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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: cpercival on Tuesday 06 June 17 17:43 BST (UK)
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I know this is a very long shot but I am trying to trace a prayer desk from the Church of St John the Evangelist, Carlisle. Lurking in some old family papers I recently found a parish magazine from 1941 which described the presentation of a prayer desk dedicated to Thomas and Sarah Percival by their son George Percival. George was my Grandfather and they were my Great Grandparents. Last week I visited the church with some American cousins, also George's grandchildren, and we hoped to see this prayer desk with it's inscription. The church has undergone considerable renovation and we were advised by the current Vicar that the prayer desk, along with the choir stalls, was disposed of as part of the renovation in 2010. The Vicar has no knowledge of where the furnishings went. Has anyone out there seen it and can they put me in touch with the present owner(s)? As I say a long shot but nothing ventured........
Clive
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Have you considered writing to the local newspaper and appealing for information about the prayer desk?
You never know, someone may remember what happened to it.
I take it that you don't have a photo of it.
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The re-ordering of the church was the subject of a Faculty http://www.ecclesiasticallawassociation.org.uk/index.php/judgmentlist/reordering/botcherby
I'd have thought there must be a record in PCC minutes of what happened to the church furnishings that were removed.
Try emailing the PCC secretary http://www.stjohnscarlisle.plus.com/sue.html Point out that the prayer desk in question was effectively a memorial (was there a memorial plate/inscription on it?) and that the family would like to know how it was disposed of.
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Many thanks both for your suggestions. Regrettably no I don't have a picture, however I'll follow up with the PCC. The link to the faculty concerns St Andrew at Botcherby whereas I am looking at St John the Evangelist at Botchergate. I don't know if a similar faculty applied here. Anyway I'll follow these up and any further suggestions would be welcome.
Thanks again
Clive
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So sorry for that error, I do apologise.
Any major re ordering would have required a faculty. However whether that would include the removal of a portable item such as a prayer desk is another matter.
Too often these things have been disposed of without thought or without any record of where they have gone. A memorial prayer desk of some importance at the church I attend was recently saved at the 11th hour. Other items known to be at the church in the past have vanished without trace.
If you get no satisfactory answer from the PCC you could try Girl Guide's idea of contacting the local Carlisle newspaper - someone might well know.
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I see from surfing the wb that there seems to be several companies that specialise in selling church fixtures and fittings, such as pews, etc.
I've been on the Carlisle Diocese website and it seems from one of the downloads that the Church Warden has to keep a log of the building maintenance.
The Building Maintenance is entitled "Terrier and Inventory", for which there is another download.
Hope this helps
http://www.carlislediocese.org.uk/our-diocese/buildings-and-property/repairs-and-maintenance.html
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I've been on the Carlisle Diocese website and it seems from one of the downloads that the Church Warden has to keep a log of the building maintenance.
Hi Rena :) that's why I suggested contacting the Parochial Church Council secretary, who would be able to pass on cpercival's enquiry to the correct person. Whether the disposal of a prayer desk would be logged is another matter :(
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I've been on the Carlisle Diocese website and it seems from one of the downloads that the Church Warden has to keep a log of the building maintenance.
Hi Rena :) that's why I suggested contacting the Parochial Church Council secretary, who would be able to pass on cpercival's enquiry to the correct person. Whether the disposal of a prayer desk would be logged is another matter :(
Yes I thought that was the case. It seems strange that the vicar didn't mention any possibilities of who to approach in his own church, as I'm presuming there has to be a book or ledger containing the inventory. Possibly an auction house removed everything for disposal and I'm assuming it will be nigh impossible to trace the prayer desk now, especially as we don't know what it looked like. Most salvage yards and companies specialising in selling church fixtures and fittings don't mention where the items originated, all except one that sold very expensive desks and named the original church.
I've searched for images of church interiors but the only image to appear online of this church has been the modern interior. Back in the 1950s-1960s I knew a chap who collected calendars depicting churches. As St John's is a large historical church I'm pretty sure that somewhere there'll be an old black & white photo of the interior showing the prayer desk.
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Might local weddings have included it in photographs around the time? Worth trying local history socs, etc?
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Thanks so much for all the suggestions. I've emailed the Secretary of the PCC as a starter and await a reply
Clive
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- And don't forget to post on here if / when you actually track it down.
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I promise to keep all updated when/if I make any progress
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And of course, we are all wishing you success with your quest.
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Thanks to all for your support. I have yet to receive so much as an acknowledgement to my enquiry of the PCC. No luck so far.
CP
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How rotten! I know how you must feel - I've tried for a couple of years to track down whoever is in charge of a certain local history society, been given three e-mail addresses for him .... never a reply!
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When the desk etc was disposed of some one from the church would have been around to supervise the removal - possibly a Church warden?
Who was the key holder at the time - he/she may be able to help.
Check with local antique dealers they may have been offered the desk - they may have bought it.
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When the desk etc was disposed of some one from the church would have been around to supervise the removal - possibly a Church warden?
That's why I suggested contacting the PCC - see replies #4 and #6.
The PCC secretary should at least have acknowledged CP's enquiry :-\
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These are the present contact details http://www.stjohnscarlisle.plus.com/contactus.html
Stan
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You might be able to get some help or information from the Diocesan Advisory Committee, which deals with such matters -
https://www.carlislediocese.org.uk/our-diocese/diocesan-committees/diocesan-advisory-committee.html
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I do wish you success with this.
I have tried for years to track down a Sanctuary lamp,placed in St John the Evangelist Church ,Manchester.
It was my grandmother’s memorial ,hung in the transept of what was a beautiful church in the Italianate style.
It burned throughout the years ,never going out thanks to a fund started to make sure there was always oil.It hung on a chain and could be lowered for filling.
Red glass rather like an Aladdin’s lamp but the symbol of Sanctuary.
Sadly the church was demolished in the sixties,I was living abroad when I found out as my father in law sent us weekly the local newspaper.
I appealed to the Diocese but got no answer,kept trying but no luck.
As well as the church going all the houses were demolished too and so congregation( which would be very few)were dispersed to the new housing estates.
There seemed to be no record of the fund ,though what would be left I have no idea,but the lamp belonged to our family and was in memory of a woman much loved and respected , O.K we were few by that time and I was abroad so it was too late when I found out .none of us were regular attenders to that church as we lived a good way away.
I have a photograph of the church interior and the lamp can be plainly seen hanging there .
Never mind ,she is often mentioned here on RootsChat ,I think of her and I am sure the few of her close descendants left do too .
Never met her but my Mum’s stories were of a wonderful woman.
But the high handed treatment of such memorials is pretty disgusting .
We don’t all live close by the churches in question but at least a central office for such things could settle people’s minds.
It could be argued once donated to the church they are no longer our possessions but we have some right to know where they go.
Well ,that is what I feel,that little lamp that burned for almost forty years
is either landfill or hanging in the home of one of the demolition squad.
At the church I now attend ,there are various memorials , marble panels .brass vases inscribed ,a silver shell for Christenings,etc. The actual people long gone and not personally remembered.
Sad ,but life is ever moving forward.
Sometimes I wish it would just stand still.
Viktoria
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Thanks for all your support and suggestions. I'll have to try the PCC again. Unfortunately as I live on the South Coast I can't just go and knock on the door! I'll try emailing again now Easter is over and hope to get a response this time. Will keep you posted.
Clive
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Thanks for all your support and suggestions. I'll have to try the PCC again. Unfortunately as I live on the South Coast I can't just go and knock on the door! I'll try emailing again now Easter is over and hope to get a response this time. Will keep you posted.
Clive
I suggest you email the Pcc secretary again, forwarding her your email of last year, copy it to the Vicar and ask why it wasn’t even acknowledged.
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Update on the search. For some reason I cannot find a contact email any longer for the PCC secretary. However I have emailed the diocese and the Vicar. The diocese has replied that they do not keep records on behalf of individual churches and suggest contacting the Vicar. No help but they have had the courtesy to reply and have given me a different email address for the Vicar from the one I previously had. That has produced an auto reply to say that he is on sabbatical until August! I guess I'll wait until August and try again. Thanks for staying with me.
Clive
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For some reason I cannot find a contact email any longer for the PCC secretary.
From the church website http://www.stjohnscarlisle.plus.com/sue.html
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Did you try the Diocesan Office, or the Diocesan Advisory Committee (see Reply #18)?
The main diocesan office probably wouldn't have much relating to that kind of thing, but the DAC's main purpose is to advise on re-orderings and church furnishings etc. Are they saying that they don't keep records?
It might also be worth checking the catalogue of wherever the diocesan archives are deposited - presumably Cumbria Archives, since any paper records from both the parish and the diocese should find their way there eventually. What you need is anything relating to the faculty (church equivalent of planning permission) for the work carried out in 2010, and there could be material in both the parish and DAC collections. Where it is intended to dispose of furnishings, I think the faculty would specify what was to be done with them.
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There is extensive detail about the re-ordering of the church here http://www.stjohnscarlisle.plus.com/projectdiary.html including details of various items available for purchase. There is a name for someone who was dealing with selling items, so you could try emailing him.
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I rather think it unlikely you will be able to trace the now whereabouts of the prayer desk BUT even if there is still someone on the PCC who knows who bought it (or acquired it) they would not be permitted to give you the details - unless, of course, it went to another Church.
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... even if there is still someone on the PCC who knows who bought it (or acquired it) they would not be permitted to give you the details - unless, of course, it went to another Church.
True, but they might be able to contact the purchaser and ask if they were happy for the OP to be put in touch with them.
By the way - excellent find, JenB.
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Assuming the purchaser still lived at the address they did when they purchased the desk :-)
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Just a final postscript to this sad story. I did track down the person responsible for the disposal of all the furnishings rendered redundant due to the modernisation of the church. He has since moved on and now lives in Leicester. He did nevertheless offer to check such records as he still had and get back to me.
I have never heard from him since.
The present incumbent has no records at all.
Search now abandoned.
Thank you all for your patient advice and support.
Clive
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That's a shame Clive. But 10 out of 10 for your efforts.
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Thankyou for remembering us,it is sad and upsetting .
You sometimes see articles ,obviously from a Church at flea markets and antique fairs.
In the inner city areas in Manchester so many churches were demolished,new built all modernistic ones replaced about only five percent.
So much that would have been memorials just seen as rubbish.
The wholesale demolition of working class areas meant the congregations left before demolition of the local churches,so no one realised until it was far too late to rescue anything and what would they have done with it in a small cramped Council flat on the umpteenth floor if a tower block.
The diocese is at fault ,they had all the info,dates etc and could have published that these things were up for grabs and whilst the relevant documents were in existence.
No solution for your enquiries but you tried,really tried, and that counts.
Thankyou again.
Viktoria.
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Why not try putting out an appeal for information of its whereabouts on BBC Radio Cumbria which I believe is broadcast from Carlisle.
Carol