AS Britain’s oldest purpose-built synagogue still in use, Bevis Marks has a unique place in Jewish history (Fig 1). It is known as the ‘great old Cathedral synagogue’ and the inscription over its entrance gives its Hebrew name as the ‘Holy Congregation The Gate of Heaven’. But it is generally known by the name of the City of London street on which it stands, historically held by the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds with the name Bevis Marks—recorded as ‘Bewesmerkes’ in 1407.
Hidden from the street, Bevis Marks synagogue stands very much as it was completed in 1701—although much has changed around it and, sad to report, new development proposals on Creechurch Lane and Bury Street threaten to overshadow it. The synagogue was designed in an architectural style that echoes the Anglican churches built by the Wren office during the 1670s and 1680s. It was built for the Sephardi community; Jewish peoples and their descendants, who lived on the Iberian peninsula until they were expelled by the Spanish monarchs in 1492, making the Sephardi distinct from the Ashkenazi communities of German, French, Polish, Eastern European and Russian descent. The synagogue remains one of the places of worship associated with the Sephardi S&P (Spanish and Portuguese) community, in addition to the 1896 neo-Byzantine synagogue on Lauderdale Road in Maida Vale; Bevis Marks is also much valued by the wider Jewish world.
Denne historien er fra September 08, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra September 08, 2021-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
