I would hope that it would provide the raw material for art historians to work on in the future.”
I think the perusal of Michael Hodges' book will make us want to go out and encounter anew this important part of our East Anglian cultural heritage.
After reading Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford, Michael Hodges (born 1952) spent the next forty years of his life as a banker in the City of London.
He is currently the Senior Vice President of the British Association of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, having spent the previous ten years as its Chancellor. He is a Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire and a trustee of the Wiltshire Historic Churches Trust. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He is the architectural correspondent of the Catholic Herald.
His recent publications include The Parish Churches of Greater London: A Guide (2015) and The Knights Hospitaller in Great Britain in 1540 (2018).
I was originally approached in 2018 by the architect Anthony Delarue who was working on the development of the Catholic shrine at Walsingham and asked if I would be willing to write a book on the painted rood screens of East Anglia, concentrating on the various representations of the saints, to bring together a canon of English medieval figurative art.
The book is now written and photographed and is proceeding on the old-fashioned advance subscription basis.
Subscribers would be named at the start of the book, listed alphabetically in order of how many copies they wished to purchase, at cost price. No payment would be required until the book was actually available.
We are looking to find around 300 subscribers before the book can be printed. If you would kindly be prepared to subscribe to one (or preferably more!) copies, please email me your postal address and how many copies you would like and I will get in touch to make arrangements.