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Many will remember the statue at St Alban’s, which crumbled to dust over a number of years, finally collapsing 2 or 3 years ago.
It’s been something of a puzzle how to go about replacing it - but two things have come together over the past year: Ruth Lever’s 90th birthday, and discovering a stonemason in Winchester!
The first led to her asking for gifts of money from her family for a new statue, in lieu of birthday presents; and the second meant that at last we have found someone who can make a new statue for us.
It has been a long and tortuous story (I can fill you in with the details if you are interested, and have enough time!), but we have now submitted a Faculty Application (the C of E equivalent of Planning Permission) to the Diocesan Advisory Committee, and I am hopeful that at some point this month they will give us the permission to carry on.
The new statue will be carved out of a piece of Portland Stone by Jamie Woolrich-Moon, who is one of the stonemasons working on Winchester Cathedral.
Last month a few of us went to visit him in the garden shed he uses as a workshop at his home just outside Winchester, to view the clay maquette he has made.
His research included reading the account of Alban’s martyrdom in the Venerable Bede’s ‘History of the English Church and People’, written in the 7th century; looking at the Church, and the other images of St Alban we have; looking at other images of Alban, including those in the Cathedral, and reflecting on all of these things.
He has come up with a very sympathetic design - something new, but which will complement the other three Kathleen Parbury statues (Mary, George and Agnes) we already have.
If all goes to plan, and there are no problems with the faculty or any other delays, the statue should be ready sometime early next year - and then we have to work out how to get it up into its niche - but we have a cunning plan!
If you have any thoughts on this model, do please share them with us - we are still at the design and reflection stage.