A brand-new touch tour guide for people living with sight loss to experience the church's medieval wall paintings has launched at St Mary's Church, Chalgrove.
A small group of members of the congregation responsible for interpretation of the church’s heritage, were given the challenge of producing an accessible guide for people living with various degrees of sight loss. A new edition of the 50-page illustrated guide to the paintings, smart phone app and i-Touch guides, and a full colour reconstruction of the complete scheme of the paintings were already in existence but were not accessible to people with sight loss.
Understood to be the first in the Diocese of Oxford, the new resource comprises sets of six specially selected and constructed images, printed and manipulated on Swell paper with accompanying audio descriptions. These are linked to the images via RNIB PenFriend technology enabling users to listen to the descriptions of what they are feeling with their fingers.
The completed touch tour guide was used for the first time in June by participants of Oxford Museum services for the visually impaired and members of MyVision Oxfordshire.
Devante Claridge of South Oxfordshire Community Engagement at MyVision said:
“On a recent visit to the Church, I was blown away with how accessible it was and the fantastic work that has gone into making it user friendly for the visually impaired community. Being giving access to specialist equipment, really enabled the church to come alive at the palm of my hand and visualize my surroundings with limited sight no longer a barrier.”
Speaking on the launch of the breakthrough guide, Fr Michael Lakey, Vicar of St Mary's Church, said:
"Far more than beautiful decoration, the sacred art in our nation’s churches exists to tell and retell the story of God’s salvation of humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. We translate our bibles from Ancient Hebrew and Greek into Modern English because we are convinced that this story is for everyone without exception. I see this fabulous project, led and implemented by our dedicated team, as a natural extension of that impulse and I warmly invite you to visit our church and give it a try.”
Medieval wall paintings
The main glory of St Mary’s is the internationally important scheme of medieval paintings on the upper walls of the chancel. Painted in the first half of the fourteenth century they depict, on the north wall the childhood and Passion of Jesus, and on the south wall the death and assumption of the Virgin Mary. Both narratives come together on the east wall and would originally have been augmented by a stained-glass representation of Jesus in the east window. The paintings were lime-washed over at the Reformation after 1547 and were re-discovered and uncovered in 1858.
The project has been funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and The Friends of St Mary's Church.