Jonathan Roberts

I’m so pleased this worked out!

Hereford Cathedral hosts Creative Cloisters yesterday and today: people are invited to come and be inspired by our gardens and buildings. My creativity is word-based rather than the paint or pastels type, so a haiku a day.

Bumble buzz, stone dust
Fountain’s cool, printer’s heat
Far-felt organ thrum

Today’s big flowers.

Hereford Cathedral hosts Creative Cloisters today and tomorrow: people are invited to come and be inspired by our gardens and buildings. My creativity is word-based rather than the paint or pastels type, so, a haiku a day.

Seaside heat, gulls cry
Hoverflies sip hollyhocks
Ancient stone shimmers

Astonishing hydrangeas in the cloister garden.

The first agapanthus is out.

A floor tile from St Michael’s Tenbury where we took the cathedral choir for an evensong visit today.

I re-strung all of these today.

St Thomas Cantilupe Primary take part in Evensong On Thursday 26 June 2025, we will be holding a very special Evensong as children from St Thomas Cantilupe Primary School will be joining the cathedral choristers. We extend a very warm welcome to all ...

Very proud to be part of this www.herefordcathedral.org/news/st-thom...

A man in a black shirt and clerical collar smiling and standing in front of Norman stone work, while holding up a yellow frame with the words Wish You Were Here. As part of the Association of English Cathedrals summer campaign.

The Succentor says: 'Wish you were here: come to Evensong at Hereford Cathedral!'
@englishcathedrals.co.uk

Another creature that shares my workplace.

Another creature that works in the same building as me.

You can get used to having a world-class choir singing back when you intone the words 'O Lord, open Thou our lips'... I was not ready, however, for yesterday when the response came from the combined choirs of three cathedrals! Three Choirs Festival preparation Evensong was quite something.

Sermon for the Feast of Consecration 1 Chronicles 29:6-19; John 2:13-22 ‘O LORD our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own.’

It is not often one gets to preach with a full orchestra as a soundtrack! This is a sermon on the texts of the day, but also a personal manifesto, and a theological love letter to the place where I work.

liturgicallyheldbreath.substack.com/p/sermon-for...

The dispensers of holy oils at the Hereford Chrism Mass.

This colleague is strangely like a parrot for Herefordshire…

Another creature from my workplace... a foliate sort of lion head.

Please do let anyone who might apply know about this.

A red tile with two birds in yellow, their feet to opposite corners, looking towards each other across a stylised leafy branch.

Some of the creatures that work in the same building as me, a series... No.4 A representative pair of the birds that perch on many of our tiles.

A carving of a small pig or boar, painted pinky brown, wearing a tabard with the blue and gold chevron pattern that is the Dean of Hereford's blazon. The background olive coloured with a white vine and acorns.

Some of the creatures that work in the same building as me, a series... No.3 A jolly pig/boar in the Dean’s livery with an acorn.

A column top carving in light sandstone of a somewhat melancholy-looking stylised face, flanked by two spirals.

Some of the creatures that work in the same building as me, a series... No.2 A melancholy angel.

I often forget how much I love short stories, particularly collections that are slightly threaded together. ‘Boys, Beasts, and Men’ by Sam Miller is just marvellous.

Closeup of a metal finial for a wall hanging, in the shape of a wolf's head.

Some of the creatures that work in the same building as me, a series... No.1 A tapestry-bearing wolf from the shrine of Thomas Cantilupe.

New sermon up: learning to put ourselves on the line for others as God does for us.

Bucket with Christian symbols and Greek inscription.

Bucket with Christian symbols and Greek inscription.

Bucket with Christian symbols and Greek inscription.

A stunning bucket excavated at Zerzevan Kalesi in the Diyarbakır Museum.

Micrography in action

Bodleian Library MS Kennicott 1; 'The Kennicott Bible'; 1476 CE; La Coruña, Spain; f.318r @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social

From a confession for Lent; this feels a lot like the job currently:

'free our hands to welcome others into the radiant splendour of your love.'

The Magic Spells That Herded Medieval Bees For European beekeepers, “swarm charms” were once a tool of the trade.

The Magic Spells That Herded Medieval Bees
For European beekeepers, “swarm charms” were once a tool of the trade.
www.atlasobscura.com/articles/swa...

The beauty of small city ministry, an anecdote.
Walking to evening prayer in cassock and cloak I pass a group of teenagers. Their spokesperson walks towards me and I get ready for... 'I like your dressing gown, Albus Dumbledore!' I hope they were thinking Jude Law era Dumbledore, but I'll take it.