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Church replaces ancient carvings with inspiring women sculptures

BBC St Mary'sBBC
The stone carvings will become part of St Mary's south nave clerestory and should be ready for the public to see in November

A church is to replace its crumbling medieval carvings with sculptures of inspiring women to honour their "extraordinary" achievements.

Many of the stone sculptures at St Mary's Church in Beverley, East Yorkshire, are now unrecognisable.

Carvings of Queen Elizabeth II, feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and nurse Mary Seacole are among the notable women set to replace them.

Rev Rebecca Lumley said they would "help to inspire the next generation".

Work to install characters from CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia on the outer wall of the church has recently been completed, with the same small team of sculptors used for the latest project.

Clay prototypes of the women are currently being created, with the church aiming for the stone versions to be ready for public viewing by November.

"Pioneering women" who worked in traditionally male-dominated arenas including maths, the sciences and engineering, were prioritised.

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Getty Images Dr Helen SharmanGetty Images
Dr Helen Sharman spent eight days in space in May 1991 and will be the "closest carving to the stars" at St Mary's

Featured women

  • Queen Elizabeth II
  • Mary Wollstonecraft, advocate of women's rights
  • Mary Seacole, nurse and heroine of the Crimean War
  • Amy Johnson, pioneering pilot
  • Hilda Lyon, engineer
  • Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer
  • Marie Curie, physicist and chemist
  • Dr Helen Sharman, the first British astronaut
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The proposal, which was approved by the Church of England's consistory court, also stated some women "must have local connections" and "there must be BAME representation".

Rev Lumley, vicar of St Mary's, said: "We decided that it'd be really good to choose a theme, last year we did the Narnia theme which captured everybody's imagination and they loved it.

"We were very aware that too often the ways people are represented in church architecture doesn't reflect the reality of everyday life - a lot of the carvings are men and there's very few women."

Narnia’s creatures have been turned into stone and are being fixed on a Beverley church.

The 900-year-old Grade I listed church said the congregation and the wider community in Beverley have been very supportive of the latest project.

"Every generation has added its own interpretation and its own element, so it would actually be out of keeping for our generation not to do that," she added.

Sculptor Kibby Schaefer, who also worked on the Narnia scheme, said: "I've been carving for a long time but this is probably the most interesting project I've ever worked on.

"Many of them were recognised in their time but they've been written out of history or their stories haven't been as carried through as they should."

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