National Trust – Lyme Park Missal

Lyme Park is home to the Sarum Missal; the only surviving, intact copy of the printed liturgy of the mass, printed by William Caxton in 1487. Often famed as the most important book in the Trust’s collection, the Missal tells a magnificent story; a Catholic relic that survived the reformation, hidden for centuries, and now taking pride of the place within Lyme Park.

To showcase this unique object I worked with the team at Lyme to develop an exhibition that re-enacts the theme of its original purpose; as a prayer book – with exhibition panels built within wooden pews, and a stained glass projection that illustrated stages of the Missal’s life; from prayer book, surviving the turbulence of the reformation, becoming a lost treasure, to finally returning to an artefact of the Lyme Park collection.

There was also audio of a Catholic monk chanting verses of the Missal, which was edited into an immersive soundscape, adding atmosphere to the room.