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Adel Church

Today I decided to start one of the projects that’s been in my head for a while. I want to start photographing and finding out about the history of the area in which i live. To this end I’ve started locally by finding old buildings and by old I mean at the very least 100 years of age. The older the better.

So I started with one I know well – Adel St. Johns church.

The church is of Norman design built between 1150 and 1170 with alterations made over the years. Its a grade 1 listed building and the mountain g block for those with carriages is grade 2 listed.

The door had iron studs and a 13th century bronze closing ring depicting a man being swallowed by a monster. This was replaced with a replica after the original was stolen in 2002.

The Romans had a fort in Adel and left wells, a temple including alter stones and various other artifact which are in Leeds museum. Before that there was an iron age fort. There was an Anglo Saxon wooden church when Adel and most of Yorkshire was part of the kingdom of Northumbria. Anglo Saxon coffins and the head of a c10 cross have been found – also in Leeds museum.

If you click on the photo above in the left corner, to enlarge it, you can see the grotesque heads, these are called corbels.

The vestry at the back of this photo has a chimney.

Graveyards are fascinating places. You can learn so much from them. The one on the right at the top shows a man who died of cholera – there were a few epidemics in Leeds. The Victorians certainly liked to mark their deaths with some grand monoliths.

Hope University Liverpool Honorary Degree Ceremony.

So back in 1975 I started a three year Certificate of Education course at Notre Dame teacher training college in Liverpool. I think we were the last but one intake for the Cert Ed before it became all degrees. Nowadays students do their main degree and then spend a year learning to teach . I did P.E. as a main for a year, with Drama for three years. All the time with a view to teaching. I did three teaching practices and many school visits for days. I reckon teacher training colleges were better than Universities because they specialised. We spent the majority of our time learning about teaching and educating children.

There were two other colleges that eventually linked with Notre Dame – the history of what eventually became Hope University goes like this:

“175 years ago, our first founding colleges The Church of England’s Warrington Training College (1844) and the Sisters of Notre Dame’s Our Lady’s Training College (1856) were established to provide teacher education for women. A century later, Christ’s College was built opposite S. Katharine’s, where Hope Park is today, admitting its first students in 1964.

By 1980, the colleges had joined to form an ecumenical federation – the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education (LIHE). The late Archbishop Derek Worlock and Bishop David Sheppard wrote of this as being “a sign of hope” (Better Together).

LIHE later became a single, unified College and was given the new name of Liverpool Hope to represent the mission of the college. Liverpool Hope University was born in July 2005, when the Privy Council bestowed the right to use the University title. Research Degree Awarding Powers were granted by the Privy Council in 2009.”

Anyway, to get to the point, as they were celebrating 175 years since the first founding college was founded, the university decided they would award all the teachers who had gained a Cert Ed at one of the colleges, an honorary degree. This in recognition of our years of service in education.

There were 600 of us at the ceremony ranging from 61 years to over 90 year olds. Just imagine how many millions of lives we had all touched. Then 400 more applied to have their degrees posted.

The event was held at the St. Kaths campus – the oldest and most picturesque. Tea on the lawn after was most civilised! Five of us knew each other from 40 years ago and we decided we were all still as mad as we had been, just a little more weathered! As hard as I looked I didn’t recognise anyone else.

It was a really lovely day. Ive never been one for reunions, thinking too much time has passed anti was another life away but I’ve been proved wrong. There is a line that joins us to all parts of our lives, even though you might think you’ve changed a lot, you will still be basically that same 18 year old at heart.

Thank you Liverpool Hope University.

Update

So I’ve had my blog migrated to WordPress.org which will give me more freedom to edit and more resources. I am trying to make to blog tidier and have therefore got rid of a couple of pages that were more or less redundant anyway. The blog has taken a slightly different path recently, being more about the places that I visit and the photographs that go with them. I will still be blogging about birds and wildlife and rambling on about this and that. Hope you enjoy.