Pathways to the Past is a project exploring the lives of early settlers in Lyminge and that of Queen Ethelburga, aunt of St Eansythe of Folkestone, both members of a group of powerful royal Kentish women living 1,400 years ago.
Pathways are conversations between spaces undertaken on foot. Our ancient sacred spaces are “thin places”, reaching through and beyond the everyday. Religion – from the Latin re-ligare to reconnect – helps us to join with the flow of life. Art too brings us together.
The artists have each made a work that opens a conversation pathway between the past and the present, the natural world and our constructed world, within our own consciousness and with each other. This installation invites us to join that conversation.
This art installation is part of a much bigger multi-faceted project that has been supported by many bodies including the Roger De Haan Charitable Trust, which contributed towards the implementation of step-free access to our 1,000 year old church.
“The Two Saints are a presence rather than real figures…more spiritual than physical…more about ‘faith’ than reality…timeless...both local and universal, intimate and vast…[the piece] depicts great damage and the possibility of healing…[and the figures] suggest we hold the future of our beautiful, damaged planet in our hands.” - Helen Lindon
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“Eternal Source…celebrates…the Nail Bourne, the river that rises in Lyminge, and its journey from source to sea…[it] is made to reflect our time, yet [to] exist comfortably, forever within the church context.” - Katharine Beaugié . Light sculptor Kate Beaugié, who lives in Folketsone with her studio in Dover, has combined the modern technology of LIDAR with late medieval panel painting techniques to create a contemporary icon in honour of the Nail Bourne, as it's course comes out under the church in Lyminge, with the dimensions reflecting the height and width of a woman to echo the memory of St. Ethelburga and Eadburg.
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“Sited [to] be a focus of contemplation and prayer, open and hospitable to those of all faiths and none, Monument to Ethelburga with its symbols layered with Christian and more universal meanings offers to all of us a challenge and a welcome to make this holy space our own.” - Elaine Tribley
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“The Ethelburga Quilt…was inspired by recent archaeological discoveries in Lyminge – a tangible link to the woman who arrived to found the first church and religious community and who would have designed and sewn its first textiles to the glory of God.” - Liz Coleman
