A new carved stone in Birnie Kirk for the Ordinariate

   Carved from a single block of golden coloured stone quarried near Hopeman on the coast north of Elgin, Saint Brendan the Navigator is shown with two monks on a voyage in an open sailing boat. This carving is for the Ordinariate in Scotland and will be positioned on the south wall within Birnie Kirk, the oldest church in Scotland continuously used for Christian worship for almost 900 years and the first Cathrdral of the Diocese of Moray.

    Worship continues now through an ecumenical group under the care of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in Scotland with Evening Prayer every Wednesday at 7pm led by a lay group of Ordinariate, local Catholics and Presbyterians.

   Details on the stone have been picked out in gold leaf including the inscription CAELI LUX NOSTER DUX on the side edges meaning Heavenly Light Guide Our Way, the motto of the Merchant Navy. The dimension of this impressive carved stone are 400mm (1 foot 3 inches) wide, 760mm (2 feet 6 inches) tall. The sculptor is Philip Chatfield, who is currently working at Pluscarden Abbey on many different carved stones and statues for the new St Joseph's Guest House.

   Philip has been carving stone since 1978 and was taught by one of the craftsmen that came from the arts and crafts workshop of Eric Gill, another famous Scottish sculptor who came from the same lineage was Hew Lorimer, sculptor of the great statue of Our Lady of the Isles on South Uist.

   Philip Chatfield was born in 1958 at Southsea, of a Royal Marine family. His mother was from Edinburgh and his grandparents from came from Perth and Lerwick in Shetland. Educated at Monmouth School in Wales he studied Fine Art and Sculpture at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne under the tutorship of the late Welsh sculptor Jonah Jones, one of the sculptors from the Eric Gill workshops and who also had worked with Clough Williams Ellis at Portmeirion.

   Philip has been a professional architectural stone carver since 1981 and works all over the country on a wide range of private, public and large civic commissions and memorials. For several years he worked on the Brig MARIA ASUMPTA, and survived its shipwreck on May 30th 1995 off the North Cornish coast. He carved the memorial for the ship in the church of St Enodoc at Trebetherick. He has carved many statues and carves in stone, slate, marble and granite. Philip says of himself, 'My life is a continuing journey in stone'.