Podcasts about nicholas hawksmoor

In this episode of Deconstructed, Matthew Lloyd Roberts is joined by George Saumarez Smith, Design Director at ADAM Architecture. They discuss the church of St Anne's Limehouse, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and consecrated in 1730 as one of the 'Queen Anne Churches' built by the New Church Commission. St Anne's Limehouse is currently campaigning to raise funds for repairs ahead of their tercentenary, with a programme of public events ongoing: https://www.hawksmoor300limehouse.com/. To help support excellent and accessible, independent journalism about the buildings and the urban environment, please become an Open City friend by clicking here.Deconstructed is recorded and produced at the Open City offices located in Bureau.Bureau is a co-working space for creatives offering a new approach to membership workspace. Bureau prioritises not just room to think and do, but also shared resources and space to collaborate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Daily Shower Thoughts podcast is produced by Klassic Studios. Shower thoughts are sourced from reddit.com/r/showerthoughts [Promo] Check out the Daily Dad Jokes podcast here: https://dailydadjokespodcast.com/ Shower Thought credits: Nicholas-Hawksmoor, hearsdemons, rgsznpakems, ockidj, LuckyBudz, hearsdemons, _StygianBlueGames_, skinchild, Upvotoui, Isaac_Santxna, SupportiveRedditor, Feather_Bloom, DreadRazer24, Far-Patient-2247, pufballcat, backleftwindowseat, _StygianBlueGames_, UneducatedFerret, LukXD99, , Spare-Command-7810, alemanenmia, Havingfun922, alfooboboao, Boogie_B0ss, Hypnox88 Podcast links: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZNciemLzVXc60uwnTRx2e Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-shower-thoughts/id1634359309 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/daily-dad-jokes/daily-shower-thoughts iHeart: https://iheart.com/podcast/99340139/ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a5a434e9-da18-46a7-a434-0437ec49e1d2/daily-shower-thoughts Website: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/dailyshowerthoughts Social media links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DailyShowerThoughtsPodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DailyShowerPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DailyShowerThoughtsPodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dailyshowerthoughtspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Daily Shower Thoughts podcast is produced by Klassic Studios. [Promo] Check out the Daily Dad Jokes podcast here: https://dailydadjokespodcast.com/ [Promo] The Daily Facts Podcast. Get smarter in less than 10 minutes a day. Pod links here Daily Facts website. [Promo] The Daily Life Pro Tips Podcast. Improve your life in less than 10 minutes a day. Pod links here Daily Life Pro Tips website. [Promo] Check out the Get Happy Headlines podcast by my friends, Stella and Mickey. It's a podcast dedicated to bringing you family friendly uplifting stories from around the world. Give it a listen, I know you will like it. Pod links here Get Happy Headlines website. Shower thoughts are sourced from reddit.com/r/showerthoughts Shower Thought credits: LukXD99, alemanenmia, UneducatedFerret, Actual-Atmosphere374, Harteiga, Xznograthos, Demitroy, pufballcat, firebalt, theslipster, SadboiMaz, fiercegreen294, DavidTheGoof, AbnormalAlYankOvich, Crazocrates, Slendermans_Proxies, InfinityScientist, lazarentiano, cocoaforbreakfast, , SAEBR_, brickiex2, Pm__me_your_boobs-, Send_heartfelt_PMs, 12jonboy12, Nicholas-Hawksmoor, Inhalegoodshat, Dogalicious Podcast links: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZNciemLzVXc60uwnTRx2e Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-shower-thoughts/id1634359309 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/daily-dad-jokes/daily-shower-thoughts iHeart: https://iheart.com/podcast/99340139/ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a5a434e9-da18-46a7-a434-0437ec49e1d2/daily-shower-thoughts Website: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/dailyshowerthoughts Social media links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DailyShowerThoughtsPodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DailyShowerPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DailyShowerThoughtsPodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dailyshowerthoughtspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, the Spotlight shines On James McKeown, the Bristol, UK-based artist who releases music under the name Hawksmoor. James first created Hawksmoor five years ago, inspired by the six 18th-century churches in London designed by architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. Described as ‘English Baroque' in style, these buildings are large, foreboding, and even Gothic in nature. Imagine the music inspired by such things, and you have Hawksmoor. Each Hawksmoor album features unique themes and inspirations that have been composed using a sonic palate of analog Moog instruments and electronic rhythms complimented with live bass and subtle, textural guitar elements.Hawksmoor's latest, their debut on Soul Jazz Records, Telepathic Heights, combines a love of German electronic music of the 1970s alongside British retro-futurism and hauntology — an aesthetic that evokes cultural memory of times past.Great record, great conversation. Enjoy.(Note: All of the music segues heard in this episode are from Hawksmoor's Telepathic Heights album.)------------------Dig DeeperListen to Hawksmoor's Telepathic Heights on your streaming platform of choice or purchase a download directly from Soul Jazz RecordsListen to earlier albums by Hawksmoor on BandcampFollow Hawksmoor on Instagram, Bluesky, Threads, Twitter (X), and YouTubeAn Occult Psychogeography of Hawksmoor's London ChurchesKraftwerk: Future Music from Germany (the unnamed book mentioned in the conversation)Hawksmoor - "Abstract Machines" (video)Be sure to peruse this episode's extensive show notes at spotlightonpodcast.com------------------• Did you enjoy this episode? Please share it with a friend! You can also rate Spotlight On ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.• Subscribe! Be the first to check out each new episode of Spotlight On in your podcast app of choice.• Looking for more? Visit spotlightonpodcast.com for bonus content, web-only interviews + features, and the Spotlight On email newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Mastodon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, the Spotlight shines On James McKeown, the Bristol, UK-based artist who releases music under the name Hawksmoor. James first created Hawksmoor five years ago, inspired by the six 18th-century churches in London designed by architect Nicholas Hawksmoor. Described as ‘English Baroque' in style, these buildings are large, foreboding, and even Gothic in nature. Imagine the music inspired by such things, and you have Hawksmoor. Each Hawksmoor album features unique themes and inspirations that have been composed using a sonic palate of analog Moog instruments and electronic rhythms complimented with live bass and subtle, textural guitar elements.Hawksmoor's latest, their debut on Soul Jazz Records, Telepathic Heights, combines a love of German electronic music of the 1970s alongside British retro-futurism and hauntology — an aesthetic that evokes cultural memory of times past.Great record, great conversation. Enjoy.(Note: All of the music segues heard in this episode are from Hawksmoor's Telepathic Heights album.)------------------Dig DeeperListen to Hawksmoor's Telepathic Heights on your streaming platform of choice or purchase a download directly from Soul Jazz RecordsListen to earlier albums by Hawksmoor on BandcampFollow Hawksmoor on Instagram, Bluesky, Threads, Twitter (X), and YouTubeAn Occult Psychogeography of Hawksmoor's London ChurchesKraftwerk: Future Music from Germany (the unnamed book mentioned in the conversation)Hawksmoor - "Abstract Machines" (video)Be sure to peruse this episode's extensive show notes at spotlightonpodcast.com------------------• Did you enjoy this episode? Please share it with a friend! You can also rate Spotlight On ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts.• Subscribe! Be the first to check out each new episode of Spotlight On in your podcast app of choice.• Looking for more? Visit spotlightonpodcast.com for bonus content, web-only interviews + features, and the Spotlight On email newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Mastodon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nicholas Hawksmoor's churches in Georgian London, Read by Kate Finning

Writer, film maker, poet, flaneur, metropolitan shaman, curator of lost cultures, beat aficionado, and underground poet Iain Sinclair takes us on a walk through his life in the counterculture.    We have brief encounters with Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, Peter Ackroyd, J.G.Ballard and Nicholas Hawksmoor as we hear tales of the poetry underground, life working as a Hackney council gardener, blacklegging in the London docks, cigars in Clerkenwell, an epic ancestral journey from Leadenhall Market to Peru, DIY-publishing, writing, writing, writing, and of course The City, as we circle towards hearing Iain reading selections from Lud Heat, the epic 1975 piece that was destined to become the root text of London psychogeography.   For more on on Iain and his work: www.iainsinclair.org.uk   ---------- Get the Bureau's Newsletter   Support our wild endeavours   The Bureau of Lost Culture Home   Go on - follow, rate and review us - or be in touch directly bureauoflostculture@gmail.com We'd love to hear from you. -------------  

Baroque! From St Peter's to St Paul's is a three-part BBC Four documentary series on the painting, sculpture and architecture of the Baroque period. It was written and presented by Waldemar Januszczak and first broadcast in March 2009. ... won a Royal Television Society Award for best arts programme. England – The Royal Naval Hospital and Queen's House at Greenwich; Rubens, Van Dyck and Charles I's art patronage (including Banqueting House and its ceiling paintings); William Dobson's work during the English Civil War; the London churches of Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor; Blenheim Palace, the English Baroque invention of the country house within a landscaped garden and the career of John Vanbrugh; St Paul's. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thehistoryexpress/support

We take a tour of six distinctive East London churches designed by 18th-century English architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, tracing their history from the first brick to their influence on US postmodernism and UK brutalism.

We conclude our discussion of the churches of Nicholas Hawksmoor in London, featuring discussion of church politics, 'the primitive church of the early Christians' and wet and windy site recordings from St George in the East, Shadwell (1714-29), Christ Church Spitalfields (1714-29), and St Mary Woolnoth (1716-27). Sponsored by the Article Trade Program and The Great Courses PlusEdited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts. Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us! Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebookWe’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.orgThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Nicholas Hawksmoor, born in 1661, built six churches in London between 1711 and his death in 1736. Vast, white, monumental and enigmatically detailed, the Hawksmoor churches are a looming and mysterious presence in the architectural consciousness and mythic history of London, somehow both of time and out of it. Bombed, burned, spurned by popular taste before they were even completed, they have nevertheless survived to become objects of fascination, speculation and obsession. Created on the threshold of modernity, they reach back toward an imagined (and distant) past when the Church was young, and the worship was pure. We’ve recorded a series of observations of the churches on site, and attempted to locate them in the world of early 18th century England. On a forthcoming bonus we’ll be exploring the fictional Hawksmoor — as time-magician, cabbalist, summoner of Egyptian gods and more. Our editor Matt Loyd Roberts has joined us for this one — Music is by Ketsa 'Rain stops play' from the Free Music Archive Edited by Matthew Lloyd Roberts. Support the show on Patreon to receive bonus content for every show. Please rate and review the show on your podcast store to help other people find us! Follow us on twitter // instagram // facebookWe’re on the web at aboutbuildingsandcities.orgThis podcast is powered by Pinecast.

The London Undone 'City of London Churches' podcast series: A journey around the magnificent and many churches of the City of London. Learn about their histories, architecture, associations, features and their spiritual lives today. 2. This week we head to St Mary Woolnoth: austere on the outside, cosy on the inside. This is the only church in the City of London that is the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor. With thanks to Melina Herman from the Cosy Coffee Corner and Tony Tucker from Friends of City Churches and the author of The Visitors Guide to City of London Churches.

Amazing Grace is the most popular song on Earth. It has been sung more times by more people in more languages, than any other song in the history of the planet. Amazing Grace is probably one of the best known hymns in the world today. The words tell of the grace of God - the gift of forgiveness and life that he gives to us freely.A rendition of Amazing Grace by Judy Collins went to the top of the popular music charts in the U.S. in the 1970s. It was the first and only time a spiritual song has done this.The hymn was written by John Newton, an English man who was born in 1725.(more info on Newton below) During the first 30 years of his life, Newton was certainly a miserable, unhappy, and mean person--in other words, "a wretch." As a child he was rebellious and constantly in trouble. As a young man he used profanity, drank excessively, and went through periods of violent, angry behavior. When Newton was in his early twenties, he became involved in the slave trade: living in Africa, hunting down slaves, and managing a "slave factory" (where the unfortunate captives were held for sale). Later he was the captain of a slave ship which made three voyages from Great Britain to Africa (where he loaded a cargo of slaves) and finally to America to sell them. During one voyage he cried out to God for mercy as the ship was tossed about in a storm. His ship was spared and John Newton began his walk towards Christ. He continued to be a slave trader for some years but there was a slow transformation and within the next 20 years Newton had given up this life and had become the parish priest of Olney, a village near London. Whilst here he wrote the the words to the famous hymn, Amazing Grace. (compiled from various sources on the Internet)This NEW BLUEGRASS VERSION of this Classic HYMN was produced by Shiloh Worship Music. We pray this song blesses you and draws you into His Amazing Presence. It is a bluegrass version of the tune, with Banjo,Guitar, Acoustic Bass, Mandolin and Fiddles . Vintage footage from Appalachia accompanies this traditional Bluegrass hymnVISIT OUR YouTube CHANNEL http://www.youtube.com/user/ShilohWorshipGroupWords: John Newton (1715-1807)Music: American melody from Carrell's and Clayton's Virginia Harmony (1831) AMAZING GRACED G DAmazing grace! How sweet the sound D AThat saved a wretch like me! D G DI once was lost but now I'm found; Bm D A DWas blind, but now I see.'Twas grace that taught my heart to fearAnd grace my fears relieved.How precious did that grace appearThe hour I first believed!The Lord has promised good to me;His Word my hope secures.He will my shield and portion beAs long as life endures.Through many dangers toils and snaresI have already come.'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus farAnd grace will lead me home.When we've been there ten thousand years,Bright shining as the sun,We've no less days to sing God's praiseThan when we first begun.© 2012 Shiloh Worship Music COPY FREELY;This Music is copyrighted to prevent misuse, however,permission is granted for non-commercial copying-Radio play permitted.www.shliohworshipmusic.comJohn NewtonFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJohn Newton.John Henry Newton (July 24, 1725 December 21, 1807) was a British sailor and Anglican clergyman. Starting his career at sea, at a young age, he became involved with the slave trade for a few years. After experiencing a religious conversion, he became a minister, hymn-writer, and later a prominent supporter of the abolition of slavery. He was the author of many hymns, including "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken."Early lifeJohn Newton was born in Wapping, London, in 1725, the son of John Newton Sr., a shipmaster in the Mediterranean service, and Elizabeth Newton (née Seatclife), a Nonconformist Christian. His mother died of tuberculosis in July, 1732, about two weeks before his seventh birthday.[1] Two years later, he went to live in Aveley, the home of his father's new wife.[2] Newton spent two years at boarding school. At age eleven he went to sea with his father. Newton sailed six voyages before his father retired in 1742. Newton's father made plans for him to work at a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Instead, Newton signed on with a merchant ship sailing to the Mediterranean Sea.In 1743, while on the way to visit some friends, Newton was captured and pressed into the naval service by the Royal Navy. He became a midshipman aboard HMS Harwich. At one point, Newton attempted to desert and was punished in front of the crew of 350. Stripped to the waist, tied to the grating, he received a flogging of one dozen lashes, and was reduced to the rank of a common seaman.[3][unreliable source?]Following that disgrace and humiliation, Newton initially contemplated suicide.[3][unreliable source?] He recovered, both physically and mentally. Later, while Harwich was on route to India, he transferred to Pegasus, a slave ship bound for West Africa. The ship carried goods to Africa, and traded them for slaves to be shipped to England and other countries.Newton proved to be a continual problem for the crew of Pegasus. They left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave dealer. Clowe took Newton to the coast, and gave him to his wife Princess Peye, an African duchess. Newton was abused and mistreated along with her other slaves. It was this period that Newton later remembered as the time he was "once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa."Early in 1748 he was rescued by a sea captain who had been asked by Newton's father to search for him. And he made it to freedom.[citation needed]In 1750 he married his childhood sweetheart in St. Margaret's Church, Rochester[4].[edit]Spiritual conversionHe sailed back to England in 1748 aboard the merchant ship Greyhound, which was carrying beeswax and dyer's wood, now referred to as camwood. During this voyage, he experienced a spiritual conversion. The ship encountered a severe storm off the coast of Donegal and almost sank. Newton awoke in the middle of the night and finally called out to God as the ship filled with water. After he called out, the cargo came out and stopped up the hole, and the ship was able to drift to safety. It was this experience which he later marked as the beginnings of his conversion to evangelical Christianity. As the ship sailed home, Newton began to read the Bible and other religious literature. By the time he reached Britain, he had accepted the doctrines of evangelical Christianity. The date was March 10, 1748, an anniversary he marked for the rest of his life. From that point on, he avoided profanity, gambling, and drinking. Although he continued to work in the slave trade, he had gained a considerable amount of sympathy for the slaves. He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later: "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards."[5]Newton returned to Liverpool, England and, partly due to the influence of his father's friend Joseph Manesty, obtained a position as first mate aboard the slave ship Brownlow, bound for the West Indies via the coast of Guinea. During the first leg of this voyage, while in west Africa (1748–1749), Newton acknowledged the inadequacy of his spiritual life. While he was sick with a fever, he professed his full belief in Christ and asked God to take control of his destiny. He later said that this experience was his true conversion and the turning point in his spiritual life. He claimed it was the first time he felt totally at peace with God.Still, he did not renounce the slave trade until later in his life. After his return to England in 1750, he made three further voyages as captain of the slave-trading ships Duke of Argyle (1750) and African (1752–1753 and 1753–1754). He only gave up seafaring and his active slave-trading activities in 1754, after suffering a severe stroke, but continued to invest his savings in Manesty's slaving operations."[6][edit]Anglican priestIn 1755 Newton became tide surveyor (a tax collector) of the port of Liverpool, again through the influence of Manesty. In his spare time, he was able to study Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. He became well known as an evangelical lay minister. In 1757, he applied to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England, but it was more than seven years before he was eventually accepted.Such was his frustration during this period of rejection that he also applied to the Methodists, Independents and Presbyterians, and applications were even mailed directly to the Bishops of Chester and Lincoln and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.Eventually, in 1764, he was introduced by Thomas Haweis to Lord Dartmouth, who was influential in recommending Newton to the Bishop of Chester, and who suggested him for the living of Olney, Buckinghamshire. On 29 April 1764 Newton received deacon's orders, and finally became a priest on June 17.As curate of Olney, Newton was partly sponsored by an evangelical philanthropist, the wealthy Christian merchant John Thornton, who supplemented his stipend of £60 a year with £200 a year "for hospitality and to help the poor". He soon became well known for his pastoral care, as much as for his beliefs, and his friendship with Dissenters and evangelical clergy caused him to be respected by Anglicans and Nonconformists alike. He spent sixteen years at Olney, during which time so popular was his preaching that the church had a gallery added to accommodate the large numbers who flocked to hear him.Some five years later, in 1772, Thomas Scott, later to become a biblical commentator and co-founder of the Church Missionary Society, took up the curacy of the neighbouring parishes of Stoke Goldington and Weston Underwood. Newton was instrumental in converting Scott from a cynical 'career priest' to a true believer, a conversion Scott related in his spiritual autobiography The Force Of Truth (1779).In 1779 Newton was invited by John Thornton to become Rector of St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, London, where he officiated until his death. The church had been built by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1727 in the fashionable Baroque style. Newton then became one of only two evangelical preachers in the capital, and he soon found himself gaining in popularity amongst the growing evangelical party. He was a strong supporter of evangelicalism in the Church of England, and remained a friend of Dissenters as well as Anglicans.Many young churchmen and others enquiring about their faith visited him and sought his advice, including such well-known social figures as the writer and philanthropist Hannah More, and the young Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, who had recently undergone a crisis of conscience and religious conversion as he was contemplating leaving politics. Having sought his guidance, Newton encouraged Wilberforce to stay in Parliament and "serve God where he was".[7][8]In 1792, he was presented with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).[edit]AbolitionistNewton in his later yearsIn 1788, 34 years after he had retired from the slave trade, Newton broke a long silence on the subject with the publication of a forceful pamphlet "Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade", in which he described the horrific conditions of the slave ships during the Middle Passage, and apologized for "a confession, which ... comes too late ... It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders." A copy of the pamphlet was sent to every MP, and sold so well that it swiftly required reprinting.[9]Newton became an ally of his friend William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade. He lived to see the passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807.Newton has been called hypocritical by some modern writers for continuing to participate in the slave trade while holding strong Christian convictions. Newton later came to believe that during the first five of his nine years as a slave trader he had not been a Christian in the full sense of the term: "I was greatly deficient in many respects ... I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time later."[10] Although this "true conversion" to Christianity also had no immediate impact on his views on slavery, he eventually came to revise them.[edit]Writer and hymnistThe vicarage in Olney where Newton wrote the hymn that would become "Amazing Grace".In 1767 William Cowper, the poet, moved to Olney. He worshipped in the church, and collaborated with Newton on a volume of hymns, which was eventually published as Olney Hymns in 1779. This work had a great influence on English hymnology. The volume included Newton's well-known hymns "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken", "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!", "Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder", "Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare", "Approach, My Soul, the Mercy-seat", and "Faith's Review and Expectation", which has come to be known by its opening phrase, "Amazing Grace".Many of Newton's (as well as Cowper's) hymns are preserved in the Sacred Harp. He also contributed to the Cheap Repository Tracts.[edit]CommemorationThe gravestone of John Newton in Olney with the epitaph he penned. ■ The town of Newton, Sierra Leone is named after John Newton. To this day there is a philanthropic link between John Newton's church of Olney and Newton, Sierra Leone. ■ Newton was recognized for his hymns of longstanding influence by the Gospel Music Association in 1982 when he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Coming up the first in our London Calling season of World Book Clubs which will be going out each Saturday over the next four weeks. In the run up to the London Olympic games we'll be discussing four novels which focus on different aspects of the United Kingdom’s colourful and historic capital city. This week we talk to acclaimed novelist, biographer and critic Peter Ackroyd who will be discussing his haunting Whitbread prize-winning novel, Hawksmoor, with an audience at St George's Church, Bloomsbury. St George's is the final church designed by lauded architect of the English Baroque, Nicholas Hawksmoor, a central and sinister figure in this compelling murder mystery set amongst the labyrinthine streets of 18th Century London. (Image: Peter Ackroyd)

Amazing Grace is the most popular song on Earth. It has been sung more times by more people in more languages, than any other song in the history of the planet. Amazing Grace is probably one of the best known hymns in the world today. The words tell of the grace of God - the gift of forgiveness and life that he gives to us freely.A rendition of Amazing Grace by Judy Collins went to the top of the popular music charts in the U.S. in the 1970s. It was the first and only time a spiritual song has done this.The hymn was written by John Newton, an English man who was born in 1725.(more info on Newton below) During the first 30 years of his life, Newton was certainly a miserable, unhappy, and mean person--in other words, "a wretch." As a child he was rebellious and constantly in trouble. As a young man he used profanity, drank excessively, and went through periods of violent, angry behavior. When Newton was in his early twenties, he became involved in the slave trade: living in Africa, hunting down slaves, and managing a "slave factory" (where the unfortunate captives were held for sale). Later he was the captain of a slave ship which made three voyages from Great Britain to Africa (where he loaded a cargo of slaves) and finally to America to sell them. During one voyage he cried out to God for mercy as the ship was tossed about in a storm. His ship was spared and John Newton began his walk towards Christ. He continued to be a slave trader for some years but there was a slow transformation and within the next 20 years Newton had given up this life and had become the parish priest of Olney, a village near London. Whilst here he wrote the the words to the famous hymn, Amazing Grace. (compiled from various sources on the Internet)This NEW BLUEGRASS VERSION of this Classic HYMN was produced by Shiloh Worship Music. We pray this song blesses you and draws you into His Amazing Presence. It is a bluegrass version of the tune, with Banjo,Guitar, Acoustic Bass, Mandolin and Fiddles . Vintage footage from Appalachia accompanies this traditional Bluegrass hymnVISIT OUR YouTube CHANNEL http://www.youtube.com/user/ShilohWorshipGroupWords: John Newton (1715-1807)Music: American melody from Carrell's and Clayton's Virginia Harmony (1831) AMAZING GRACED G DAmazing grace! How sweet the sound D AThat saved a wretch like me! D G DI once was lost but now I'm found; Bm D A DWas blind, but now I see.'Twas grace that taught my heart to fearAnd grace my fears relieved.How precious did that grace appearThe hour I first believed!The Lord has promised good to me;His Word my hope secures.He will my shield and portion beAs long as life endures.Through many dangers toils and snaresI have already come.'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus farAnd grace will lead me home.When we've been there ten thousand years,Bright shining as the sun,We've no less days to sing God's praiseThan when we first begun.© 2012 Shiloh Worship Music COPY FREELY;This Music is copyrighted to prevent misuse, however,permission is granted for non-commercial copying-Radio play permitted.www.shliohworshipmusic.comJohn NewtonFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJohn Newton.John Henry Newton (July 24, 1725 December 21, 1807) was a British sailor and Anglican clergyman. Starting his career at sea, at a young age, he became involved with the slave trade for a few years. After experiencing a religious conversion, he became a minister, hymn-writer, and later a prominent supporter of the abolition of slavery. He was the author of many hymns, including "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken."Early lifeJohn Newton was born in Wapping, London, in 1725, the son of John Newton Sr., a shipmaster in the Mediterranean service, and Elizabeth Newton (née Seatclife), a Nonconformist Christian. His mother died of tuberculosis in July, 1732, about two weeks before his seventh birthday.[1] Two years later, he went to live in Aveley, the home of his father's new wife.[2] Newton spent two years at boarding school. At age eleven he went to sea with his father. Newton sailed six voyages before his father retired in 1742. Newton's father made plans for him to work at a sugar plantation in Jamaica. Instead, Newton signed on with a merchant ship sailing to the Mediterranean Sea.In 1743, while on the way to visit some friends, Newton was captured and pressed into the naval service by the Royal Navy. He became a midshipman aboard HMS Harwich. At one point, Newton attempted to desert and was punished in front of the crew of 350. Stripped to the waist, tied to the grating, he received a flogging of one dozen lashes, and was reduced to the rank of a common seaman.[3][unreliable source?]Following that disgrace and humiliation, Newton initially contemplated suicide.[3][unreliable source?] He recovered, both physically and mentally. Later, while Harwich was on route to India, he transferred to Pegasus, a slave ship bound for West Africa. The ship carried goods to Africa, and traded them for slaves to be shipped to England and other countries.Newton proved to be a continual problem for the crew of Pegasus. They left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave dealer. Clowe took Newton to the coast, and gave him to his wife Princess Peye, an African duchess. Newton was abused and mistreated along with her other slaves. It was this period that Newton later remembered as the time he was "once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in West Africa."Early in 1748 he was rescued by a sea captain who had been asked by Newton's father to search for him. And he made it to freedom.[citation needed]In 1750 he married his childhood sweetheart in St. Margaret's Church, Rochester[4].[edit]Spiritual conversionHe sailed back to England in 1748 aboard the merchant ship Greyhound, which was carrying beeswax and dyer's wood, now referred to as camwood. During this voyage, he experienced a spiritual conversion. The ship encountered a severe storm off the coast of Donegal and almost sank. Newton awoke in the middle of the night and finally called out to God as the ship filled with water. After he called out, the cargo came out and stopped up the hole, and the ship was able to drift to safety. It was this experience which he later marked as the beginnings of his conversion to evangelical Christianity. As the ship sailed home, Newton began to read the Bible and other religious literature. By the time he reached Britain, he had accepted the doctrines of evangelical Christianity. The date was March 10, 1748, an anniversary he marked for the rest of his life. From that point on, he avoided profanity, gambling, and drinking. Although he continued to work in the slave trade, he had gained a considerable amount of sympathy for the slaves. He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later: "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards."[5]Newton returned to Liverpool, England and, partly due to the influence of his father's friend Joseph Manesty, obtained a position as first mate aboard the slave ship Brownlow, bound for the West Indies via the coast of Guinea. During the first leg of this voyage, while in west Africa (1748–1749), Newton acknowledged the inadequacy of his spiritual life. While he was sick with a fever, he professed his full belief in Christ and asked God to take control of his destiny. He later said that this experience was his true conversion and the turning point in his spiritual life. He claimed it was the first time he felt totally at peace with God.Still, he did not renounce the slave trade until later in his life. After his return to England in 1750, he made three further voyages as captain of the slave-trading ships Duke of Argyle (1750) and African (1752–1753 and 1753–1754). He only gave up seafaring and his active slave-trading activities in 1754, after suffering a severe stroke, but continued to invest his savings in Manesty's slaving operations."[6][edit]Anglican priestIn 1755 Newton became tide surveyor (a tax collector) of the port of Liverpool, again through the influence of Manesty. In his spare time, he was able to study Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac. He became well known as an evangelical lay minister. In 1757, he applied to be ordained as a priest in the Church of England, but it was more than seven years before he was eventually accepted.Such was his frustration during this period of rejection that he also applied to the Methodists, Independents and Presbyterians, and applications were even mailed directly to the Bishops of Chester and Lincoln and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.Eventually, in 1764, he was introduced by Thomas Haweis to Lord Dartmouth, who was influential in recommending Newton to the Bishop of Chester, and who suggested him for the living of Olney, Buckinghamshire. On 29 April 1764 Newton received deacon's orders, and finally became a priest on June 17.As curate of Olney, Newton was partly sponsored by an evangelical philanthropist, the wealthy Christian merchant John Thornton, who supplemented his stipend of £60 a year with £200 a year "for hospitality and to help the poor". He soon became well known for his pastoral care, as much as for his beliefs, and his friendship with Dissenters and evangelical clergy caused him to be respected by Anglicans and Nonconformists alike. He spent sixteen years at Olney, during which time so popular was his preaching that the church had a gallery added to accommodate the large numbers who flocked to hear him.Some five years later, in 1772, Thomas Scott, later to become a biblical commentator and co-founder of the Church Missionary Society, took up the curacy of the neighbouring parishes of Stoke Goldington and Weston Underwood. Newton was instrumental in converting Scott from a cynical 'career priest' to a true believer, a conversion Scott related in his spiritual autobiography The Force Of Truth (1779).In 1779 Newton was invited by John Thornton to become Rector of St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, London, where he officiated until his death. The church had been built by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1727 in the fashionable Baroque style. Newton then became one of only two evangelical preachers in the capital, and he soon found himself gaining in popularity amongst the growing evangelical party. He was a strong supporter of evangelicalism in the Church of England, and remained a friend of Dissenters as well as Anglicans.Many young churchmen and others enquiring about their faith visited him and sought his advice, including such well-known social figures as the writer and philanthropist Hannah More, and the young Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, who had recently undergone a crisis of conscience and religious conversion as he was contemplating leaving politics. Having sought his guidance, Newton encouraged Wilberforce to stay in Parliament and "serve God where he was".[7][8]In 1792, he was presented with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).[edit]AbolitionistNewton in his later yearsIn 1788, 34 years after he had retired from the slave trade, Newton broke a long silence on the subject with the publication of a forceful pamphlet "Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade", in which he described the horrific conditions of the slave ships during the Middle Passage, and apologized for "a confession, which ... comes too late ... It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders." A copy of the pamphlet was sent to every MP, and sold so well that it swiftly required reprinting.[9]Newton became an ally of his friend William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade. He lived to see the passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807.Newton has been called hypocritical by some modern writers for continuing to participate in the slave trade while holding strong Christian convictions. Newton later came to believe that during the first five of his nine years as a slave trader he had not been a Christian in the full sense of the term: "I was greatly deficient in many respects ... I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time later."[10] Although this "true conversion" to Christianity also had no immediate impact on his views on slavery, he eventually came to revise them.[edit]Writer and hymnistThe vicarage in Olney where Newton wrote the hymn that would become "Amazing Grace".In 1767 William Cowper, the poet, moved to Olney. He worshipped in the church, and collaborated with Newton on a volume of hymns, which was eventually published as Olney Hymns in 1779. This work had a great influence on English hymnology. The volume included Newton's well-known hymns "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken", "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!", "Let Us Love, and Sing, and Wonder", "Come, My Soul, Thy Suit Prepare", "Approach, My Soul, the Mercy-seat", and "Faith's Review and Expectation", which has come to be known by its opening phrase, "Amazing Grace".Many of Newton's (as well as Cowper's) hymns are preserved in the Sacred Harp. He also contributed to the Cheap Repository Tracts.[edit]CommemorationThe gravestone of John Newton in Olney with the epitaph he penned. ■ The town of Newton, Sierra Leone is named after John Newton. To this day there is a philanthropic link between John Newton's church of Olney and Newton, Sierra Leone. ■ Newton was recognized for his hymns of longstanding influence by the Gospel Music Association in 1982 when he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

Fergus Connolly is a specialist in historic architecture and conservation at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios. This ride visits several churches built in the wake of the Great Fire of London, in particular those of Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor. The … Continue reading →