where art collides philosoperontap

March 8, 2014

Eleanor Cross statue project – choosing the stone with artist Alan Ward

Filed under: Eleanor Cross — Trefor Davies @ 6:31 pm
quarry_landscape

Choosing the stone for the new Eleanor Cross for Lincoln project at the CDS quarry in Metheringham Heath.

Last week we covered the launch event for the new Eleanor Cross project for Lincoln. It’s been quite a wait to get the right piece of rock to start carving the statue. The quarry is only digging out new rock on a few days a month and often the pieces that come out are not of a suitable size or shape.

Moreover whilst the giant digging equipment that is occasionally brought can handle them the larger “lumps” are difficult to move using the quarry’s onsite kit and have to be carefully drilled to facilitate cutting into manageable sizes.

This first candidate on the right had already been moved into the main quarry working area. It might do the job as one of the halves. Alan and quarry manager Sean are seen discussing dimensions. For practical reasons the Eleanor Cross statue will be carved in two halves and cemented together. Otherwise the stone would be too heavy to cart to site for carving.

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March 1, 2014

New Eleanor Cross for Lincoln – a project of national significance

Filed under: Eleanor Cross — Trefor Davies @ 6:28 pm
New Eleanor Cross for Lincoln – a project of national significance with exclusive coverage at the weekends on trefor.net.
Eleanor of Castile, wife of King Edward I of England died in 1290 in Harby in Nottinghamshire. Her body was taken to the Gilbertine Priory at St Catherines in Lincoln where it was embalmed and the viscera remove to nearby Lincoln Cathedral.
After four days and nights in Lincoln the body was removed, accompanied by the King and his retinue to London, a journey that took twelve days. Following the burial in London King Edward commissioned a cross to be erected at each overnight stopping point.
Most of the crosses were destroyed by the Roundheads during the English Civil War.  A fragment of the original Lincoln cross remains inside Lincoln Castle. A new cross has been commissioned to be erected outside St Catherine’s Church, the starting point in Lincoln of the journey.
In December a meeting was held at St Catherine’s church at South Common to launch the project. The two videos below were recorded at the launch event. The first is with artist Alan Ward and the second is with the parish priest Father Ian who offers some particularly interesting insights into the history of the Eleanor Cross.

Tune in every weekend for updates on this project. Coverage was initially planned for philosopherontap.com but this is interesting enough to merit the wider readership that trefor.net offers.

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