Thursday 8 October 2009

Out with the camera

As it was a lovely sunny, blue sky day decided to go out with the camera into the city to take some photos of some of the many churches in Norwich. The new Norwich 12 Photography Competition is to take photos of some of the churches and this was alot more difficult than I thought. Most of the churches are all locked up, you can't even get into the grounds to walk around them so trying to get a view of one without anything in the way was difficult. Think I will go back at night time and see if I can get some night shots. One of the churches I went to was open - St John's Maddermarket Church - and it was lovely. Very small but with brilliant stained glass windows and a large number of monuments and memorial brasses.
Medieval Norwich had an incredible 57 churches within the city walls, but today only 31 of these still exist. They were built by the wealthy wool merchants as a demonstration of their social standing and wealth. Norwich is renowned for its abundance of churches and boasts more than any other city north of the Alps; however only nine of these are now used for worship. Most of Norwich’s churches were built from flint, which was found locally. It was very difficult to work with and a high level of skill was needed by the craftsmen who used it. The round flint was broken open revealing a dark blue face, which was used to form the outside surface of the building.

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