Eric Marland's Alphabet Museum is in the rescued chapel, once earmarked for demolition by the church authorities. "They could not afford the demolition fees and so it remained until I came along and bought it" Eric tells me. The chapel is now a fully working studio. Part of the renovation works was the installation of a large woodburner. "Don't forget it was a morgue chapel!" Eric reminds me.
The name comes from the rescued stone, designed by David Kindersley, that sits outside the chapel now. It belonged to Dr. David Diringer - a reknown expert in Semitic Epigraphy at University of Cambridge - and sat outside his home in St Barnabas Rd in Cambridge.
Eric was an apprentice to David Kindersley - highly regarded for his beautiful spacing - who in turn was an apprentice to Eric Gill (Gill Sans) who in turn studied under Edward Johnston (London Transport typeface). For those in typography, that is quite a lineage of the greats of UK lettercutting and typeface design over the last 100 years.
A documentary video mixing oral recording and photographs is available in my videos, Eric Marland's Alphabet Museum.
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