Poppies at the Tower of London. Photo: NH53 / flickr CC.
Eye - 21 November 2014
From poppies to sleuthing
A path of poppies
Ceramic Poppies captured the public’s interest in the months leading up to Remembrance Day.
The evolving art installation at the Tower of London, ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’ by Paul Cummins and set by Tom Piper, represented Britain’s military war dead with 888,246 ceramic poppies filling the Tower’s moat.
As part of the four-year project on the first world war centenary, Quakers at Friends House expanded on this idea and launched an unusual map.
The digital view of London, which can found at http://bit.ly/QuakerPoppyMap, aims to reflect how far poppies would reach if the number of people from every country who died as a direct result of world war one were to be included.
The result is humbling – poppies spread on the ground between buildings, along roads, bridges and the banks of the Thames, reaching Buckingham Palace via Trafalgar Square and the Cenotaph.
Freshly thatched
Knock, Knock
Who’s there?
Thatch
Thatch who?
Yes that’s me, now open the door… I’ve come for Pales Meeting!
Lynda and Martin Williams, wardens of Pales Meeting House, are delighted with a newly thatched roof adorned by ‘no foxes, birds or corn dollies’.
They write: ‘After eighteen months of fundraising, sourcing of materials and the thatching of approximately four million reeds, it’s finished. We have been so humbled by the generosity of Friends in Britain Yearly Meeting. The appeal has completely covered all costs. Thank you everyone.’
Calling all sleuths
Friends from Sibford Gower are on a mission to solve the riddle of the mystifying Meeting house (below).
Zoë Connor, the sleuth tasked with cracking the case, got in touch with Eye to see if any light could be shed.
‘We have this picture in our Meeting house here in Sibford Gower and Friends have been unable to identify it.
‘Judith Weeks has even trawled through the book of Meeting houses and still she is baffled by where this is. Perhaps it’s not in this country?’
So, trusty Eye readers, can you satisfy the curiousity of Friends in Oxfordshire? Can we solve the mystery of the puzzling picture?
