Tag: London churches

Christian Aid Sponsored Walk – London Churches – 2007

Christian Aid Sponsored Walk – London Churches: Soon after we moved to our present address in 1974, Linda took over as Christian Aid organiser for the area, only retiring from this in recent months. Over the years she has gone on a number of sponsored walks for them and some related organisations as well as organising some in our area.

I’ve often walked with her on these, as well as sometimes sponsoring her, largely to keep her company, but sometimes to make sure she didn’t get lost despite the clear maps given to walkers and the large numbers of people following the walks. But also because the routes took you to and past some interesting places and sometimes into churches or areas of them seldom open to the public.

Although I have had a great interest in architecture I’ve never had a great interest in photographing church interiors, partly because they have been so much photographed by others, and the photographs I made on these walks were very much pictures on my days off. Often I carried very little equipment, though Sunday 20 May, 2007 was something of an exception as together with my Nikon D200 I had Nikon wide and telephoto zooms and a fisheye.

On My London Diary you can see over a hundred pictures I made on the walk, some of very well known and much photographed parts of the City of London, others less so. There are captions identifying most on those pages, but here I’ll post them without them – and just a couple of clues to the more difficult.

The plaque marks where Dositey Obradovich, first Serbian Minister of Education lived in London in 1784
The bird a pelican, though to me it looked like a swan.

If you can name all these I’ve posted above, you must surely be a certified London Green Badge Guide – and I think anything over half shows a fairly intimate knowledge of the City. I think all the answers are in my post on My London Diary at Christian Aid walk – London churches.

And finally, one I can’t remember where I found it – perhaps someone can tell me in a comment.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Christian Aid Circle The City 2009

Christian Aid Circle The City: This week every year is Christian Aid Week, when thousands of people engage in various activities to raise money for the work of this charity in the majority world. These include people trudging the streets of towns and cities delivering and then collecting gift envelopes, tea parties, sponsored walks and many other activities which to raise money.

Christian Aid is a charity embodying Christian principles but its support goes to people and grass roots organisations in many countries in the global south, many not Christian. It states it “exists to create a world where everyone can live a full life, free from poverty” and in 2021-2 helped 1.4 million people through its programmes. It provides humanitarian aid in emergencies but also runs many projects, particularly with women and promoting women’s rights and supporting the poorest and marginalised people.

Their web site lists the 25 countries in which they are currently active, working with local people and partner organisations – Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominican Republisk, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iraq, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi, Myanmar (Burma), Nicaragua, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Syria, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Although I think they are a very worthwhile charity I’ve long supported others which work in similar ways but my wife is a local Christian Aid organiser and I’ve supported her in this work – including this year helping with a sponsored walk around the churches in our own area.

For a number of years she took part in an annual sponsored walk around the City of London, Christian Aid’s ‘Circle the City‘ a fund-raising sponsored stroll from church to church to church in the city. And often I went with her to keep her company and make sure she didn’t get lost. Of course I took a camera with me and took a few pictures, mainly of the many Wren churches we visited on the route. But in 2009 I decided to photograph it a little more seriously.

The pictures here are all from the walk on Sunday 17 May, 2009, and this is the post I made on My London Diary about it.

Sunday afternoon I followed a woman with a red balloon on a six mile (10 km) trail around the city, or rather two cities of London and Southwark, which led us to around 30 different ritual locations. We gained access to many of these and in several were offered drinks and food.

It was Christian Aid’s ‘Circle the City’ a fund-raising sponsored stroll from church to church to church… the woman was rather well known to me and all I got to drink was tea, coffee and lemon squash, though the asparagus quiche at All Hallows by the Tower was delicious.

In the course of our walk we got to see – if only rather briefly – the interiors of some of Wren’s finest, and one or two by other architects. And the event at the end of Christian Aid Week had raised a considerable amount for the projects that Christian Aid supports in the majority world.

More pictures from the walk and captions on My London Diary at Circle the City: Christian Aid.

If you don’t get a collector calling this week you can still make a donation to this worthwhile charity online at the Christian Aid web site. And of course donations are welcome at other times too, so if you are reading this later you can still support their work.