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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 22h

Who else could it be for #31DaysOfGraves, day 8, animal, than the surviving Aldworth lion? He's been guarding his knight, possibly John d. 1328, of the de la Beche family, for nearly seven centuries and deserves some recognition and love! #Berkshire giants and their #tinylions...

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Even though I live in Gloucestershire and am from East Anglia, it's #York Cemetery that is my home cemetery: volunteering there in the 90s got me into cemeteries and my heritage career! Slightly (!) more recent image for day 7, #31DaysOfGraves, with my favourite avenging angel!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Beautiful weather at #Stroud Cemetery at the weekend for #31DaysOfGraves, taken during a tour about the cemetery designer, Robert Marnock, and how he used the surrounding landscape in his designs. There's more tree cover now, but Marnock loved trees.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

For #31DaysOfGraves day 5 - realised that this is here now, so apologies the first few days are on x! Vehicle - the hugely controversial mail coach on this 1927 memorial #stainedglass by Karl Parsons in Bibury, #Gloucestershire, was not allowed at first - this is the seriously odd compromise!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Probably my favourite #StFrancis window, by Edward Payne at Didbrook, #Gloucestershire, 1962, showing the saint preaching to a parliament of birds. Lots of loving detail of bird life, including a handsome #OwlishMonday for tomorrow! #StainedGlassSunday

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Tewkesbury #AdoorableThursday doors! This little vid bombed on instagram, so I'm trying it on here - oh well! Maybe I'm trying too hard! #Gloucestershire #olddoors #newdoors

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Always a thrill to see a Thomas Denny window; even if you've seen it many times before, you'll still see something new... #StainedGlassSunday Tewkesbury Abbey, #Gloucestershire

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This fed up squirrel @gloucestercathedral.org.uk's choir stalls ably sums up how I feel this morning with major disruption on the trains and a very fine schedule to keep... #Woodensday #WoodCarvingsOnWednesday #Gloucester

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

For #TraceryTuesday, one of the most #ArtsandCrafts things about Ettington, #Warwickshire was the window leading, a little touch of subtle artistry in very ordinary gothicising tracery.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

For #OwlishMonday two very perky owls from a London Underground poster by Enid Marx at Compton Verney, #Warwickshire in their current, lovely, exhibition. 'Old Noah stocked his study ark with animals old and gnu...' advertising @londonzoo.bsky.social

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

You now you've seen a lot of churches when you go into a church and feel a bit of disappointment when you've seen the promised Christopher Whall window several times before! #StainedGlassSunday Ettington, #Warwickshire - beautiful nonetheless!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Lovely autumnal morning at Ettington, #Warwickshire, yesterday, for #SteepleSaturday, church a subtle nod to the #ArtsandCrafts Movement by the architect, Charles Ford Whitcombe, 1902-3, the tower finished in a slightly strange fashion with a lead box affair by W K Shirley, 1908.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The striking #AdoorableThursday entrance to St Catherine, #Gloucester, by Walter B. Wood, 1911-5, free-gothicky, whole church faintly Art Nouveau in feel. Pevsner does *not* like it - "rather unpleasant exterior"! So let's give the door, and the welcoming folks inside, some love!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I have to apologise for these truly dreadful pictures (halogen light!) but I promise they're something exciting! Hidden in a vestry in @gloucestercathedral.org.uk these late C14th panels tell the sorry tale of Reynard the Fox, hanged for killing a goose #Woodensday #WallPaintingsOnWednesday

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

For #TextileTuesday, above the misericords in @gloscathedral, #Gloucester, sit these fabulous cushions, made by the cathedral embroiderers. These were crafted during #WW2 and after, and are a remarkable exercise in craft as impressive as the woodwork around them.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Seriously pistoffle owl mocked on this misericord @gloucestercathedral.org.uk #Gloucester for #OwlishMonday - HUGE thank you to the kind gentleman who let me look at them all! It was greatly appreciated, and constituted my weights class for the day - remove cushion, lift, photograph, lower...

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

A monument from a sister to a sister: Bridget Price erected this tablet in St John, #Gloucester, to her sister Dorothy, who died, aged 23, in 1693. Their father, Major Price, once a Royalist soldier, watches from the wall opposite. #MementoMoriMonday #MonumentsMonday

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Spot the ?deliberate?mistake at Rowlestone for #SundayStonework. Going up ... and going down. Same block as the bird, so not reinserted wrong. Stonemason's error? Anyway, more #Herefordshire School sculpture for you to enjoy!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

He da big boi #FontsOnFriday from Kilpeck, #Herefordshire, made of sturdy breccia, one of a number of these stonkers in the county. On surprisingly delicate voluted legs. See ⬇️ for the interlaced font stopper, now on a window sill.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Yep, that obligatory #AdoorableThursday door par excellence, perhaps the best - or at least wackiest - #Romanesque doorway on a parish church in England, it is, of course, Kilpeck, #Herefordshire - what beasts, what beakheads, what interlacing dragon snails!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Lovely late C13th or early C14th coronation of the Virgin roof boss at Abbey Dore, #Herefordshire, not a #lookup in this case but a #lookdown as these are no longer in the nave vault, but part of a collection of fragments, as the church was in a sorry state when restored in the C17th...

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I have a #TympanumTuesday at last - here's Rowlestone, #Herefordshire, part of the C12th school of sculpture in that county, showing Christ in a mandorla seemingly prized open by angels... linked to majestic, destroyed Shobdon, it may not be so fine but is at least in situ!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I've been away so long that it'll soon be #Halloween - at least according to one of my neighbours... hello again bluesky!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Just returned to bluesky and what do I see? Yep, it's my book out in the wild even after all these years!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

Was lucky enough to have access into the newly conserved @friendlesschurches.bsky.social church of St Mary and All Angels, Brownshill, #Gloucestershire, a couple of weeks ago. I was v. pleased with this detail shot of the tricky to photograph west window by Douglas Strachan! #StainedGlassSunday

Stained glass of St Michael holding a spear. He has red, very upright, wings, a green halo and is dressed in silver armour wearing red underneath. His wearing a silver helmet under which his golden hair peeks out.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Apologies for absence - got logged out and forgot password! Hadn't spotted the cradle to grave motif in this photo till now ... why is there a gravestone muscling in on my #FontsOnFriday at Haddiscoe, #Norfolk. Typical East Anglian smug #tinylion font either in very good order or rather recut!

C15th font with angels and evangelist symbols around bowl, lions support it on the stem. C20th wooden cover. In church on tiled floor, wooden screen with blue central curtain behind. Gravestone to side, almost out of view propped up on a bookshelf.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

It's #February! Endless January is done, and Spring is, maybe, just around the corner! It's also #StBrigidsday, and here she is by the Irish master, Harry Clarke, in Castletownsend, #Ireland, with St Brigid's fire and an oak sprig from the tree where she founded her church in Kildare.

stained glass window detail showing the full frontal face of a female saint dressed a blue robe that covers her head and a wimple. She carries a sprig of oak and a lamp, and there's Celtic knotwork beneath her.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

A subtle weathering of stone and flint at Haddiscoe, #Norfolk, for #AdoorableThursday - the south door is more showy, of course, but I love this self-effacing little external north door, quietly weathering away on its exposed hilltop.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Unexpected #ArtsandCrafts in the altar area! Was giving a talk in Leckhampton last night, thinking there was no A&C here, but lo! This carving by Alec Miller came to the church after WW2 from a London church damaged in the war #Woodensday #WoodCarvingsOnWednesday #Gloucestershire

Painted woodcarving of the Virgin and Child, the Virgin in a blue robe, mounted on the stone wall of a church.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

For #TraceryTuesday, the imposing Perp east end of Beccles, #Suffolk - though the tracery in the chancel east window is 'renewed', presumably during Hakewill's 1858-9 restoration. Renewed or not, it's an impressive street frontage, with some good flushwork, too.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

An excellent #OwlishMonday from North Cove, #Suffolk, part of a memorial to 'Rosemary', 1996, carved with many critters of air, land and sea...

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Hurrah, a #winter10 at last for #wildflowerhour gathered on a wet and muddy walk near the #Suffolk coast! Plus a (very) few others...

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Possibly M E Aldrich Rope's last window - a year after one near me in Lydiard Millicent, which I *still* haven't seen - this is the east window at Barnby, #Suffolk, now tricky to reach by foot or vehicle off the A146, separated from its village - but worth it for this! #StainedGlassSunday

Stained glass window by M E Aldrich Rope, 1963, three lights, simple tracery above, centre light shows Christ in a white robe and yellow cloak, holding an orb; left light showing John the Baptist with his staff, dressed in a skin with a aquamarine cloak; right light shows St John the Evangelist in white, holding a cup, and behind I assume St Andrew with loaves and fishes in his hands. Heavenly city above in tracery lights, crucifixion below Christ.

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Reposted by Kirsty Hartsiotis

Institute of Historical Research @ihr.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

New free online research training course 5 May 2026. Engaging Histories: Working with/in the Media as an Historian. www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

All of the information in the image is available via the web link.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

A tricky to reach church in #Suffolk is Barnby - sailed past it first, stepdad hovered in the car below second time, while I raced in and snapped - here's a #FontsOnFriday snap, prob C13th bowl with blind-arcading, below rather more modern - and rather zany!

View from west end of church looking east over hexagonal font towards east window.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

Doorway into St Helen's Bishopsgate, #London, although the church itself wasn't open to visitors, as it was busy with some kind of meeting or course. This door clearly dates from 1633 ... and is where they stash the bins! #AdoorableThursday #NoContextDoors

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

For #WallPaintingsOnWednesday these lovely c. 1900-20 paintings in St Mary Moorfields RC, #London that @simoninsuffolk.bsky.social has kindly informed me are by George Hyde Pownall, who also decorated St Patrick in Soho.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Peekin' in for #MonumentsMonday to the tomb of Richard de la Bere, d. 1636, at Bishop's Cleeve, #Gloucestershire. Possibly made by Samuel Baldwin of Stroud, it cost £400, although it's more ornate than the tombs here: stroudlocalhistorysociety.org.uk/people-places/…

View of a C17th male tomb effigy seen through bars of tomb framework. He has curly hair, a beard and curling moustache, and an enormous ruff!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

As always, James Eadie Reid is rather weird! For #StainedGlassSunday, glass by him of c. 1899, when he was first in the area, teaching at #Cheltenham Ladies College, at Bishop's Cleeve, #Gloucestershire. Eadie Reid was a superb colourist, but the rendering of his design is rather odd...

stained glass window by James Eadie Reid, c. 1899 showing the shepherds adoring the Virgin and Child, with a host of angels behind, and cherubs in the tracery lights. All in rich colours, predominantly red, blue and mauve. Strange almost grisaille faces.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

My only outside view of Bishop's Cleeve, #Gloucestershire, thanks to the rain, but it does afford us a #SteepleSaturday! Unexpectedly, the tower is from 1699-1700, built after the previous one collapsed in 1696, traditional 'Gothic Survival' says P, by James Hill of Cheltenham.

Exterior of St Michael and All Angels, Bishop's Cleeve. Limestone building, west end Romanesque, with gothic additions, and a C17th gothic central tower photographed on a very wet day. There's a ladder in the porch door, and two cars parked outside - adding insult to injury for the photographer!

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Suffering for my art - absolutely pouring down in Bishop's Cleeve, #Gloucestershire, but a #AdoorableThursday door like this needs to be photographed! I've brightened it slightly so you can see better than I could in the ghastly gloom! #Romanesque and lovin' it...

Romanesque church stone doorway with bands of zig zag ornament, the outer course ending in a dragon and on the side a snake biting it's own tail. Two columns on the door jambs, wooden door.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

A bit o' bling to cheer up a cold #January day from St John the Baptist, #Cardiff, from our blingiest friend, Ninian Comper, in the Chapel of the Order of St John, including elephants, camels and other exotica - perhaps the beast of Revelation the most exotic? #Woodensday

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

An unusual #TilesOnTuesday posy from #Cardiff, somewhat marred by my coat! Not many cafes - this is Brodies Coffee in one of Cardiff Castle's gatehouses, complete with tiles by Godwin's of Lugwardine! Good coffee and a superb cake, too.

View of cafe floor with empty tables and chairs and Godwin Victorian tiles

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Reposted by Kirsty Hartsiotis

Louvain Rees ⚰️ @hellohistoria.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

#PloughMonday 🌾 GOD SPEED THE PLOUGH 🐎 📍St Bartholomew's Church • Llanover ⛪ #Wales

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

'God Speed the Plough!' it's #PloughMonday today, when the ploughmen, having had their ploughs blessed on the Sunday, would go out a-visiting round the houses - but here's a ploughman at work at Ebrington, #Gloucestershire, by Christopher Webb, 1964.

Stained glass image of a ploughman driving a plough pulled by two white oxen, caught in a roundel of feathery foliage, a detail of a larger design.

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Reposted by Kirsty Hartsiotis

Colchester Museums @colmuseums.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

We’re looking to collaborate with podcasters, bloggers, illustrators, artists, and other creatives who enjoy working with museums and heritage. Projects can be big, small, sensible, or slightly odd. Interested? Drop us a reply or a DM.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Okay, back to getting to grips with you all here! So, do we do #MementoMoriMonday over here? Hope so, because here's a fab example, the #memorial to Henry Dirdoe at Gillingham, #Dorset, d. 1728, I think, all wailing cherubs above and wingéd skulls below!

Church memorial, 1728, made of stone, with cherubs at the top and a winged skull at the bottom. Lots of text in Latin that I can't read in-between! To the right, the edge of a stained glass window.

Three winged cherub heads in a roundel tied with a bow. Probably actually singing, not crying, but it's hard to tell.

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

Join me on Monday 20 Oct, 7pm, for an #onlinetalk all about #womensart #womenscraft in the #Cotswolds - we'll be looking at the women of the #ArtsandCrafts Movement who settled here - my last post showed some of the women, here's some of the work! Book here: eventbrite.co.uk/e/1379199164...

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Kirsty Hartsiotis @stroudstory.bsky.social · 05/10/2025

1 week 4 talks! #ArtsandCrafts in the #Cotswolds for the Arts Society Ross-on-Wye; A&C churches with a #Cheltenham swing for the U3A; then part 3 of my talks in Worcestershire & last but NOT least, the friendship of #WilliamMorris& #EBJ Museum in the Park, #Stroud: www.kirstyhartsiotis.com/events

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