The Saints Thomas

[a view from the back of the church. Notice the expensive looking, not very old joinery]

This being notice of a visit to the principal church of the Newport on the Isle of Wight, dedicated to both the apostle Thomas and the chap of the same name murdered during the reign of Henry II. A church which search of the archive would suggest that we have not visited before - which is entirely possible, since we often manage to holiday on the island without visiting Newport at all, despite it taking precedence over the rather larger Ryde. And then the church is a mid-nineteenth century rebuild, so hardly counts as heritage at all - with the 'minster' in its title being entirely honorific. On the other hand, BH has a copy of reference 4, which suggests that we did visit the church at some point - unless she picked it up at the museum in what was the Guildhall. No trace of that in the archive either, but I am fairly sure we have visited there.

With the prompt for this visit being the visit to O2, noticed at reference 3.

An interesting church which seemed to have plenty of money to spend and where we were taken in hand by a well-informed trusty. A trusty who, as I recall, said that he had been using the church for more than fifty years - and who was impressed by our knowledge of the church, culled that very morning from said reference 4.

What is left of the pulpit, dating from the seventeenth century, with the pedestal being rather newer. According to Way, the carved panels of the central panel are probably Flemish. According to the trusty, of secular rather than saintly subjects, which is why they survived the iconoclasm of the Commonwealth.

A monument for an island notable, Sir Edward Horsey, who after the Elizabethan fashion was both pirate and civil servant. Furthermore, although married to an absent lady, he lived in sin with a rich widow. But died in a state of grace. His helmet above was once paired with a valuable antique sword, but this has now been removed to Carisbrooke Castle.

As well as being a church, the place doubled as a meeting place for the town council, who had special pews at the front. We were not told whether the fancy upholstery, unusual in pews, was a later addition.

And as well as being home to the town council, the church was also home to the earthly remains of a daughter of Charles I who died young. We were told that not only.is her head resting on an open Bible, the Bible is open at a particular page, thought suitable for her dying devotions.

It just remained to capture the piano noticed at reference 8.

PS 1: the view towards Sandown and Shanklin from somewhere near the top of Brading Down, on the way out, where BH took over the steering wheel of the new-to-her Cupra.

On arrival, on our way into town, there was a non-scoring trolley from Morrison's outside the fire station.

Then at Morrison's there was this interesting bank of trolley lockers. I think the idea was that you could leave you loaded trolley in one while you made use of their cafeteria - and at least two of them appear to be in use. One clue being the presence or absence of the key top right on the doors.

But the musak there was a bit loud, so we pushed onto Richmonds for out toasted tea cakes. A building which had been occupied by Starbucks until they left around 2020. This I know because the Street View camera has not been by for a while, since June 2019 to be exact.

PS 2: the oranges from both Sainsbury's and Tesco's have been a bit ropey of late, so I thought it was time to ask Gemini about seasonality. In short, the answer seems to be that the Northern season is over and we are at the beginning of the Southern season. A supplementary suggests that fancy storage - as with apples - can help - but maybe not enough to bridge the gap between north and south. Not something that I imagine either Sainsbury's or Tesco's being very forthcoming about. Taste the difference and flash the plastic!

When poked, Gemini gives me a long list of logistics people who are into the 'cold chain' in the UK, most of whom I had not heard of. But the second one that I tried responded to search for oranges, offering reference 10. Temperature control all the way, including the sea crossing in a container. But then, that was the US. I associate this evening to the banana ripeners that you used to have in the olden days. Perhaps you still do.

Plus I have learned that oranges might take as long as a year to mature on the tree - unlike the six months or so needed for our own apples, pears and plums.

Plus a postscript from Gemini. Assuming that he has got this more or less right, it really is a whole lot quicker than doing the digging yourself, with old-style search. And in this particular case, probably not too difficult to check.

PS 3: reference 10 contains the phrase 'drayage services'. Without knowing what it meant, I suspected a case of an old English word shifting its meaning in its new England home. Surviving in England as the name of the sort of horse-drawn cart used by heritage brewers. According to OED, an old word originally used for a a sledge used for moving heavy loads, such as timber, then a sort of cart, without sides, used for heavy loads, such as barrels of beer. Plus the nest of a squirrel, but OED does not know how that got there. For contemporary usage in the US, see reference 12, mostly the short-haul business of getting shipping containers from one node in the logistics chain to another, say from a container port to a road distribution centre, typically not far away. A lot of these containers will be refrigerated: essentially a large, self-contained refrigerator.

While the refrigeration units of truck mounted units often stick out of the front. Maybe taking their power from the tractor unit?

Complexities from which I associate to the difficulties of the sort of central planning thought by some, particularly lefties, to be a good plan in the middle years of the twentieth century: the world has just got too complicated for full-on central planning to be able to cope. That said, a spot of central planning in the water services and the power transmission industries would probably not come amiss here in the UK.

References

Reference 1: https://newportminster.org/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sts_Thomas_Minster.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/rarotonga.html.

Reference 4: The history of Newport (Isle of Wight) parish church - Wilfrid John Way - 1975. A fifty page booklet, as prepared for publication by Messrs. Way II and Gustar. Out copy from 2009 or later, so in range for the archive. Known to Amazon, although he does not actually have a copy for sale today. Not know to Abebooks.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Becket. The sort of archbishop who was only ordained a priest the day before he was consecrated archbishop. Clearly a very saintly sort of chap.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Horsey.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Stuart_(daughter_of_Charles_I).

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/piano-107.html.

Reference 9: https://richmondsbakery.com/.

Reference 10: https://www.onelineage.com/sites/default/files/2024-10/OrangeJourney_2024_PDF.pdf.

Reference 11: https://www.onelineage.com/.

Reference 12: https://www.shipabco.com/what-is-drayage-service-and-how-it-works-for-you/.