A window for Gilbert White: one of my favourite scenes in the movies is in the English Patient when during wartime Kit and Hana view the frescoes in a locked-up church via a flare. Less romantic and cinematic perhaps, but memorable in its own special way, was perching on a ladder in a side-aisle of St Mary’s church in Selborne yesterday in order to photograph Horace Hincks’ 1920 window dedicated to Gilbert White. I desperately wanted images of it in the book I am doing but no good photos seem to be available. It is one of the most beautiful windows I have ever seen. It has taken me three visits to Selborne before I managed to get to see it, but Robert the verger kindly opened up the church for me. It shows St Francis giving his sermon to the birds, albeit transported from Assisi to the Hampshire countryside, conveying the notion of god as the centre of nature. Art historians and theorists speak of site-specific art installations: you don’t get more site-specific than this. The inscription is perfect: ‘lovers of nature and the man have placed the window here as a mark of admiration and esteem.’ #gilbertwhite #horacehincks #selborne #stainedglass #birds (at Selborne) https://www.instagram.com/p/CNUTZsjFuwM/?igshid=181578quqtsqn