OPEN GARDENS this Saturday May 31st is in aid of St Michael’s Hospice and the tickets are £7.50 online or at the Court Hall where teas will be served.The five Winchelsea gardens are open to visitors from 10.30am to 4pm. These beautiful gardens are the Kent Close Communal Garden containing many pot displays, flower and shrub borders; Kings Leap with its perennials, orchard and wildflowers; Cleveland Place which is a walled garden with clematis, roses and magnolia, and White Cottages in Friars Road which has a cottage garden with garden plants that attract pollinators and flower beds. The fifth garden is South Mariteau which is designed to surprise and visitors can watch the water cascade into a pond and admire the backdrop of rose and clematis as well as the tropical clerodendron tree.
WESLEY’S CHAPEL is open to visitors on the Open Gardens Days and will be open on Saturday May 31st from 10am to 4pm. The chapel or preaching house was built in 1785. It was known as Evan’s Chapel after the neighbour who donated the site and in 1789 John Wesley preached there. Open day is an opportunity to meet the Friends and discover more about the history of Winchelsea’s Methodist Chapel.Please note a date for your diary is Saturday July 5th when the chapel will be open again to visitors from 1 to 5pm during the NGS Open Gardens.
ROSE SHOW arranged by Winchelsea Garden Society will take place on Saturday June 7th in St Thomas’s Church. This annual Show will be alongside the Church Market which is from 10.30am to 12pm and all are welcome to come and see the exhibits and enjoy a cup of tea or coffee.There are four classes in the Show which are Roses, Sweet Peas, Clematis and Iris and these will be displayed from 9.30am and the presentation of cups will be at 11.30am.
MUSIC FOR SPRING concert on Sunday June 8th at 4pm to 5pm in St Thomas’s Church. The recital is for soprano and oboe and the music comes mainly from northern Europe which includes Bach, Britten, Grieg, Nielsen, Quilter, Schubert and Vaughan Williams. Musicians are Anne Rebecca Hojlund – soprano, Francis Rayner – piano and Simon Edge-Partington – oboe/oboe d’amore. The cost of admission is £10 on the door and free for children and students. Proceeds from the concert will be donated to Friends of St Thomas.
WORTH HIS SALT was astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus who was born in Poland in 1473 and died on May 24th 1543. He was famous for proposing the theory of a heliocentric system where the Sun and not the Earth is at the centre of the Universe and is orbited by the planets; that the Earth is a planet which orbits the sun annually and turns on its axis once daily. Copernicus worked before the invention of the telescope and his astronomical observations were made with the naked eye. Fifty years after Copernicus’s death in 1609 Galileo Galilei was the first to use the telescope and he supported heliocentrism for which he was imprisoned for heresy by the Catholic church. Copernicus was a sincere Catholic and a member of the clergy holding the position of canon in the Warmia region of northern Poland. At the time the church was against the heliocentric model and in favour of the geocentric or Earth-centred view of the Universe. However, Copernicus believed that the heliocentric model did not conflict with scripture. Isaiah 40:22 states that God “sits enthroned above the circle of the earth” which would indicate a spherical earth. The verse also describes Him as “stretching out the heavens like a curtain” which shows God’s immensity in comparison to humankind. The Bible doesn’t provide an exact scientific model of the solar system but focuses on God the creator and His spiritual truths. Copernicus was not only an astronomer, doctor and economist but he was also described as a tourist since he was one of the first visitors to the Wieliczka Salt Mine in 1493. The mine which is south of Krakow has a vast network of passages and chambers and is 1072 feet deep. It was excavated in the 13th century to produce table salt which was a precious substance used as a preservative and flavour enhancer. In the 15th century as a working mine it became a tourist attraction. In 1997 the salt mine finished operating and today concentrates upon tourism. Deep in the mine is a statue of Copernicus made of rock salt which was sculpted for the 500th anniversary of his birth and is located in the ‘Copernicus Chamber’. Even down in a mine there is nowhere that the gospel cannot reach since God can extend to the lowest depths and to the highest peaks to spread his word and the name of Jesus Christ carries great Authority.Psalm 95:4 states “In His hand are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains are His also” which explains that God has dominion over all creation. In certain countries where the gospel is restricted some churches have responded by going “underground” meaning they have moved outside of the regulated church structure in order to worship sufficiently. Deep in the salt mine near the Copernicus Chamber is an “underground cathedral” called St Kinga’s Chapel which is literally underground at 331.7 feet deep and spans 4305 square feet. This work of art was built in 1876 as a place of worship by skilled salt miners and took seventy years to build. Notably the salt of the earth this remarkable chapel is carved from 20,000 tonnes of rock salt and everything in the chamber is made of salt including the chandeliers, elaborate sculptures, floor tiles, the alter and the wall carvings. There are three other chapels in the salt mine with St Kinga being the most popular. A long winding staircase and lifts lead down to the Chapel which continues to be used for church services where the Lord God can be present in the hidden places. Copernicus would have read the scriptures and known that Psalm 135:6 teaches “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” which indicates that God’s will is achieved across the universe, without any boundaries or limitations.
WINCHELSEA BEACH COFFEE MORNING takes place on Wednesday June 4th from 10.30am to 12pm in the Community Hall, Sea Road and all are invited. These popular coffee mornings are held on the first Wednesday in the month and entrance is free. As usual coffee, tea, biscuits and cake will be served at £1 per item and this is an opportunity to meet your friends and make new ones.
Cindi Cogswell cyncogswell@btinternet.com