Epiphany.

 St Oswold's Church. Guiseley. Where Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell got married on December 29  1912. They were married by their friend  Reverand William Morgan.

Epiphany. I got there eventually. I am very late. Better late than not at all. We stopped off at this church in Guiseley so that I could take photos of the spring Daffodils on a beautiful summer/spring day. Well it was yesterday.!
I was walking quickly around just snapping away...I noted these chalk marks on the church doors.

Epiphany!!! A blessing. Christus mansionem benedicat,......which means May christ bless this house.

so this chalk thing had been on this door for a while. mind you I have not been to this church for a long while either. we were passing on the way to buying lunch.

the chalk pattern is this......20+C+M+B +18..... the numbers refer to the calendar year  and the  crosses stand for christ. and the letters have a two fold meaning..... the latin for bless this house as above and intitials for the Magi. Caspar Melchior and Bathasar.

the christian custom of chalking the door is a biblical precedent as the isralites  .
in the old testament marked their doors in order to be saved from death. it is now a christian practice to protect from evil spirits. and to invite the presence of god inside.

Did you know all this? well I did not. and I supose I should. but hey. I do now. I thought it was "just something weird" that someone had graphittied the door. So what do I know? not a lot. I just went to photograph the daffodils!!!

This is a fave church. I do not go here enough. we drive by alot!!! obviously as I would have seen the chalks before. It is where Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell. that is why I went there in the first place.

The wedding day was infact a tripple wedding all planned to co-inside. ......

Maria Branwell was the eigth child out of twelve born to Thomas Branwell and Anne Carne in Penzance, Cornwall. Thomas was a sucessful merchant and a prominent Methodist.
Maria met Patrick in 1812 when visiting her uncle John Fennell and her aunt Jane. Maria moved to Yorkshire to help at a new Methodist training school. This became Woodhouse Grove school in Rawdon. (I went to a local methodist school and we had "dances" at this school back in the 1970s!!!!)
This school was opened for the sons of Methodist ministers and John Fennell became the headmaster.

He invited Patrick Brontë to be an invigilator for exams. He met Maria. Fell instantly in love and they married after a very short courtship.

They were married on the same day and time in Madron cornwall. Charlotte who was Maria's younger sister married their cousin  Joseph branwell.....also on the same day John fennells daughter married too.

So as we know. This did not turn out too well in the end. A lot of tragedy followed. Maria's daughter's became some of the greatest novelists ever but  very odd people with tragic ends.
Charlotte grew into a spiteful ugly woman who hated children, eventually married but died shortly afterwards. Emily was an antisocial vitriolic sometimes violent shrew  who wrote Wuthering heights. She is my favourite of the sisters though she did beat up her dog and left it blind in one eye with brain damage.....and of course we have brother Branwell. A really bad artist who became a total addict and violent drunk. Though I am guessing his sisters could give it back quite adequately. Anne the quiet one who died in Scarborough. We will never know if she was as great a writer as Charlotte because Charlotte destroyed a lot of her sisters works after their deaths to make herself look better.

So that is it for this sunday. Epiphany it is then.

Sunday night. Having spent the day with the general public. just reading this back now. It sounds like I do not like the Brontes. Well as people no. they were not very nice were they?
My fave novels of all time are Wuthering heights  Lord of the rings  and The great Gatsby.

Other books I love are Jane Eyre ,  Shirley . Tenant of wildfell hall.
I love to visit Howarth  and houses associated with the Brontes. I am fasinated by the sad sad story of their lives. but lets not get too romantic about it all. they were horrible people.