Post-remembrance

In the West window of Sapperton Church stands a fine arrangement of poppies, which would be lost against stained glass. Yesterday I was there showing Dido round the local Arts and Crafts connections - they were new to her. Beforehand, we had a brisk walk up the valley from Duntisbourne Abbotts - a little too brisk (and far) for Murphy's short legs: to get him back to Long Ford he had to be put on the trip-me-up.

Painswick

"We are only here for the Beer," we might have said this afternoon. But not quite.

The focus for the Painswick meet-up of members of our book group was John Beer's newly-opened Arts & Crafts Museum, in Gloucester Street: it's housed in the former Christ Church, a square 19th Century building, with a fine Morris & Co. stained glass window at the "East" end, which Beer told us was one of the attractions to his securing the place.

He has been amassing Arts & Crafts (and associated) work over many decades. We first caught a glimpse of it - and him - when we looked over his beautiful but crumbling former home in Priory Street here in Cheltenham in 1994. Caroline was keen to buy it: I less so. The collection has since grown considerably - Pugin, Lutyens, Morris, Gimson, Barnsley, Waals, Russell... It must be among the finest in private hands. But the chief attraction of a visit is John Beer's extremely knowledgeable commentary about all aspects of the work he loves, with many red herrings thrown in for good measure. No pains are too great for tracking down the provenance of a Tiffany chair or extra large, curved walnut table (the BBC).

From the end of this month, the Ashton Beer Collection is only open on Sunday afternoons, over the Winter months: well worth discovering.

Over lunch, we enjoyed discussing The Great Gatsby. I'm sure I have read it before, but it seemed almost a new book - some of it like blank verse, much de nos jours, and altogether gratifyingly brief.

Coberley bubbly

As last week, we were today only three Wednesday walkers. Though the sun was shining in Cheltenham, we hit the mist as we drove up Leckhampton Hill: it cleared as the morning went on. Happily, we were at lunch (at the Star Bistro) before it started raining much.

After climbing half a mile or so along the Cotswold Way, we swung down South of Hartley Farm and along its secret valley. Crossing the A436, our peace was shattered: my "Stay!" was heard as "Okay!", with near fatal consequences.

Having admired the Berkeley tombs in Coberley church, we found ourselves sitting down in the porch. Whereupon a bottle and glasses were conjured up, so we could drink to the health of a birthday-boy walker. A nice surprise, this convention, to me as a relative newcomer to the group!

As my photograph shows, the stained glass in front of which we sat was appropriate to the occasion: Arts and Crafts-looking, but in fact late 20th Century.

Glenfallen

For over two decades, Glenfall House operated as the Gloucester Diocesan retreat centre. A month ago, it closed its doors. I am sad about this, having been closely involved with Glenfall from the '80s until a while after the retreat house opened.

I remember particularly the opening ceremonies on 27th June 1992, with a Eucharist presided over by Gloucester's short-lived Bishop Peter on the sunny terrace in front of the house, the gardens falling away towards fields below, full of ancient oak trees. Nuns of the Society of St Peter had been there before, and I have the memory of a frail Sister Mary Margaret, delighted to be back at her former convent home and sitting on a bench eating strawberries and cream. It's disconcerting that this comes back so clearly, at a time when I now find myself putting the red wine away in the fridge.

Before the nuns, Glenfall was the home of Mary Williams and her farmer son Anthony: they hosted the occasional Old Amplefordian gathering there, which I organised shortly after arriving in Gloucestershire in 1973. The early 19th Century villa had been radically altered a century later, with beer money. Arts and Crafts plasterwork (Peter Waals), woodwork (Sidney Barnsley) and metalwork (Norman Jewson) is to be seen both inside and out. The arch of a Cotswold stone garden grotto is echoed by Jewson's field gate, which I walked past today, at the Southern extremity of the surrounding estate.

Edgar, Patrick, Martin and I had met near Sainsbury's at 9:30 and set off parallel to Harp Hill on a misty but warm morning. I had the idea that it was possible to walk right up part of the eponymous glen (deep and steep), but we ended up just crossing it on a rickety bridge.

Though the grounds seem to be well tended, the house itself looks sadly abandoned, with plasterwork in need of repair. Just beyond the drive's iron railings, a hawk was dismembering some creature larger than itself: a bird of prey, where once there had been birds of pray.

Birmingham

Yesterday, my book group met in the salubrious surroundings of the Birmingham Art Gallery & Museum restaurant. Not the hautest cuisine, but adequate: we missed our usual pints of bitter. Breaking with tradition, we discussed The Book over lunch, rather than tea. It was the sequel to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall: Bring up the bodies didn't grab all of us as firmly as it did me, but we seemed to agree that it was worth looking at. Shall I buy volume 3 when it appears? Probably.

Why Birmingham? Because Peter, our newest member, is full of enthusiasm for its examples of Arts & Crafts architecture. So, after we'd looked round some of the galleries and finished our book discussion, he led us down Edmund Street, Margaret Street, Newhall Street and Colmore Row, ending up at St Philip's.

Having admired the late Burne-Joneses there, we went across to St Martin's to look at the very different earlier window by him, saved by a whisker from destruction in World War II.

My companions were taken aback by Selfridge's, hovering over the Bull Ring, but even more by the new Library, to be opened next September, but now already dominating the East end of Broad Street. For my part, the excitement was this (photographed) new kinetic installation in the oculus of the Museum's new History Gallery - by Keiko Mukaide and Ronnie Watt: it was unveiled earlier this year. And whose is the amazing stained glass window on the stairs behind it, without any label?

"She could be tricky"

This stained glass portrayal of Chipping Campden church by Henry Payne is a detail in the magnificent East window he made for the church itself 85 years ago. It symbolises Chipping Campden as a focus of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Twelve years earlier, a life commenced which a goodly number came together to celebrate yesterday afternoon in that church: Peggy Nelson had died aged 97.

When someone has attained that age, funereal faces are hardly necessary, and indeed my ears were met by a merry buzz (more like you hear before a wedding) as I entered the church. My task was to represent the family: the Nelsons (who ran Arden House, a prep school near where we lived, in Warwickshire) were old and firm friends of my parents, and Peggy had taught my sisters French at the pre-prep next door, Hurst House, a school I too attended for a year. It astonished me how many Arden House school ties were in evidence yesterday, showing the devotion which Peggy had engendered. Victoria Checksfield, in her address, brought her mother to life with a combination of masterly objectivity and the deepest affection: we all wanted to clap, but that wouldn't have been British.

In the 57 years since I left Hurst House, I don't suppose I had given the three form teachers a second thought. At that age I imagined them to be already old people, yet I learnt yesterday that not only were two of them still alive, but one was there. And so it was that I reminisced with Miss Jones, whose face I recalled clearly as soon as we were introduced, how she took us to look at the bluebells in Mayswood.

Most of those I met up with I shall never see again. None of them learnt anything about me as an adult; nor I hardly a thing about them: they were names and faces, with which I was making a fleeting reconnection. But somehow, the Spring sunshine pouring into St James' Church, it was not inconsequential.

"Prinknash treasures"

This is the title of a loan exhibition at Simon Chorley Art & Antiques, Prinknash Abbey Park. You can only catch it until 14th August though. I recommend a visit.

It was news to me that the monks of Prinknash, always rather a low-key bunch as I perceived them, possessed so many beautiful objects. But a number of the monks have been - indeed are - artists, with friends and patrons who have acted as benefactors over the years. One member of the Community (a noted potter and stone carver) was the son of the cartoonist Heath Robinson: three of his delightful paintings featuring the monks are exhibited.

Moreover, the founder of the community at Prinknash itself was it seems a devotee of the Arts & Crafts Movement. This lovely Madonna and child on marble is by Eric Gill: I loved seeing traces of the censoring hand (shades of Silvio Berlusconi's Tiepolo) which applied the masking tape to Mary's right nipple!

Gill was also responsible for the rather severe drawing of the first Abbot of Prinknash, Wilfred Upson - left, below: Abbot Wilfred seems a little less daunting in William Rothenstein's seated portrait (right, below).

The tape residue and the crack across the Eric Gill tableau say much about the state of the "Treasures". Tender love and care has at some stages perhaps been in short measure; jewel-encrusted chalices could do with a polish, and if the caption wordings were expanded, that would assist those less familiar with the whys and wherefores of ecclesiastical hardware. The current Benedictine Yearbook lists only nine priests at the Abbey now, which must be part of the explanation. And anyway today's monks might have other priorities than to spend all their time maintaining the ornaments of a past era - which ties in with the substance of my controversial post of last Monday.

Nevertheless, there is a great deal to surprise and admire. For a Monday morning, the exhibition room was pleasantly full. Had the show been mounted - as well it could have been - by the V&A, thousands - rather than dozens - would have been delighted through paying a visit. There is still time!

Thanks to Simon Chorley's generosity, all proceeds from the exhibition go to the NSPCC.