News & Views

It was a busy afternoon on Sunday, Sibby (Manchester tour guide and EWS committee member) arrived shortly before the wedding of Emma and Mathew to let her group have a ‘sneaky’ look at the Church and school rooms shortly before the wedding guests started to  arrive. Peggy the dog showed an interest in the garden, but wasn’t for signing up to EWS membership. The garden and encompassing buildings provided a good back drop for the photographs. The weather was kind and the grooms men were in fine form.

Andy Marshall, EWS committee member and “…one of the country’s leading architectural photographers”. (Manchester Evening News) was in the Church the other day taking preliminary shots for the new Edgar Wood webb site, which is in development. To see more of Andy’s work go to www.andymarshall.co/index

The Churches Conservation Trust hosted a full day workshop in the hall at the Edgar Wood Rooms today, the title being, “A Stitch in Time”. The central theme being the importance of planned maintenance and the necessity of keeping the water and damp out of  buildings.

On this themed workshop, it was ironic that on entering the hall, Christine looked up through one of the Diocletian windows and noticed damaged roof tiles. Unfortunately no amount of routine maintenance will prevent slates breaking at upper levels and damaging lower roofs!

It was a busy weekend at the Arts and Craft Church just gone. Spring is here and the beds want planting, but the soil was badly  compacted by the scaffolding. While some sunned in the sunshine the shade was welcome while doing the hard work!

The Methodist Church area synod was hosted in the hall with 140 delegates from across the region attending. This included  workshop session in various rooms and the garden, but not horticultural!

On Sunday afternoon eighteen members of the Clarice Cliff Society visited, starting with a tour of the EW properties, followed by an introductory talk about EW, the Church and School Rooms followed by a viewing of the DVD ‘A Painted Veil’.  A lot was packed into the afternoon and the sun was shining.

The morning started  started early, the first to arrive was the electrician to repair an emergency exit sign, to be shortly followed by the EW Society gardeners. The Spring tidy had to be complete by the arrival time of a group of thirty from the Lighthouse Project, Walkers group. Thank you to the two ‘head gardeners’.

The leader of the group sent the following email:

Dear Christine,
Thank you so much for our tour today. We all thoroughly enjoyed hearing about Edgar Wood and learning about the church and school rooms.
Please let me know about any forthcoming events or fund-raising activities and I will pass the details on to the walkers.
Meanwhile keep up the good work!
Regards,
Margaret

Friends and former students of Jeffrey Lawton gave a concert in the recently restored hall of the Edgar Wood Rooms in his memory.  Middleton Rotary organised the concert as Jeffrey was an active Rotarian and former president. The proceeds from the concert will be donated to Springhill Hospice and Rochdale Mind charities, organisations which were close to his heart. It was a fitting tribute that the hall was used, as Jeffrey in his early years as an amateur singer performed many roles on the stage with the Gilbert and Sulivan Society. In his professional life, he was the Principle Tenor with the Welsh National Opera followed by an international career specialising in Verdi and Wagner. On retiring from the stage he became a vocal tutor at the RNCM. Born in Oldham and  resident of Middleton (living in an Edgar Wood house) he was a local celebrity and used his talents to support local charities.

 Mr. Les Coop the Chairman of the Greater Manchester Preservation Trust thanked the sponsors of the window restoration for their donations towards this work. Individual and group sponsors were represented. Continue reading “A Thank You to the Window Sponsors”