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John
displays the new brass and wood altar rail he has made for St.
Hilary's
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John shows the altar rail here with the centre
bar removed. This will be very useful as we evolve new storylines
for our "Sunday School children" and "congregation".
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We were most thrilled to be approached by David Bridgeman-Sutton who writes a page per month for
the New Zealand website www.nzorgan.com
about the possibility of them using our miniature pipe organ for a
competition on their website. Naturally we agreed to their request
immediately! The competition included four photographs, five of
which were genuine full size pipe organs and one was of our miniature
organ. People were invited to identify which was the 1/12 scale
miniature. Only ONE person chose right! Find out more by
visiting the puzzle page on this website here.
Thanks to Jenny Baxter(the
webmistress) and David Bridgeman-Sutton for featuring our miniature
organ and providing a link to our website - much appreciated!
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We were most thrilled to have further
contact with Christiane Berridge, the editor of The
Dollshouse Magazine a few months ago letting us know that
she very much wished to put an update on our St. Hilary's Miniature
Website in one of her magazine editions. We are now delighted to
tell you that we have been given a super three page spread as a
"feature" in the October 2007 edition which was released for
sale on 6th September 2007. Anyone wishing to buy it whilst it is
available will usually find copies of this magazine in the stationer, WH
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We have always wanted a proper two manual
pipe organ for St. Hilary's Miniature Church. It was with great joy
that we were able to commission John Cheal to complete this task for
us. He has now finished the project and we went to his home on 6th
January 2007 to collect the organ. It is based on the actual two
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John is seen here posing with
his creation. He has even created some miniature music based on a
real score too. Notice that he also has given us a hymn book that
can either be open or closed on the music stand.
For the musical amongst you, the organ piece is actually "Priere"
by Langlais. The hymn book is "Ancient and Modern,
Revised".
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The organ is seen in John's home here complete
with some of our St. Hilary's characters. Amelia is
"playing" the organ whilst Miss Esther, Adele and Ambrose are
looking on.
To see more of this little organ and John's other model work visit his
website, www.savedintime.co.uk
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We were lucky enough to meet Dave and Lil Taylor
at the Rugby Miniatures Show held in The Holiday Inn, near
Rugby, on Saturday 14th October 2006 in order to raise funds for the Alzheimers
Society. Dave and Lil are now retired. Dave has made
full sized cameras earlier on in life so it was natural that he should
decide to start making miniature 1/12 scale ones for dollshouses in his
retirement. He, together with his wife, are members of the Rugby
Miniatures Club alongside Catherine Davies who is my, Sarah's sister.
I, Sarah, had unfortunately broken the strap of the miniature SLR
camera he made for us whilst putting it over our doll, Tom's head.
Dave was kind enough to not only repair it but to also attach a longer
strap on to the camera so that it would go more easily over all of our
dolls' heads. Thanks Dave! |
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Dave seen here holding one of his model SLR cameras for us!
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Notice the scale and detail of this tiny
camera as I photograph the camera close up on Dave's hand!
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We
have been thrilled that St Hilary's Miniature Church has
generated so much interest in the media both in the UK and, most
recently, in the USA as well.
We were VERY
excited to be asked if we would like our little church and community to appear
in "The Dollshouse Magazine". People can see the original request made
by Christiane, on our
guestbook. We were, therefore, delighted to be
interviewed by Karen Bamfield on the phone for what, so my (Sarah) mother
in law told me, was 1.15 hours whilst we were visiting her and Dad a few months
ago. The article was published in the "At Home" section of the
magazine in their September 2005 edition published on the 4th August 2005.
The article spanned SIX pages complete with narrative and photographs.
Many thanks to Karen for doing a most wonderful job. She didn't miss
anything out and, most importantly, captured the very essence of our St Hilary's
Church and our ministry on the internet via this website.
Penny Herbst, a member
of the senior staff of the American magazine, "Dollhouse
Miniatures Magazine" recently approached us with the intention of
featuring St Hilary's Miniature Church. Naturally we were
delighted for a second magazine to show such an interest in this, our
most special project in memory and honour of my mother, the late Hilary
Davies. Many many thanks to Penny who has enthused so greatly
over our project. We have exchanged many emails and I have
answered many questions posed to me by Penny. We pay tribute to her for her dedication, interest,
enthusiasm and personal attention in this task.
For those of you in the United States who may be interested we
understand that the article appeared in the February 2006 edition.
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Our porcelain doll,
"Emily" is one of our original Sunday School
children. She is particularly special to us because she was chosen by
the late Hilary Davies to join her Jane Davies' doll collection that had
pride of place in her Welsh cabinet in the hallway of her home.
Imagine, therefore, my, Sarah's horror, when I accidentally dropped her on
the floor. I was particularly unfortunate in not only dropping her,
but in the process, ensuring her leg hit part of the MDF framework of the
church and breaking off.
Fortunately Jane Davies, the maker of "Emily" was only too pleased
to have me send her back for repair. Jane had to advise me that she
would have to make her a new body, arms and legs but the original head would
remain the same. "Emily" would still have to have a new hair
style since the old hair would have to be removed in the process of rewiring
the doll.
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| Stephanie
poses with our Rev Ponsenby-Smyth now resplendent in his new
surplice WITH lace. Stephanie (first cousin of Sarah's) is an
experienced dress maker and was delighted to "frock" our
vicar!
Our lucky vicar received this from Stephanie
on Thursday 1st September 2005.
The pattern was taken from the dollshouse magazine,
"Dollshouse World" magazine and is by Sue Harrington.
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| Rev P poses
in front of the books on the bookshelf in Steph's home.
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| On
Friday, 2nd September 2005 we officially received an
amazing addition to St Hilary's Miniature Church.
John Cheal, an experienced model maker, agreed to make us a 1/12
scale replica of the brass eagle lectern in Holy Trinity Church,
Stratford upon Avon where he is a parishioner.
John arranged for me (Sarah) to officially receive this wonderful
solid brass lectern in front of the full sized original in Holy Trinity
Church. John can be seen here in a poster within the church itself
on a pillar opposite the full size lectern posing with his 1/12 scale
model.
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| John is
holding the scale model and much of the detail of his work can be
seen. He actually carved this out of solid brass! The
feathering can clearly be seen on the wings of the eagle.
(Many thanks to Jan Craven for allowing
us to use this, her photograph, to demonstrate the amazing detail
of this model)
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| The
original full size eagle lectern can be seen here contrasting with
the 1/12 scale model on a pew behind. Our St Hilary's vicar was
pleased to receive this lectern and can be seen posing next to it!
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| Reverend
Gyles Ponsenby-Smyth is VERY proudly posing here in front of his new
lectern complete with a gold leaf bible which is open at Psalm 139.
It is just as well that he had only just received his new surplice on
the day before wasn't it?
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| Alice
poses on a special box made for her and the children by
John.
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| John poses with me,
Sarah for the myriads of photographers that were with us for this
occasion.
Even the local free press arrived in the form of "The
Observer" and took loads of photos!
Photos were also taken for the church magazine which will feature
this amazing occasion.
I don't think my cheek muscles had ached so much from prolonged
laughing and smiling since Andrew and I had got married!
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| Andrew joined me for a
final pose taken for us using our camera by Jan Craven. Thanks Jan
- a great job well done! Top |
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