A Jewel in the Crown of the Churches Conservation Trust

Hi folks,

Yesterday we visited St Catherine's Church, Kingsdown, Kent, the literature suggested that it was "A secret gem hidden deep in country lanes", it took a while to find  but it was really worth it. This is a late church not built until 1865 at a cost of £7,000 including the parsonage house and gardens. The church was isolated from its parishioners by the building of the M2 motorway and suffered damage in the great storm of 1987.  In 1989 the repairs were made by the Redundant Churches Fund now called the Churches Conservation Trust. The church now stands on its own in the countryside.

The rear of the nave is the great west window with the font below.

The best window is the East Chancel window with its wonderful secret.

The north and south chancel windows are Victorian and had gold added to the red glass in the manufacturing process.

As you can see the light floods in to the chancel.

On the day we visited the light kept altering causing various shades of red giving this sacred glow.

Lastly a close up of the altar with the ten commandments written on the rear panels 

I have not finished with this church and will return with some more details and history later.

I must give my thanks to my loving wife who spent a long time masking out the windows to give them the quality they deserve and not allowing them to be overexposed as would have been the case with standard photography. Each window shown was taken at different exposures on a tripod and using a layer mask blended to give effect as from the eye, in shots 2 and 5 in particular.  There are other ways of achieving this but we find this the most successful.

Regards, Mike.