Thank you to our Crowdfunder supporters who raised £2000 during our four week campaign! Further very generous donations from two local benefactors brings our total to just over £5000, so along with funding from The Pilgrim Trust, this means conservation work can begin in The Guild Chapel in the early part of next year.
As you may be aware, there was a shortfall in funding that would have meant we might not have been able to explore the one area in the Guild Chapel that remains a mystery to us, the medieval wall-painting hidden from sight since the early-nineteenth century. The mystery painting, was recorded by the antiquarian, Thomas Fisher, in 1804, when some of the wall-paintings were first rediscovered. Fisher didn’t identify the image, but other early commentators suggested it might represent one of the Seven Deadly Sins, a recurring theme in the Chapel’s wall-paintings – pride, perhaps, or avarice? Then, in 1988, the well-known wall-paintings expert, Clifford Davidson, suggested the painting might be the Whore of Babylon, a personification of evil; the text is fragmentary, but one of the scrolls appears to contain the word ‘Babylonis’.
We can’t wait to see what’s hidden behind the panelling – watch this space for updates!