Sarah Presents

Sarah Gronow

This is Sarah.

Like so many members of our Church Congregation, Sarah is multi tasking, multi talented.

She is our senior Server and has been a Server at St Giles for many years, even before leaving St Giles to study at college, recently she became a member of the Parochial Church Council taking on another role as Electoral Roll Secretary…. And,

Since the arrival of Emma Cartwright on a mission to build up families and young people within our Church and the Deanery of Warley & Edgebaston, Sarah has become actively engaged with younger people in the brand-new Youth Group for example.

Happy, very happy to report that the little flock of children, young people and families at St Giles is growing, so Sarah may find herself with more tasks on her hands as the months and years go by.

On the 16th September Sarah gave a presentation using slides to illustrate several months of painstaking research into Rowley Past and Present over at our nearby Church Hall which was well attended and raised a goodly sum for the Church Renovation Fund. The presentation spanned the centuries from around 1199 to the near present was thoughtfully researched and given in a warm, friendly way.

This afternoon 19th October Sarah was interviewed on Black Country Radio please follow link to listen in

https://www.blackcountryradio.co.uk/player/black-country-xtra/on-demand/items/the-local-history-show-19th-october/

Tides and Tidings the paper version of our Church Magazine began as a result of a pastoral visit by our then incumbent Revd Ian Shelton, Mrs Joan Allen who like many of her age, at that time had no access to Internet and Social Media as a way of keeping in touch, and sharing on going stories, for older people memories and history grow in importance and so does listening and retelling their own stories … one thing which stands out for me about Sarah’s Presentation were the many in their 70s, 80s, 90s who had coaxed younger family members to bring them along, just hoping, hoping they would meet someone they knew and had lost touch with to have a chat with during the refreshment break to share their own personal memories of a Rowley Village and acquaintances now gone, but recalled with fondness.

Church is a gathering of Christ’s people, St Giles hopefully will continue to grow as we pray, and to seek to listen and share the stories of all Rowley’s people and most of all in the ongoing Gospel Story as it is proclaimed Sunday by Sunday and daily as we go about our business and work as Sarah Gronow does at the Black Country Museum

please follow link. https://bclm.com

Rowley Villagers~The Way It Used To Be

At the end of June, in this our Centenary Year, Rowley’s Open the Book Team welcomed pupils from Blackheath Primary School into Church to help them make connections with the Rowley of 100 years ago. Letters of appreciation expressed the success of the venture

So here we are, Joyce Walker behind the counter of a local shop, Paul and Isobel Byrne getting ready for a tough day in school, Olwyn Plant getting ready for ‘knocking’ the house over, Emma Cartwright and Gwen Sidaway in their Sunday best, and that’s Paul again … he just had to pop into the shop to buy the loaf of bread, lastly David Walker and Tony Comfort off to the Quarry to chip away at stones for the road.

Rowley Villagers Or The Way It Used To Be

Bayley’s Post Office

Although I wasn’t around, most definitely wasn’t around ,a 100 years ago Bayley’s Post Office was and spending my sixpence at the sweetie counter was the highlight of my early years. All sorts went on in the post office including grinding coffee beans. Turning the steep corner, by the telephone box. walking down the even steeper Springfield Lane took me home to number 68 the ‘cottage’ where I was born. Both the Bayley Brothers were members of St Giles Church both were PCC members. And, both used to call it Rowley Church … not Saint Giles. Everyone knew the Church on the Hill as Rowley Church, with pride because every single body in Rowley contributed in ways small and large to rebuild it following the fire in 1913 which razed it to the ground.

Time does not stand still, outside the boundary wall new houses are being built in more or less exactly where houses remembered in my childhood, were demolished less than 50 years ago.

The Open the Book Team visit our local primary school nearly every week during Term Time, they present the stories from the Bible and share with children the precious news that we have a Father in Heaven who loved the world so much that He sent His Son Jesus to live amongst us as a Villager who worked in a Carpenters Shop.

Rowley and the lives of its people go on, the Church on the Hill reaches up to the sky, although the streets around us, the buildings come and go and of a necessity the present building will also change… but the Home. The Dwelling Place which God has prepared for us will never change…meantime, Open The Book Team, Reverend John and the whole church family have a “foundation” to build on.

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ

1 Cor. 10. 11

February

Snowdrops in the Churchyard

To A Snowdrop

Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

William Wordsworth 1819

I spent happy moments this morning browsing in the parish churchyard. True the churchyard shows it’s age but it is that time of the year when it also shows the young buds of spring, although the old and twisted trees are starkly bare against the blue sky now in a little while, and it is a very little while, green buds will begin to burst, daffodils will be showing their yellows, even this morning buds were beginning to rise from their green bladed sheathes. Blue crocus are clustered here and there, in a very little while hazel catkins will wave their flags too, as Spring blows her trumpet, sounding reveille.

So good afternoon friends in Rowley and much farther afield, whatever you may be doing, and whatever plans you are making for the weeks ahead, we wish you well from St Giles and Rowley, happiness in the planning and the doing.

The snowdrops are lifting up their heads amongst the debris of winter and this brings to mind the rubble, twisted, collapsed buildings of Turkey/Syria

The tragic, devastating loss of life and destruction caused by the earthquake in Turkey/Syria is in everyone’s mind, and causes us to tremble at just the thought of the loss, whole families, parents separated from children… it is a pain and grief we can feel even at so great a distance. The snowdrops bring to my own mind other times of disaster and loss and off struggle to break through heaviness and difficulty… always there is the thought when I see snowdrops raising their heads of the difficulties these tiny venturous harbingers have in pushing up from the earth and into the light…. But they do, and so we pray will the people of Turkey and Syria. That is all we can do and give to the relief agencies what we can, trusting that God will use our gifts and many hands to work miracles with them.

Lord,

There is a grief, and a loss,

Which we cannot frame in words,

Even in prayer, to Thee, dearest friend,

But look, here is our prayer,

Caught in the tear drops which fall,

Accept our tears, Lord,

And lift up the heads of those who mourn

Those who survive,

Comfort them and give them strength to rebuild,

To survive the storms of grief, pain, loss.

Lord help them to lift up their heads.

Amen

Prayer from one if St Giles Intercessors

A Bit of a Royal Connection

Dedication Stone 1923

From time to time we are asked, “How old is this Church?” And sometimes, “Was there another one.?”

The stone pictured above, photograph courtesy of Mike Tandy, answers both questions rather well… although in actual fact we understand that before the building of the first Church that lay brothers farming the land for the Monastery of St Leonard’s Clent used to preach and pray around ‘a “Preaching Cross” erected where, in pagan times there was a burial ground, long before the present churchyard.

Whether this was a stone cross, or as is more than likely, a simple one made from wood, we do not know, nothing remains now either of the Cross or the first Church which seems to have been a simple building mainly a wooden structure but which withstood the elements seeing kings and queens come and go until the reign of Queen Victoria when an Act of Parliament separating Rowley’s Church from the Parish of Clent was given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria on 21st June 1841.

Before William Conquered.. Rowley was here

Rowley was a Royal Manor belonging to the Godwin family of whom the famous King Harold was a member and in years 1100 – 1190 Rowley was a Royal Hunting Chase and is shown as Terra Regis or King’s Land, belonging to the Crown. This was during the reign of Henry 11 … [1154-1189}

Then along came King John 1199-1216

Then the first Church in Rowley is said to have been erected and the Manor of Rowley was held by King John’s daughter, Joanna wife of Llewelyn the Great of Wales.

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There is so much more to tell of Rowley’s History and that of its Church but we are todays children and today is all we have to live out as best we can, because we are followers of a Heavenly King that means following as closely as we can, and taking the Royal Law as written in the Holy Scriptures as the pattern for our daily lives. Today, perhaps more than ever we need to remind ourselves often of whose we are, to whom we belong like the king’s liegemen and hand maids of old

St Giles Parish Church of Rowley of the King in Recent Years

“God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of Kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honour and might for ever. Amen.

2 Timothy 6. 15-16 N.I.V.

Images: Dedication Stone photographed by Mike Tandy. Altar with Banner (R.A.F.Cosford) by Tides and Tidings

As Time Goes By

The Clock engineers called yesterday to give Rowley’s Church Clock its annual service. The Tower steps are extremely steep, so I only went part way up, this time, Behind the clock face, is a quite different view to the one which passers by get, and that is a perspective on all our experiences of time, I suppose. We view things differently according to where we are in the present moment.

The Church Clock, St Giles, Rowley RegisSt Giles Church

We see yesterdays and yesteryear differently according to where we are now in our present, and both past and present events colour our view of the future, which as yet remains unknown (although we like to schedule events in our diary). For instance without the foresight of booking in an appointment how else would the clock men have been able to do their job yesterday? Somethings we can plan for, others we can’t.

The Church Clock was built in 1858 for Rowley’s 2nd Church Building, was safely removed when that building was taken down, reinstalled in the 3rd building which was destroyed by fire in 1913, so it’s a survivor. It’s makers J. B. Joyce and Co. Of Derby, are still around today, their engineers serviced it yesterday.

The last visit by one of them had been in 2008. The church clock stopped ticking that year, and every passer by whether on foot or in a car noticed and many were the telephone calls. The problem, was a worn and broken part to the pendulum, recasting a new one was expensive and beyond the church’s budget at that time. An appeal was launched and the response to it totally beyond our expectations. Gifts came from far beyond our doorstep and lovely little letters from families now far removed from their Rowley Roots. Every year now, J.B.Joyce call to book in a time to call, and give Rowley’s Clock a check up. There is only one other clock movement like it in the U.K. and that keeps good time too. Our big brother is Big Ben in London.

“It’s good for another 100 years” was the expert verdict yesterday.

I can’t imagine what changes the next 100 years will bring, but do recall, Mr Bird, a much loved member of our church family, repeatedly reminding his Sunday School Class,

“It is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.” (Hosea 10:12 N.I.V.)

A reminder that our human faithfulness or faithlessness will in time be rewarded. The church clock may indeed be good for another hundred years, but the goodness and love of God are eternal.

As we say in Rowley, “You can set your clock by him”

Parish Outing: St Giles, Rowley Regis visits St Andrew in Wells

God smiled, yesterday, the sun shone and a party of intrepid explorers set out at 9:00am (N.A.S.A. couldn’t have timed a launch any better) on a journey of 107.2 miles via the M5 to the smallest City in England.

Wells, may be small, but it is charming, full of character and history. The Wells which gave the city its name have made it a sacred site from at least Roman Times probably earlier and still run through open channels helping to keep the streets clean and sweet. Arriving at noon, meant plenty of time for folk to do whatever they wished, Carole, wonderfully organised, as ever, furnished us all with comprehensive guides and suggestions for itineraries, so some went this way and some went that – but all met together for tea at 4pm; scones, jam and cream shared together in the Cathedral Cafe were a delicious way to end our day.

The Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew is well worth a visit, mainly built between c1180-1239 and mainly from limestone from Doulting, eight miles away it is noted for its pointed arches and ribbed vaulting. I find Cathedrals are a bit like time-machines, providing a path back through time, but they also provide a path into the future and eternity, if we will just sit still long enough to look ‘up the road’ and find it. Home church, St Giles was founded around 1199, but our first church was ‘Norman’ style not Gothic like Well Cathedral, and a lot, lot smaller.

For more please follow the link to discover more.
Wells Cathedral

These are some of the many photographs taken.

(This one taken by Jane Proud, thank you Jane)

And, because, I love the ‘architectural’ lines of swans, cygnets, and ducks, blue skies, sunlight dappled waters there is this one, taken from the moat wall surrounding the Bishops Palace.

May your days be sunny and blessed, especially if they are holidays.
Travel safely.
Go with God.