Anthea Clarke
The Pastoral Care Group’s and Elders’ visit to Charney Manor on 12-13 June was a wonderful experience in a delightful setting.
The history of the manor house is fascinating and well known.
One small feature in the west porch is a relief plaque representing ‘Christ Weeping Over Jerusalem’ (Luke 19, 41-42).
Anne Watson discovered for us that the plaque was created by sculptor Sydney Longford Jones of Blewbury.
The Wikipedia article about Charney Manor tells us that in 1914 Sydney was 26 and a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art. During the war, in accordance with his Quaker beliefs, he became a conscientious objector. As a result, he was imprisoned in Pentonville for 17 months.
In prison, paints and other artistic materials were forbidden, but Sydney found a channel for his talents by using the porridge that was routinely fed to the inmates. He fashioned this into small figurines that could easily be crushed up if a prison warder turned up unexpectedly! Amazingly, two of these figurines have survived and form part of Sydney’s archive in the possession of the Berkshire Record Office.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 508 • August 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW