As we head towards Lent we invite you to be tempted by some pancakes in our Pancakes and Temptation services on February 27 at St George’s, Badshot Lea, at 10am, and St Mark’s, Upper Hale, at 11am.
On the Sunday before Shrove Tuesday – the day before Lent – we like to make pancakes in church and think about the season ahead of us. It’s a sociable occasion but with a message. We celebrate with pancakes, but the Lenten season ahead of us is one when we reflect and prepare for Easter and the service will draw attention to this too.
This Lent we are looking at the theme of forgiveness. Further details are available here.
St Mark’s, which was given Grade II listed status by English Heritage in December 2021, was entered for the awards following the restoration of the ‘Kitty Milroy murals’, painted by local artist Eleanor Catherine Wallace Milroy, known as Kitty, between 1911 and 1920.
The Surrey Heritage Awards were established by the Surrey Historic Buildings Trust to recognise ‘Best Practice’ in historic building conservation in Surrey, and the murals have played an important part in the conservation of St Mark’s, a Victorian church built by local people in the 1880s and still a vibrant part of community life. The murals are now recognised as being of both local and national importance, particularly as examples of the development of mural art and the recognition of women’s painting in the 20th century.
Making the announcement, Surrey Historic Buildings Trust described St Mark’s as: “A late-Victorian church … noted for its stunning wall murals painted by local artist Kitty Milroy, a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art. These murals had deteriorated and faded after a century’s accumulation of dirt, so the local community rallied round to raise the funds for a major project to clean, repair and restore the murals to their former glory.”
Andy Smith, Director of Surrey Historic Buildings Trust, added: “The restoration of Kitty Milroy’s amazing murals at St Mark’s has been one of the most interesting projects the Surrey Historic Buildings Trust has been involved with in recent years, and I was delighted to hear that the project had been shortlisted for the Surrey Heritage Awards 2022. It was also wonderful to learn just a few weeks ago that the church had been given Grade II listed status. Hopefully this will generate greater interest in Kitty Milroy’s work, and in early-twentieth-century artwork of this kind.
“We are fortunate here in Surrey to have a number of churches with beautiful and intriguing wall paintings, including rare survivals from the medieval period, but the Milroy murals, dating from the period just before the First World War, are especially striking and thought-provoking. St Mark’s Church is very fortunate to have these extraordinary paintings and I hope more people will visit the church to view them.”
The murals were restored in 2021 by wall painting conservationists Stephen Rickerby and Lisa Shekede who described them as “stunning” and called Kitty a “major, but unrecognised, artist”.
Lesley Crawley said: “We are utterly delighted that St Mark’s has been shortlisted for an award. It is testament to the love and care that has been poured into the church over many years – from when it was built by the villagers in the 1880s; through the installation of the Edwardian organ, affectionately known as Emily; and the painting of the beautiful Kitty Milroy murals in the early 20th century; and right through to the present day with the restoration of those murals.
“There is not just local history here but a real sense of a warm community building, cherished and used by the village where it has stood for almost 140 years, and where people can come to seek God and find welcome.”
A team of judges will visit St Mark’s on March 3 and the results will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held on March 30 at Brooklands Museum in Weybridge.
St Mark’s is open on Sundays at 11am and Wednesdays at 12pm for services. It is also open on the third Saturday of the month for a craft market, 10am-2pm. The next one is February 19.
St Mark’s is one of the venues in the inaugural Farnham Literary Festival which takes place between March 5 and 13, and there is lots to enjoy here.
We kick off on Saturday, March 5, at 3-5pm with a Build a World Workshop, run by fantasy writer Paul Eggleton which offers the chance to create your own fantasy world and populate it with characters in a creative writing workshop focusing on the fantasy genre. This will be available virtually by Zoom link as well. There will be a charge of £5 to include afternoon tea. Please email p.eggleton@nhm.ac.uk for details.
On the morning of Tuesday, March 8, we will be running a Writing Memories workshop in conjunction with Right at Home home care agency. This will be by invitation only but to find out more, email Stella Wiseman.
We have two events at the church on Thursday, March 10. From 2-4pm there will be an Introduction to crime novel writing workshopwith crime writer Joy Kluver, author of the Detective Bernadette Noel books, the latest of which Left for Dead has just come out. Joy will teach us how to create the heroes and villains of crime fiction. The cost is just £5 and will include afternoon tea. Please contact Stella Wiseman for further details and to book.
Then at 7.30pm on March 10, Farnham Theatre Association will be at St Mark’s with A Tale of Two Theatres, a rehearsed reading by professional actors Abigail McKern, Chris Reeks, David Wylde and guests based on a book compiled by Anne Cooper of memories by those who knew Farnham’s Castle and Redgrave Theatres. The cost will be £5 and are available here or on the door. Refreshments will be served.
On Saturday, March 12, at 5.30pm we have the awards ceremony for our poetry competitionA Poem for Farnham. Poet Ellora Sutton (pictured left), judge of the adult competition, will be there to give a reading and present prizes. If you haven’t sent your poem in yet, it’s not too late to do so as we have just extended the closing date to Monday, February 28. It’s free to enter and you could win £25. For further details click here.
On Sunday, March 13, at 2.30pm, there will be the awards ceremony for the Farnham Fiction Award.
There is lots going on across Farnham in the Literary Festival and to find out more visit the festival website.
You’ve now got until February 28 to write A Poem for Farnham and enter it into our poetry competition which is forming part of the inaugural Farnham Literary Festival.
Take part in the competition and you could win £25 and be invited to our poetry evening on Saturday, March 12 at St Mark’s Church.
There is a children’s competition, open to under-16s, and an adult one, and all you have to do is write a poem about Farnham – what it means to you, what you like or dislike, what the town feels like to you, its history, its people… anything you want to write which means Farnham to you. The winner in each category will be awarded £25 and two runners-up in each category will be awarded £10 each.
Then send it in to us to reach us by 5pm on Monday, February 28. Send your entries by email to poetry@badshotleaandhale.org or by post to Poetry Competition, St Mark’s Church and Community Centre, Alma Lane, Farnham, GU9 0LT.
There is no word limit, but entries should be typed, double-spaced.
The children’s poetry competition is being judged by poet Coral Rumble and the adult one by poet Ellora Sutton.
Coral Rumble is an award-winning poet specialising in writing and performing for children. She has had four poetry collections published, with Things that Should be in a Poem out soon. Her verse novel Little Light was published last year and she has also written picture books and for children’s TV. You can find her at www.coralrumble.co.uk and she tweets @RumbleCoral.
Ellora Sutton, she/her, is a queer poet, museum professional, and critic. Her work has been published in the Poetry Review, Interpreter’s House, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, fourteen poems and Poetry News, amongst others. She reviews poetry for Mslexia. She tweets @ellora_sutton, or you can find her at ellorasutton.com.
To find out more about the Farnham Literary Festival at St Mark’s click here, and to find out more about events at other places, click here.
The latest parish magazine is out now and inside you will find news, events, ideas, reflections, advertisements, pictures, contacts and more, to give you a snapshot of what is going on across our parish.
There’s lots of good news at the moment and lots to look forward to this year. Read on and find out more… And don’t forget to enter our poetry competition – write a Poem for Farnham and you could win £25!
Come to our craft market on Saturday, February 19, 10am-2pm at St Mark’s, Alma Lane, GU9 0LT, and buy lovely gifts and treats while supporting local businesses and individual crafters. There will be glass, sweets, hand and face creams, knitting, soaps, cards, pottery, candles and many other gifts, made by skilled local craftspeople. Along side this there will be live music and refreshments, plus a chance to see the Kitty Milroy murals.
Come to the craft market at St Mark’s this Saturday
Join us this Saturday, January 15, at St Mark’s between 10am and 2pm, for the first of this year’s monthly craft markets.
There will be pottery, soaps, glass, cards, jewellery, textiles and all manner of gifts for sale, made by local craftspeople. Browse and buy while you listen to live music, then take a look at the Kitty Milroy murals which featured on BBC TV last month. Then stop off for a hot drink, a savoury roll, cakes and biscuits.
Come and support small businesses as you shop and eat.
Remembrance Sunday is on November 14th this year and there will be services at each of the churches in the Parish – 9.30am at St John’s, 10am at St George’s and 11.10am at St Mark’s. There will also be an Act of Remembrance at the War Memorial in Badshot Lea following the St George’s service. Anyone wishing to attend that who has not been at the service is asked to arrive for around 10.50am.
The St Mark’s service will follow the Act of Remembrance at the Hale War Memorial at 10.45am, where there will be a two-minute silence at 11am. This will be attended by Farnham Brass Band, the Scouts and Upper Hale councillor Cllr Pat Evans, and Cllr Evans and the Scouts will then continue on to St Mark’s for a service.
Lesley Crawley will also lead an Act of Remembrance at Weybourne Village Hall at 4pm.
Come and celebrate the Kitty Milroy murals and Kitty herself at St Mark’s on November 7th at a special communion service at 11am, with the Bishop of Dorking and the mural restorers Stephen Rickerby and Lisa Shekede, and a concert and talk at 7pm.
The now-famous murals were restored earlier this year and new lighting has been installed so that they can be seen in their full glory. They are now recognised as being of national importance and a jewel in Surrey’s crown. So, on the day before the anniversary of Kitty’s birth in 1885 and, coincidentally, her death in 1966, we want to invite everyone to St Mark’s for a celebration.
The morning celebration will be a communion service at which the Rt Rev’d Jo Bailey Wells, Bishop of Dorking, will preach, and there will be a chance to hear from Stephen Rickerby and Lisa Shekede who spent 10 weeks painstakingly restoring the murals between April and June this year. In the evening there will be music, talks on the murals and Kitty, along with refreshments and, of course, the chance to see the murals.
Everyone is welcome at both the service and the evening celebration and there will be no charge, but to keep numbers manageable, particularly in the face of Covid, the evening event will be by ticket only. To book your tickets, click here.
The murals were painted between 1911 and 1920 and depict the Annunciation – the meeting between Mary and the Angel Gabriel when Mary is told she will be the mother of Jesus – as well as scenes from the Benedicite, an ancient hymn of praise to God about the wonders of the natural world, and local views. There are figures depicting the natural elements and seasons, and the models for these figures are known to be local people. The whole is a stunning creation by a hugely talented artist and the murals and Kitty herself are finally being given the recognition they deserve.
Come and celebrate this amazingly talented artist and her work.
Serving the Villages North of Farnham: Badshot Lea, Hale, Heath End & Weybourne
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 