utahscout2037

Please tell me how to locate the church where brass rubbings are made by the tourist. Thanks.

StCirq

Um, you can do brass rubbings anywhere as long as you have the right tools. There are hundreds of churches where people do brass rubings.

I guess the most famous one in Europe that comes to mind is Westminster Abbey.

celticdreams

I was thinking of

London Brass Rubbing Center
St-Martins-in-the-fields Church
Trafalgar Square
London
WC2N 4JJ

utahscout2037

Oh,Thank you!!!!

janisj

When are you going? the Brass rubbing centre at St Martin's in the field is still closed for remodeling. I think it re-opens sometime in Oct.

hopscotch

I was in a London church some years ago and was offered the opportunity to do a brass rubbing. They wanted to sell me the supplies. I had the impression that all churches over there do that.

hopscotch

BTW newbie utahscout2037, one posting on a subject is enough. If you don't get a chorus of answers within a day then visit your posting and reply ttt. That means to the top.

janisj

hopscotch: Originally one could rub brasses (real brasses - not the replicas one sees now) in most churches. Years ago I even rubbed the brasses in Westminster Abbey. Most are now covered by mats.

Gradually most churches stopped allowing it - except in some special cases for research and such. Then the brass rubbing centres sort of took over. Now many rubbing centers have closed but there are still a few.

It takes specialized wax and papers so most visitors would need to buy from the centre/church.

I mostly rubbed original brasses on site back in the 70's - probably 100+ all over the country - so I did have my own heel balls/paper

Underhill

Ditto. We were able to rub some of the finest brasses on site, including Sir Robert de Septvens, all 7 feet of him, in a church in Kent. The brass was up against a wall in the transept, and reaching the far side meant stretching out over the very cold stone stone; my husband claims he froze a kidney doing so.

The friendly rector told us we were the last people to do the brass that year; he tried to turn on the heat for us but got the organ going instead.

That was the year when a huge number of people were stranded at Heathrow because of a massive snow storm. The countryside was beautiful under its blanket of white, but driving was interesting.

We collected about three dozen brass rubbings over several years before many churches stopped letting people work in them--for good reason, considering some of the messes we saw left behind. Doing rubbings at a center just isn't the same, but it's better than nothing.

bigtyke

I did brass rubbings at the brass rubbing center in Cambridge. they had several items to do rubbings of and had all the materials and instructions. The one i did was about 3 feet high. It took at least 2 hours to do. One girl doing a six foot one was going to be there all day.