Lent 6: Cantores Salicium, 7:30pm Bolton Abbey

Having missed out on all the Palm Sunday ceremony and any kind of music, due to going and being quiet at the Friends Meeting House, the "sequence of words and music for Palm Sunday" at Bolton Abbey, performed by local band Cantores Salicium, seemed appealing. We went to hear the same choir support the lessons and carols at Settle Anglican church at Christmas and they had been excellent. The music was more challenging this time, being in Latin. And although there was a lot of lamentation (It was titled  'The city weepeth sore in the night' ), the standard was not at all lamentable, and was instead, once again, really good and very musical. I now know two of the (approx 24) choir members, as one is a Settle Harrier and another a French Horn player in the Settle Orchestra.

The Priory Church of St Mary and St Cuthbert, Bolton Abbey, about 35 mins drive from Settle, is the roofed remains of a former Augustin abbey, another monastery that was dissoluted by Henry the Eighth. There seem to be a lot of them around! The church seems to occupy about half of the original church and the rest is ruins. Here is the view from the other end.

So, this was a Roman Catholic monastery, but was taken possession of by Henry the Eighth and thus, like all the other nice old churches in England, is now Anglican. The music performed was sort of interesting in this context as was all 1550s-1650s, from the likes of William Byrd, and thus written in the 100 years directly following the dissolution in 1540.

After the service we enjoyed a nice dinner at the Brasserie at the Devonshire Arms hotel just down the road, to celebrate the acceptance-in-principle of our first paper since the start of BlueSkiesResearch.org.uk.