Gretel le Maître 🐘
banner
gretellemaitre.bsky.social
Gretel le Maître 🐘
@gretellemaitre.bsky.social
Trying to be kind. Church and old buildings explorer; love words, cricket, history, theatre, books, art, music, nature, birds, manuscripts. 😊 Only here for gentle stuff.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2412300/episodes/16064942
Pinned
Maundy Thursday at Sherborne Abbey.
In the mizzle this afternoon I spend a happy hour in this 12th century church, St Nicholas, atop a grassy hill in the unfindable parts of Somerset…
November 27, 2025 at 11:49 PM
St Gregory’s Church, Marnhull, after most of the lights were switched off yesterday and I was left to feel the centuries’ old aura, toute seule. 😊
November 27, 2025 at 1:06 AM
I recommend gushingly the wonderful Radio 3 Unwind. It’s a channel in its own right and it is beautiful company 24 hours a day. Night night 🍁

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Radio 3 Unwind - Listen Live - BBC Sounds
Listen live to Radio 3 Unwind on BBC Sounds
www.bbc.co.uk
November 27, 2025 at 12:29 AM
St Gregory’s 14th c grotesque with wide nostrils and eyes, looking north to keep watch?
November 26, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Mr Katt says goodnight 😴☺️
November 25, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Alms bag from 1640. St Gregory’s, Marnhull. An absolute gem. ☺️
November 25, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Marnhull, like many places in the medieval times, had a leper hospital, from which they walked to the church and assembled in this area, to be close to the alter and to receive alms through the hole through which a hand could pass.
November 25, 2025 at 10:34 PM
The spot, at the edge of the northern point of St Gregory’s Church, where an unmarried mother might secretly bury her dead baby.

Marnhull (or Marlott in Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbevilles), Dorset, today.
November 25, 2025 at 10:23 PM
‘The hills are open, the sun blazes down upon fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape’ T Hardy
November 25, 2025 at 9:51 PM
The Blackmore Vale: the main character in today’s podcast episode. Beloved by Thomas Hardy, and those of us who have lost our heart to it.
November 25, 2025 at 9:41 PM
St Gregory’s, Marnhull, is one of the best-preserved late-medieval Perpendicular churches in North Dorset. The lovely tower, a confident 15th-century design with crisp vertical lines, with a touch of Victorian restoration. The core of the church is 12th -15th century. Lots of gentle later gothic.
November 25, 2025 at 9:31 PM
The cosy, snug, secretive aura of a cloister, quad or courtyard. This is Sherborne School but mostly here medieval monastic buildings, smugly adjacent to the Abbey.
November 24, 2025 at 12:41 AM
A different world on the other side?
Alice decided to see for herself…
November 24, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Hello, a free and easy (no-ads) listen to today’s catch up with George Eliot, Saints Wilfrid and Eadmund; and Wulf & Eadwacer.

‘Our Fate is Forked’

www.buzzsprout.com/2412300/epis...
November 23, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Walking down Amors Barton, Bruton, with the Somerset hills beyond.
November 22, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Sherborne School courts.
November 22, 2025 at 12:15 AM
Sherborne School today, with the Abbey’s west window coming into view.
November 22, 2025 at 12:08 AM
The tucked away grassy quad in the old grounds of Sherborne’s Abbey. Now Sherborne School.
November 21, 2025 at 11:55 PM
It’s hard to see where the medieval blends with the 1800s in the buildings of Sherborne School. A Ham Stone feast!
November 21, 2025 at 9:14 PM
The ancient grounds of the monastery in Sherborne. Abbey to the south and clear stream (Scire bourne) running from behind us and to the left.
November 21, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Rev Amos Barton’s birthplace? This is Bruton, Somerset this morning.
November 20, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Some winter Jasmine in the sun yesterday. A lovely eyeful of colour.
November 20, 2025 at 10:13 AM
St Candida’s decorated gothic windows, and later crenellations to give it a little bit of style. It’s not my cup of tea entirely, but the warm stone and attractive porch steps all combine to make a lovely view. Particularly stunning lit at night, set in a deep dimple in the countryside.
November 19, 2025 at 1:24 PM