Hereford with Jacky

On the Monday I headed off to Great Malvern Station from London. Actually I had only bought a ticket to Malvern Link. I really don't know how that happened. So my friend Jacky was waiting for me at Malvern Link. Thank goodness for cellphones and roaming. Jacky has lived and taught in Hereford for the last 8 years, and is in the process of moving back to Aotearoa. I was her last visitor. I have tried before but it never worked. But this time it did. Wonderful.

So over the next 24 hours she showed me some wonderful sites, some of her treasures. We began with Great Malvern Priory Church, which Henry VIII put up for sale during the dissolution and the towns people were able raise the money for pay for it. It has an interesting history, which you can read here.
Great Malvern Priory has the largest collection of English 15th century stained glass of any parish church in England. It includes the wonderful "Magnificat window" in the north transept, and the Millennium windows window designed and made by Thomas Denny.


Later we went to St Michael & All Angels, Castle Frome, Ledbury. You can see where the Normans built over teh Saxon church. In it is a is a thousand year old font carved by the Hereford carving school, just sitting in this little Church out in the country. Just marvelous. Here are some of my photos from these two places

We visited beautiful little towns and drove through wonderful scenery. We ended up in Hereford, where Jacky has been living. We walked the river and took in lovely views of the cathedral. 

I had a zoom call about the next morning, and then we headed off to see her local church, complete with amazing cafe, and then a quick tour around the cathedral. There are more photos about this on the Facebook page.

Some of the highlights of the Cathedral were the stain glass windows, again by stained glass windows Thomas Denny, this time celebrating the life of John Traherne,  an English poet, clergyman, theologian and religious writer born in c.1636. My Cathedral photos are here.

Thanks Jacky for such a wonderful 24 hours.




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