow holds back, the advertised guided tours of the Church will go ahead tomorrow and Friday (14-15 Jan); starting at 12:00, 13:00 and 14:00. Those interested in attending are encouraged to telephone us before starting their journey, to ensure that the museum is open and accessible, on (029) 2057 3500. The church is a ten-minute walk from the main entrance on a clear day, so please bear this in mind when choosing your footwear!
Wrap up warm, and hope to see you there!

*That's treacle; fairy lights; brass bands; bay leaves; woodsmoke and wet boots, in case you were wondering...

At last, the first review for Saving St Teilo's has come in.

Reviews make me nervous but in a good, exciting way. I never really dread seeing them but it is a truth universally acknowledged (in publishing at least) that you can't keep all of the people happy all of the time. So, sooner or later we'll get a stinker. But not this time –

"Gerallt Nash’s book also conveys a spirit rarely found in museum publications – pride and joy, craftsmanship and passion, a genuine sense of adventure and achievement. It makes the reader not just want to see St Teilo’s, but also to wish that they had rolled up their sleeves and lent a hand in its rescue."

To read the rest of the review go to http://www.vidimus.org/booksWebsites.html