From the Publisher: Celebrating 1066 Churches—Medieval Norman Architecture Through Denis Dunstone's Watercolours

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With enthusiasm and a feeling of elation, I have reached the keyboard to personally blog about our next publication:  

1066 churches: Medieval Norman Churches in Watercolour. 

I feel so grateful to the author and veteran artist Denis Dunstone to have chosen our small independent press and cannot stop feeling elated by our opportunity to contribute to the worldwide regain interest for Medieval Christianity and our common history.  

In practice, 1066 Churches should be on sale at the British Museum by 1 November 2026.  You can already pre-order at Bookcybirdy.com, The Times, The guardian Bookshop and Waterstones.

The publication of Dunstone’s Watercolours coincides amazingly with the Bayeux Tapestry’s display at the British Museum but also with the Holiness, Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Paris, Saint Denis, Lourdes and Metz and precedes William the Conqueror’s Millenium in 2027 with many European events and celebrations to be announced soon.

Although 1066 churches is a reminder for all of us that William the Conqueror has certainly been the greatest Christian church builder of all times, The Bayeux tapestry, an impressive, embroidered cloth nearly 70 metres long and 50 centimetres tall depicts the events leading up to his Conquest of England. It was made by Anglo Saxon seamstresses in London or Kent lay workshops, under the order of Odo, half-brother of William the Conqueror and bishop of Canterbury.
One of the wonders of the European’s craftmanship, the Tapestry is a testimony of 11th century Battle of Hastings, with amazing depictions of warfare, but also habits and customs, architecture, Christian spiritually and morality intermingling interestingly with phantasmagorical bestiary.
While the tapestry features only three churches, namely, the abbey of the Mont St Michel, The Holy Trinity Church in Bolham and St Peter of Apostle (today Westminster Abbey), Dunstone has watercoloured and described for the reader’s delight a total of 184 Norman churches which, after nearly a millennium still stand and more often than I thought in financial need for maintenance and care. 
In 1066 Churches, images through watercolours, like in the Bayeux Tapestry don’t invent; they reveal. As mentioned in our August’s blog, images take something that is rooted in the real world, and here in the real history, a building, a fully armed horseman, an injured warrior, food and wine, they hold us long enough for us to look properly, connect with the past, learn and relate.
In historical writing, especially, illustration becomes the guide. It doesn’t shout or overwhelm with abundant detail. It simply says: this is what the text is trying to show you. And suddenly, the past feels less distant.
With an assumed unacademic approach, and far from specialist architectural or academic historical account, 1066 Churches is an authentic, reliable, well informed aesthetic testimony to our past and history, we, people with roots across the English Channel. The text is cleverly constructed around the sketches with interesting mentions of particular people or events related to the churches during the Norman conquest, but also later. The mention of events related to the churches during the French Revolution or even the twenty century D Day make the whole book more vivid and meaningful. 

Like in his previous work, A church Near You, Dunstone has used the military sketching technique he learned more than sixty years ago as an officer in the Navy, and this point, makes in my view, the images more vivid, while still being precise and accessible to today’s wide readership. 

Following a touching forward by Sam, his grandson, Dunstone, like a well-informed travel guide leads us to the understanding of the progression of building aesthetic and engineering from Romanesque to the flamboyant style of gothic churches. The book is composed of 6 chapters:

I.  Normandy
II. King William I and his successors 
III. Romanesque
IV. Romanesque and Gothic 
V.  Gothic
VI. The Normans in England.

The Tapestry of Bayeux will stay on stage at the British Museum until July 2027.  Will it leave London after that? The future will tell. In this trouble time, I would not be surprised that its return to France be our next heated debate.

In Normandy and beyond its borders, MILLENIUM, a major year-long international celebration marking the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror will feature an ambitious programme of events, including exhibitions, an immersive quest, a contemporary art trail, a major gathering of Viking ships, and much more.  Cybirdy will join the festivities with the publication of the French translation, 1066 Eglises in January 2027. 

At Cybirdy, we will keep bridging literature, culture and history between France, UK and beyond with a constant focus on substantial aesthetic and literary work, classic or new. We will connect as often as possible future and present with the distant past, with a special liking for 

la petite histoire, que nous aimons tant,

imagining a better and peaceful future while digging into our past, drawing closer to our roots, remembering our ancestors shared achievements while fostering dialogue and knowledge for all readers around the world. 

It is in that spirit that Cybirdy Team is making everything possible for 1066 Churches being available from 1 November to purchase at the British Museum, a few yards away for the Tapestry itself while being in the starting block to distribute worldwide this small and beautiful paperback and of course online @bookcybirdy.com, Waterstones, Amazon and others.

For those who dare to join us in that venture towards a renaissance of our medieval Christian roots, on top of 1066 churches, I recommend the English and French books I have consulted during that project: 

1. A church Near You by the same author, Denis Dunstone
2. William of Normandy by Marc Morris
3. Bestiaires du Moyen-Age by Michel Pastoureau
4. Le Christianisme dans l’œil de la Camera. Bible, Eglise et Cinéma, collectif éditions Olivétan
5. Le Monde Chrétien by André Malraux 

contact@cybirdypublishing.co.uk I hope you keep in touch, read 1066 Churches, and subscribe to our free newsletter. You can also contact us on contact@cybirdypublishing.co.uk or even better support Dunstone in his honourable and artistic entreprise with leaving a review at Bookcybirdy.com.  

Alix Daniel, Cybirdy Founder

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