A thank-you for your church wall painting volunteers: a photo of a faded doom painting above the chancel arch, angels and devils emerging from limewash, or a volunteer's lamp on a saint's ochre face as a jigsaw

Written by the team behind Puzzlify. Puzzlify is our product, so weigh what follows with that in mind. We've tried to make this useful even if you never use it. We're not affiliated with any parish council, parochial church council, diocese, church, churches trust, wall painting conservation body, local history society, civic society, museum, heritage trust, heritage body, heritage funder, sponsor, school or community organisation.

It's a soft Friday afternoon at the end of October, and the light in the nave of the little church comes in low and gold through the south windows. High above the chancel arch, where most visitors never think to look, the plaster is stained with patches of rust red, yellow ochre and a greenish grey. At first it looks like damp. Then, as your eyes adjust, shapes appear: a seated figure in the centre with raised hands, a row of small naked people climbing out of their coffins, an angel blowing a long trumpet, and on the right, a wide open mouth with teeth, swallowing a tangle of bodies while a horned devil pushes them in with a fork. A retired nurse called Hilary stands at the back of the nave with binoculars and a clipboard. A volunteer called Tomasz is beside her, holding a small LED lamp at arm's length so its light falls sideways across the wall. A father and his son, sheltering from the rain on a walk, have wandered in. The boy squints. "Is that a monster?" "It's the mouth of Hell," Hilary says cheerfully. "Six hundred years ago, everybody in this village would have looked at it every Sunday." The boy looks at it for a long moment. "Why did they paint over it?" Hilary hands him the binoculars. "That," she says, "is a very good question."

If you want to say thank you to people like Hilary and Tomasz, this is a guide to doing it well, with or without a puzzle.

Who we mean

Medieval churches were once full of colour. Walls were painted with saints, stories from the Bible, warnings about the seven deadly sins, giant figures of St Christopher opposite the door so travellers could see him as they came in, and, above the chancel arch, the Last Judgement, often called a doom. After the Reformation, much of this was covered in limewash or plaster, and later some was scraped away. In many churches, fragments have reappeared during repairs over the last two centuries, sometimes faint, sometimes startlingly clear. Looking after what survives is slow, specialist work for conservators, but a great deal of the surrounding care is done by volunteers.

When we say church wall painting volunteers, we mean all of them:

• the recorders who photograph and describe each painting and note any changes
• the researchers who work out what a faded scene shows and when it was painted
• the church guides who point out the doom, the St Christopher or the sins on open days
• the church watchers who keep an eye on damp, flaking and new cracks and report them
• the cleaners who keep dust and cobwebs away without touching the painted surface
• the conservation fundraisers who help pay for specialist assessments and treatment
• the people who look after old photographs, drawings and reports in the archive
• the education volunteers who run family days and school visits
• the churchwardens and council members who keep it all possible
• the founders who first noticed shapes on the wall and asked what they were

Some have watched the same wall for thirty years. Some joined last spring after spotting a face nobody else had noticed.

Why a thank-you matters here

Wall painting work rewards patience more than anything. A good record of a single scene can take many visits in different light, and the honest answer to "what is it?" is often "we're not sure yet". Volunteers spend a lot of time explaining why the painting mustn't be touched, why the heating is kept low, why a bright light can't simply be left on it, and why a promised conservation job has been postponed again for lack of funds. Much of what they do is invisible: a note in a logbook that a crack has widened by a millimetre, which might save a section from falling. A thank-you that names the actual work, the looking, the noting, the patient explaining, lands differently from a general "thanks, everyone".

What makes a good photo

Pick something that means something to the person you're thanking. Some ideas:

• the whole doom above the chancel arch, taken from the back of the nave
• a single face, a hand or an angel's wing up close with a zoom
• St Christopher carrying the Christ child across the river, opposite the door
• a fragment of decorative pattern: a vine, a star, a masonry line painted in red
• the edge where limewash meets paint, showing the layers
• the nave in late-afternoon light with the paintings catching the sun
• a volunteer's hands holding binoculars or a clipboard, with their permission
• an old photograph from the archive beside the same wall today, with permission
• a child's drawing of the mouth of Hell or the trumpeting angel, with the family's permission

Getting the JPG right

Use a JPG, sharp and well lit. Be kind to the wall: never touch, lean on or brush against painted plaster, don't stand on pews or ladders for a better angle, and keep bags, umbrellas and wet coats well away. Ask before you photograph, keep out of the way during services, and don't move furniture or hangings. Flash can harm fragile pigments and flattens detail anyway, so turn it off and use natural light, or a small lamp held to one side for a few seconds only if the church says it's fine. Zoom rather than walking closer, hold the phone steady against a pillar or your chest, and take several shots, because faint paintings often look clearer in one frame than another.

Privacy and an optional PIN

Puzzlify puzzles are private links. You can add an optional PIN so only the person you send it to can open it. Photos aren't used to train AI and aren't shared with third parties.

Say it's from you

Put your name, or your family's or group's, in the note at the end so they know who sent it. A puzzle that ends with "from the Mensahs (who finally looked up)" is a thank-you, not a mystery.

Piece counts

Faint paintings make harder puzzles, because the colours are close together. If the image is very pale, a lower piece count is kinder.

How to send it

Make the puzzle, write the note, publish the link, and send it by email or message, or print the link as a QR code inside a card. The recipient doesn't need an account or an app; it plays in the browser on a phone, tablet or computer.

Note examples

• "Thank you for teaching us to look up."
• "Six hundred years under the limewash, and you helped them see the light again."
• "For every crack you've measured and every face you've found. Thank you, Hilary."
• "To Tomasz, who held the lamp just far enough to the side for the angels to appear."
• "We still don't know who the little figure on the left is. We're glad you're asking."
• "From the whole group: thank you for looking closely, and never touching."

What it costs, plainly

The preview is free, so you can see how it looks before deciding anything. Publishing the link costs one credit (€3.99), or less per puzzle with a bundle. It's a digital puzzle, not a printed or cardboard one, so nothing arrives in the post. If a card and a few sentences feel like enough, they are.

Ideas that are not a puzzle

• a handwritten card, perhaps with a child's drawing of a favourite painted figure
• a short message to the church council or local history group naming the volunteer, so it reaches them
• a donation towards conservation of the paintings or the group's records in their name
• an offer of your own time: helping on open days, typing up records, or sitting in as a church watcher
• an old family photograph of the church interior, offered to the archive if they'd like it
• a good book on medieval wall paintings, or a day out together visiting another painted church

If a photo puzzle feels right as well, choose a figure, a face, a fragment of pattern or an old photograph, take it with the church's permission and without touching the wall or using flash, keep children, graves and anyone's details out of the frame, pick a piece count that suits them, and write the note in your own words. You can make a free preview here and decide later whether to send it.

Whatever you send, the most important part is the sentence that sounds like you, written to the person who stands at the back of a cold nave with binoculars, who writes down every new crack so the wall doesn't lose another face, and who tells a small boy that yes, it's a monster, and asking why they painted over it is a very good question, one faded angel at a time, one jigsaw piece at a time.

Written by the small team behind Puzzlify (info@puzzlify.app). Not legal, historical, art historical, religious, listed building, conservation, insurance, first aid, health and safety, safeguarding, copyright, trade mark, photography permission or employment advice. Check your own group's, church's and landowner's guidance on gifts, photos, the building, children and people's details.