Saturday Good Reads – July 4, 2026 – America 250

Fifty years ago, my wife and I were living in Houston when the Bicentennial celebration occurred. The memories that lasted are the tall ships sailing into New York City, the fireworks at Houston’s Northwest Plaza on July 4 (the the resulting traffic jam when it was over), and Bicentennial Minutes.  

Bicentennial Minutes were hosted by CBS. As the name implied, they were one-minute history lessons, each with a different celebrity narrator. Speakers included movie stars like Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas, and Ed Asner; Alfred Hitchcock; Kukla, Fran, & Ollie; Walter Cronkite; and scores more. Reportedly, CBS initially hated the idea, but it turned into one of the most popular events during the Bicentennial.

 

Somewhat controversial was the sponsor, Shell Oil Company. First, it was an oil company, when many were howling for oil companies to be broken up. Second, it was owned by the Royal Dutch Group, a foreign company, no less, half-owned by British interests. Ultimately, people decided to sit back and enjoy the minutes.

 

I was working at Shell Oil at the time. And my job was reading, researching, and writing about the effort to “break up Big Oil.” Eventually, the issue died, and I moved into the speechwriting group. But I think I’ll always connect those Bicentennial memories with “breaking up Big Oil.”

 

And now, it’s 50 years later, and it’s the 250^th birthday. Happy birthday to all of us! And to the men and women of 1776 who had the courage to make it happen!

 

The Declaration of Independence in its moment

 

The Anticipation of Late June 1776 – Chris Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Declaration of Independence: A Transcription – National Archives.

 

Declarations Before THE Declaration of Independence – Ray Rphaeol at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Viking word hidden in the Declaration of Independence – Sophie Hardach at BBC.

 

The Man Who Argued Against Independence – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

July 2, 1776: “the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America: – Kevin Pawlak at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

The Inner American Revolution – Stephen Mansfield at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

 

Scotland and the Birth of the United States – S. Donald Fortson at Ligonier.

 

On the Semiquincentennial – Spitalfields Life.

 

The War for Independence

 

Monmouth: Longest Battle of the American Revolution – Eric Niderost at Warfare History Network.

 

The Britons who supported the War of Independence – Tom Cutterham at The Conversation.

 

How a tiny Caribbean island made American independence possible – R. Grant Gilmore III at The Conversation.

 

General Washington and the Other Declaration of 1776 – Charlton Allen at American Thinker.

 

The America 250 Celebration

 

Congress dedicates national time capsule ahead of America’s 250^th anniversary – Associated Press via PBS.

 

World Monuments Fund spotlights ten heritage sites for the US’ 250^th – Elena Goukassoan at The Art Newspaper.

 

A History of America’s Milestones: Celebrating Independence – Ron Faucheux at Real Clear History.

 

The Declaration in American History

 

Why Americans Once Held Separate Fourth of July Celebrations – Tim Ott at History.

 

At America 250, Remember the 2 Presidents Who Saved the Declaration – Janice Rogers Brown at Coolidge Review.

 

When Independence Hall Was Almost Demolished – Elizabeth Yuko at History.

 

Assessments of the Declaration

 

Liberty, War, and Sovereignty in American States System: The Declaration of Independence at 250 – Robbie Totten at Isonomia Quarterly.

 

America 250 Forum, Day 1: The Idea of America, Day 2: The Weight of History; Day 3: Giving Thanks as American Christians – Mere Orthodoxy.

 

250 Years of Faith: The Story of Christianity in America – Thomas Kidd at Desiring God.

 

The Radical, Conservative Experiment That Is America – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Our Inalienable Declaration – Jack Butler at The Wall Street Journal (story unlocked). 

 

The Heroes of 1776 – Neil Gorsuch and Janet Nitze at The Free Press.

 

The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty by Bradley Birzer – Faith, Fiction, Friends.

 

Why I Wrote Finding the Founding – Casey Spinks at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

The Declaration at 250 – 28 thinkers at Modern Age.

 

Music of the Declaration – Henry Long at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

People Speak

 

The Country I Would Still Die For – Ncholas Dockery at The Free Press.

 

The Summer I Turned Patriot – Josh Kaplan at The Free Press.

 

If Jesus Founded a Nation – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

America 250 and Poetry

 

Bradford Skow and American Independence in Verse – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

What America Was Meant to Be – poem by Mike Johansson at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Philip Freneau: Poet of the American Revolution – Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

The First of Modern Nations and An Errand into the Wilderness – poems by James Matthew Wilson at Word on Fire.

 

“Old Ironsides,” poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Paul Revere’s Ride – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

 

The Declaration of Independence – read by Max McLean

Painting: The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, oil on canvas (1818)  by John Trumbull (1756-1843), U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

Philip Freneau: Poet of the American Revolution

We learned this back in elementary school. If one poet’s name sits atop the poetry of the American Revolution, that name is Philip Freneau (1752-1832). And like the new nation he was part of, he kept re-inventing himself.  

The Freneau family came from La Chappelle, France, in the Ardennes Forst and near the current Belgian border. The family was Huguenot, not exactly the best faith option in Catholic France. In 1707, Andre Freneau emigrated to New York in America and became part of the Huguenot colony there. He married and had five children. One of his sons, Pierre, became part of the family business married in 1748. His oldest child was born in 1752 and named Philip. Ten years later, the well-to-do family moved to New Jersey, although Philip remained in boarding school in New York. In 1768, aged 16, the boy entered Princeton University, set upon becoming a minister.

 

At Princeton, however, Pilip discovered writing. He’d read widely in the English poets and Latin classics, and he was already composing poetry. In his class at Princeton was a young man who became a lifelong friend – James Madison. Freneau, Madison, and others were beginning to get up in the spirit of the times, and it was an anti-British, increasingly independent spirit. (In 1770, the senior class voted to wear only clothes of American manufacture for commencement.)

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Illustration: Philip Freneau.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Dust – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

Metastatic – poem by Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

Orphan Lamb – poem by David Whyte.

 

Kurt Vonnegut’s Ambivalent War on AI – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

“Chicago,” poem by Carl Sandburg – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“The Battle of Blenheim,” poem by Robert Southey – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Reading Moby Dick – Chris Arnade Walks the World.

“The Declaration of Independence” by Bradley Birzer

I was on a multi-day business trip to Washington, D.C. I had a free afternoon, so I walked from the hotel to the National Gallery on the Mall. And then, for reason or reasons unknown, I walked across the street to the National Archives. And there it was – the original Declaration of Independence. 

 

Drafted mostly if not entirely by Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration is to America what the Magna Carta is to England. The statement of beliefs. The citation of grievances against an unjust ruler (also an English king, no less). The signatures.  

As Bradley Birzer points out in The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty, the Declaration is all these things. And it is more. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Prudence vs. Fanaticism: On the American & French Revolutions – Russell Kirk at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The art of translation: On Les Fleurs du mal, by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Richard Howard – David Paul at The New Criterion.

 

Short Story, Deep Treasures: Biblical Allusion in “Gift of the Magi” – John Savoie at Literary Matters.

Saturday Good Reads – June 6, 2026

A Chinese state photographer took the pictures. The film rolls were locked in a metal box. Somehow, the rolls made their way to the United States and placed in the hands of The Epoch Times. And now the photos on the films are being published – never-before-seen photographs of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. 

As we get closer to July 4, the stream of articles and posts about the 250^th anniversary of the American Revolution is becoming a flood. Keli Holt at Just Enough History writes about the fall of Philadelphia and that winter at Valley Forge. Yuval Levin at The Coolidge Review explains why 1776 was both radical and conservative. John Barnes at The Imaginative Conservative draws a line from Runneymede in 1215 to Philadelphia in 1776. If you’re in the mood, you can visit an exhibition that lets you tear down (virtually) a statue of George III. And you can find more links below.

 

Today is the 82^nd anniversary of D-Day. Two relatively little-known things helped make it possible. One was the Higgins boat, designed by a man who lived in my hometown of New Orleans. The other was a man named Juan Pujol Garcia, who went by the code name of “Garbo.”

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

In the Ranks of the Revolution: James Johnston’s War – Lori Amos Doss & Harred Marlowe at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Thomas Jefferson’s Last Wish – Jane Kamensky at The Free Press.

 

Five Great Books on the American Revolution – Thomas Kidd.

 

Virginia Leads the Way, All the Way – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

The Undoing of Benedict Arnold and the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Life and Culture

 

The Language of Drought and Duty – Colin Gillette at Front Porch Republic.

 

American Stuff

 

Can We Restore the Republic? – Bradley Birzer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Long History of Gerrymandering in American Politics – Jerald Stubbs at Real Clear History.

 

Poetry

 

A Review of The Future of Love by John Poch – Benjamin Myers at New Verse Review.

 

Poetic Justices: The Poetry of United States Supreme Court Justices – Adam Sedia at Society of Classical Poets.

 

“Pied Beauty,” poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Welcome and Farewell – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

Writing and Literature

 

The Noble North – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

British Stuff

 

Police policies must be reformed – David Spencer at The Critic Magazine.

 

Britain’s Reverse George Floyd Moment – Dominic Green at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked).

 

Faith

 

Strong to the End – Tim Challies.

 

Winston Churchill: Mentor for Our Times – Stephen Mansfield at Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

 

Sunday is Coming – Phil Wickham

 Painting: Oil Woman Reading a Book, oil on canvas by Pieter van den Bosch (1613-1673), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. 

“The City of Ephesus” by Sandra Glahn

Today, the city of Ephesus may be mostly ruins investigated by archaeologists and tourists. But at one time, it was the chief city of what we call Asia Minor. Rome made it the capital of the province of Asia, and it was an important center of religious worship of the goddess Diana or Artemis.  

Ephesus was also a significant setting for the Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys. In the Book of Acts, it’s known for a riot caused by silversmiths angered by Paul’s healing of a possessed slave girl, for Paul’s letter to the church there, and his farewell discussion with the Ephesian elders, the one in which he warned about the wolves devouring the lambs. Timothy ministered there.

 

Dr. Sandra Glahn, who’s written more than 20 books and aims to make research accessible, has written The City of Ephesus: A Short History, a concise, well-written account of the story of Ephesus, focusing on the period from 100 B.C. to 100 A.D. 

 

Glahn details the importance of the temple of Artemis. The goddess was believed to protect the city, women in childbirth, and even a protector of wealth, serving as something like a depository. People came, she writes, from Europe, Asia, and Egypt to pay homage. When Paul cast the demon from the slave girl, it didn’t take much for the girl’s owner, resenting the loss of income, to transfer his anxiety to the silversmiths who profited from the Artemis cult.

 

She details the social, political, and religious contexts for the city during the 200 years between 100 B.C. and 100 A.D. And then she briefly describes what happened to Ephesus after the time of Paul. 

Sandra Glahn

 

Glahn has published a number of Bible studies on the books of Jonah, Ruth, Judges, Esther, Song of Solomon, Malachi, Luke, Ephesians, Colossians, and Philippians; the letters to the seven churches in Revelation and the Sermon on the Mount; several books on women’s issues; and even novels. She had a column on Substack and her own blog. Her podcast on Youtube is called The Chick Report with Dr. Sandra Glahn. She also conducts student tours or workshops in Italy, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing.

 

The City of Ephesus isn’t an exhaustive study of the city and the times in which it flourished. But succeeds, and succeeds well, in its aim to provide a detailed overview. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Murders for June – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine.

 

Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House: A Redemptive, Modern Novel – Daniel Sundahl at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The 120^th Anniversary of Vauxhall Bridge – A London Inheritance.

 

The Stamp Act and the American Revolution – Kyler Burd at Journal of the American Revolution.

Some Monday Readings - May 18, 2026

A Realist Outline of History – Joseph Woodard at The Imaginative Conservative. 

Why Read? Reading, print culture & liberal democracy – Roosevelt Montas at Commonweal Magazine.

 

God vs. Machine: How to Handle the Rise of Religious Objections to AI in the Workplace – Kit Eaton at Inc. Magazine.

 

David Copperfield: A Hero Beside the Point – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

“Octopus’s Garden” – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know: Lord Byron’s Memoirs – Jason Clark at This Is the Day.

 

Case Study: 80-Year-Old Author Crushes It! – Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur.

 

“Language matters: On the media’s anti-American animus – The New Criterion.

 

Fuel for Another Disappointment – Terry Whalin at The Writing Life.

 

Consider the Small Town – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

St. Irenaeus on Christian Memory & Tradition – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

Painting: George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824).

I Grew Up in "One Hundred Years of Solitude"

I was sitting in a graduate seminar called “The Nature of Story.” About 20 of us, all in a Master of Liberal Arts program, sat at tables gathered in a U-configuration. We were discussing the first reading assignment, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  

This was not your typical graduate seminar. The program was designed for people who’d been out of college for a while, and we ranged in age from 30s to 70s. I was 35 at the time – and the youngest in the class. Professors tended to love these classes, and the university had a waiting list of teachers wanting to have a course in the program. We were not the kind of students they were used to; we’d all had life experiences, work experiences, and we tended to challenge the professor (and each other) more than not. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Prophecy,” poem by Elinor Wylie – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Lost Federico Garcia Lorca verse discovered 93 years after it was written – Sam Jones at The Guardian.

 

Ten Years Later – poem by David Whyte.

 

“George, Who Played with a Dangerous Toy, and Suffered a Catastrophe of Considerable Dimensions,” poem by Hillaire Belloc – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Seven Tips for Researching Family Heritage

When I was writing my historical novel Brookhaven, I initially relied upon two main sources – the records of births and deaths in the old family Bible, and the charts and genealogical lines in the Family Search web site. 

My ancestors in Mississippi served as the approximate inspiration for the McClure family in the novel. I borrowed many of the first names outright from the family Bible. I borrowed one name wholesale, to remind me of what I almost missed.

 

The Bible records mentioned the death of a Jarvis Seale in 1862. It didn’t mention birth, marriage, or anything else about the man. Some research in Family Search told me who he was – the husband of a great-great aunt. He was the only in-law included in the Bible records. The Family Search information only had the relationship reference and date of death. I still didn’t know what my great-grandfather had included him when others had been left out. Another web site, Find-A-Grave, showed his monument stone in a small-town cemetery in north Texas, which really made no sense.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: A page of records from the family Bible.

Saturday Good Reads – March 7, 2026

We know of several U.S. presidents who read poetry, but one in particular is known for his love of verse. And it won’t be a big surprise, given the man’s speeches. Marlena Figge at Society of Classical Poets has the story. 

We’ve visited Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, several times. It’s still rather amazing that this small town in mid-America became the site of one of the most famous speeches of the 20^th century. And now there’s a museum dedicated to the man who gave it, sitting below a church bombed during the London Blitz and reconstructed at the college. This week marked the 80^th anniversary of the Iron Curtain speech by Winston Churchill. John Rossi at the Imaginative Conservative has the story.

 

Maybe it’s because we live here, but I think we often forget the impact the American Revolution had on the world. And in many ways, it’s still having an impact. Naturalized American Richard Bell (he’s a native Brit) at American Heritagetakes a look at some of that impact in “They Turned the World Upside Down.” 

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph Ellis – review by Timothy Symington at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

“You express a Desire to become acquainted with our American Ladies” – Phill Greenwalt at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

When Some Americans First Lost Their Constitution – Ray Raphael at Journal of the American Revolution. 

 

The Fortress Washington Built Overnight – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

 “Remember, it is the fifth of March, a day ever to be forgotten; avenge the death of your brethren” – Rob Orrison at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Trumbull: Connecticut’s “Revolutionary” Governor –Andrew Fowler at Real Clear History.

 

British Stuff

 

The Treachery of Sr. George Downing – A London Inheritance.

 

Faith

 

A Perilous Salvation – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.

 

The Language of Joy: The Lure of Three Insatiable Letters – Ethan Jones at Front Porch Republic.

 

Walk Away from the Sea – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Still Got It: Authors Who Thrive as Super Agers – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

My Wife Read One of Admiral David Dixon Porter’s Romance Novels So You Don’t Have To – Neil Chatelain at Emerging Civil War.

 

Poetry

 

Atmosphere in Eight Lines – Maryann Corbett at New Verse Review.

 

“Water,” poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson and “A Musical Instrument,” poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Steingraber the Poet – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

 

Life and Culture

 

Welcoming the Shadow Brother – Mel Livatino at Front Porch Republic.

 

Light of World – We the Kingdom

Painting: Andreas Reading, oil on canvas by Edvard Munch (1863-1944).

Pass the Crawfish Étouffée and the Boiled Shrimp!

When I read Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in high school, I had no idea that I was not only reading one of his epic poems; I was also reading a fictionalized account of some of my own ancestry and history. 

Yes, I knew I had some French ancestry on my mother’s side, sitting side by side with some German as well. I didn’t know that the German had arrived relatively late, in the mid-nineteenth century, while the French had been there more than a century earlier. And I didn’t know that most of that French had come from Canada, in the maritime provinces collectively called Acadia. A tiny handful of my mother’s French ancestors had come directly from France.

 

I didn’t know that, at college football games, when I chanted “Hot boudin! Cold coosh coosh! Come on Tigers, poosh, poosh, poosh,” I was using words from my own ancestry. When I read A Cajun Night Before Christmas to my children, I never thought to ask why I could imitate the Cajun accent so well.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: Evangeline, a monument to the Acadians, St. Martinsville, La., via Wikipedia.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Elegy for a Tow Truck Driver – poem by James Matthew Wilson at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Tribes – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher.

 

“Portrait d’une Femme,” poem by Ezra Pound – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

A Worthy, Doomed Metaphysical Poet – David Deavel at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

“My Shadow,” poem by Robert Louis Stevenson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

“Avi Lanir: A Short Life Story” by Yael Yannay

Born in 1940 in what was then the British Mandate and what would become the state of Israel, Avi Lanir enjoyed only a short life. He died in 1973, tortured to death by the Syrians after he was captured during the Yom Kippur War. (“The Geneva Convention is for Europe, not here”). And yet he’s remembered as one of Israel’s most famous fighter pilots.

 

Author Yal Yannay had published a full biography of the man. But Avi Lanir – A Short Life Story: The Courage and Capture of an Israeli Fighter Pilot is not only a biography; it is also a history of Israel through 1973. And that’s because Lanir lived that history from his birth in 19340 to his death in 1973. Yannay also writes the story in the present tense, which places the reader right there in the midst of the narrative. 

She weaves a complex story. You move through the 1940s, when Lanir had family members and relatives involved in both fighting for the British and working in groups like the Irgun against the British. As a teen, Lanir’s father is given a diplomatic post in the United States, and his son’s experience was very different from peers in Israel. (When the family returned to Israel, Avi was the only one of his friends who had a driver’s license, for example.) 

 

Avi Lanir

Avi joined the military and specifically the Israeli air force. He not only loved his job; he was outstanding at it. He gradually became a squadron leader. He fought through the Six Day War in 1967, the three-year War of Attrition that followed, and then the Yom Kippur War in 1973. What becomes clear as you read is that Israel is never really not at war. Not during the lifetime of Avi Lanir, and not now.

 

Yannay, an author, writer, editor, and lexicographer, has done extensive research on Avi’s life. That includes ancestors, in-depth descriptions of military procedures and operations, and interviews with family members, including his widow, son, and daughter. What emerges is a complex man with both nerve and courage. 

 

After his capture, some were concerned that the Syrians would realize just how much the pilot knew; it could have materially harmed Israel’s military defense. But those who knew him weren’t worried; they knew that Avi was one man who wouldn’t break. And they were right, no matter what torture methods were employed. The state of his body when it was returned showed just how horrific the torture was.

 

Avi Lanir – A Short Life Story is a remarkable account of a courageous man, and a story of how a country can always be at war.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

The Exhibition of Industrial Power and London Archaeology – A London Inheritance. 

“The Good Riddle,” poem by G.K. Chesterton – Malcolm Guite. 

"Forgotten Churches" by Luke Sherlock

When we’ve gone to England, we’ve always made sure to visit churches and church buildings, because it is in these buildings where history comes alive. 

All Hallows by the Tower is likely overlooked by most visitors, but it shouldn’t be. You follow the short walking tour, and you discover the window blown out during the Blitz, the Saxon arch, the Roman cobblestones, and even the Tower from which Admiral Penn (William’s father) stood with Samuel Pepys and watched the great Fire of London in 1666. Or St. Bride’s on Fleet Street, the “Journalists church,” rebuilt after World War II to Sir. Christopher Wren’s original design, including the famous steeple which has inspired wedding cakes the world over.

 

The churches of London aren’t only Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral. And you can’t go anywhere in England without coming across a church, even in the smallest hamlets that you pass and see from the train window. More than 12,500 are listed by Historic England, not all still functioning churches but still serving a function. 

It is these churches that are the focus of Forgotten Churches: Exploring England’s Hidden Treasures by Luke Sherlock. Churches are something of a serious avocation for Sherlock, who has visited them all over England. They tell the story of England’s past; one day, they might tell of it future. 

 

Sherlock considers the past of these churches; many of them date back to Anglo-Saxon and late medieval times.  But he also looks their architecture, their current uses, unique characteristics, and people associated with them. Most of them can only be reached by automobile; Sherlock often took trains, caught taxis, or just walked to visit them. The 71 churches he describes speak mostly to town and village life, as well as the very different times when they were built. 

 

Each entry is relatively short; Sherlock doesn’t give you every fact and figure or tell the full, complete history of each church. Yet he writes with respect and almost reverently; he knows what these churches represent, and he is ever mindful of the place they occupy in England’s history. 

 

Five of the churches are in London; I’ve visited two of them. 

 

The Round Tower of Temple Church

The Temple Church was largely destroyed during the Blitz in World War II, but it was beautifully and faithfully reconstructed. The tombs of knights are in the entrance of the nave area, entered after you walk through the church’s domed round tower. The church dates to 1162, and it was here that the Magna Carta was negotiated. It’s considered to be the birthplace of American law as well. The church’s round tower is modelled after that of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem; the Knights Templar intended it to be a “recreation of the holiest Christian pilgrimage sites on English soil,” Sherlock says.

 

St. John’s Chapel is in the White Tower of the Tower of London. I’d first seen n in 1983; forty years passed before I saw it again, this time with my youngest son. Commissioned by Wiliam the Conqueror “as the spiritual heart of his glistening, domineering White Tower,” Sherlock writes, it was “eccelesiastical architecture to make a statement.” When you’ve seen the big cathedrals and abbeys and even some of the more recent churches, St. John’s Chapel seems almost austere, stripped bare of all the ornaments, stained glass, and decorations. 

 

Luke Sherlock

Sherlock is a writer and owner of Sherlock & Pages, a bookshop in Frome, Somerset in England. He has a passion for landscape, heritage, and art. He reports (and photographs) his travels across England on Instagram under @englishpilgrim. 

 

You might expect Forgotten Churches to be an oversized, coffee-table took with lavish photographs. But it is 6 ½ by 8 ½ inches, and instead of photographs, it is fully illustrated with beautiful drawings by Ioana Pioaru, in keeping with the book’s reverent tone. It’s not intended to be a travel guide; you’ll need to look up your own directions to reach the various churches. Instead, it is a lovely collection of responses and reactions to some of England’s most visible (and oldest) architecture.

Top photograph: St. John's Chapel, White Tower, Tower of London.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

The Switch and the Clore: Modern Extensions to Tate Modern, Tate Britain and the Holbourne – Andrew Eberlin at Photos, photographers and photobooks.

 

The Great American Travel Book – Thomas Swick at The American Scholar.

 

Worse than woke, Smithsonian art is bad – Gage Klipper at The Spectator World.

 

“Songs My Mother Taught Me,” by Antonin Dvorak – Debra Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Return of the Family Doctor – Brewer Eberly at Plough Magazine.