The face of Owini

Here we have a stained-glass window (from Clun, in Shropshire) showing two Staffordshire saints - St Chad on the left (holding a model of Lichfield Cathedral) and Saint Owini, or Owen, on his right.
Saint Owini doesn't seem to have been too remarkable, but he was the monk who acted as St Chad's right-hand man - and St Chad is significant as the man who brought Christianity to 'godless' Staffordshire in the eighth century.

You'll notice in this scene that Saint Owini gets more of the attention than Saint Chad - which is odd. However, it turns out that the face of St Owini is also that of the Rev Charles Warner, the clergyman who paid for this window. Which may explain that. 

Grimy end to pilgrimage path

This rather grimy pool is what is supposed to remain of the sacred 'Saint Chad's Well'. It sits in the churchyard of St Chad's Church which is on the outskirts of Lichfield.

It's a pretty unprepossessing sight, and very disappointing - especially now as it is one end of the new Two Saints Way, a pilgrimage path from Lichfield to Chester.
Saint Chad is the Lichfield connection, being a local saint from the 7th Century. At this site, or near it anyway, he is supposed to have prayed, and pilgrims started visiting it soon after his death.

The present structure around the well is, er, brutalist in style, replacing a rather nice well-house which was pulled down in the 1940s.
It's not worth travelling to see, sadly.

Related link: What Not To Do With A Holy Well

Saint Chad portrait

St Chad is the most important saint associated with Staffordshire. Basing himself here at Lichfield, it is reputed that he converted the Anglo-Saxon Midlands to Christianity.

But, he originally came from the north-east of England… and it was there that I found this modern portrait of him.
I rather like its strange, disjointed panels, and primitive approach. I guess the artist (whose name I couldn’t find out) was trying to evoke a stained-glass piece.

It was part of an exhibition in the so-called ‘art-church’, St Edmund’s Chapel in Gateshead. This small town-centre church is used by artists to display their work, though it does have services of course.