End of the trail
Drawn here by a mention of the place in John Piper's Shell Guide to Oxfordshire, I wasn't disappointed. In a churchyard full of leaning gravestones lies a small 14th-century church with narrow lancet windows and simple wooden porch.
Opening the door you find an interior as simple and as satisfying as you could hope for: whitewash, a tiled floor, a handful of pews, the plainest of fonts, and a pulpit made of Jacobean wooden panels bodged together maybe in the 19th century. The focus is on the altar, of course, which is positioned between the building’s one elaborate window, with its lovely 14th-century tracery. It’s pleasing that the place has changed little since John Piper’s visit.
Austerity has it's beauty but I do love my bells and smells.
ReplyDeleteJust wonderful. I'd be tempted to Piperise the top picture by putting in an ink blue sky and scrawling chalk spots and lines over the rest. Only jokin'.
ReplyDeleteThud: Stand by. There'll be something more 'elevated' on the blog soon.
ReplyDeletePeter: Indeed. Piper painted the church surrounded in green - trees, the churchyard more overgrown than it is now, and even a greenish sky. Which is just what it feel like down that lane: green everywhere. You can see a postcard of the Piper picture on top of the font in my interior photograph.
Reading this brought back memories of a visit I made to a similar 'hidden' Oxfordshire church nearly 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteWhilst researching my family history I discovered that the earliest occurrence of the family name was in in Oxfordshire in 1600 with a few remaining there in the 20th century. They were concentrated around Garford and Marcham, East & West Hanney, but none seemed to link directly with my branch of the family.
I visited St Luke's, Garford, to try and discover more, and was surprised to find it hidden away in a farmyard, next to the River Ock.
I'd love to know more about its history; I believe it was rebuilt in the 19th century but contains elements of a much older church on the same site.