Saturday 26 August 2017

St Pauls Highmoor


Not often you come across a church for sale but that is what I saw on my way to visit another church at Rotherfield Greys. On the way back I topped off to get some pictures before it was sold.
Saint Paul at Highmoor Cross was designed by the architect Joseph Morris of Reading and built by Robert Owthwaite of Henley-on-Thames in 1859 as a chapel of ease by the vicar of Rotherfield Peppard to cater for the wider rural population of the parish. The church was apparently paid for (along with the adjoining unlisted parsonage) by the Revd. Joseph Smith, the rector of Rotherfield Peppard, as a chapel of ease. Highmoor was made a separate parish in 1860.

St Paul’s was the parish church of Highmoor and was declared closed for regular public worship with effect from 1 June 2012, when the parish of Highmoor became united with Nettlebed.


Not a sign you expect to see on a church

View of the church along the north side






Another shot this time looking west















Taken over the wall towards the church





North side view
 West end shot with the bellcote

 Have to forgive me with this photo it's a stitch of the south side of the church from one end of the churchyard

The entrance door




























Looking through the grass to the East end of the churchyard on the South side




Much of the South west end of the churchyard is covered in Blackberry bushes hiding graves




the just poke up out of the shrubbery




 The East end is clearer











Above the stained glass you can see from the outside.

Right the church beside the road on the North side




These graves are on the east end of the church
























Above the two war graves you can see. Private A Green & Private R.Baldwin.
Right the remains of a cast grave marker























Above a broken cast marker and a compete one in differing parts of the churchyard
Left the churchyard suffers with long grass




One tomb nearly lost in the grass
















Waling around to the East end

The East end where you can see fresh flowers left on family graves

 I'll leave you with a shot of the bellcote and the silent bell on St Pauls
Have a great Bank Holiday Weekend


Saturday 19 August 2017

St Peter Easington



This was the last of the churches I visited in the Ewelme Benefice and quite a remote church for the area at that. To be honest I did not know of it's existence till I saw it in the Benefice website then looked at the map to check where it was and like many other it was not far from a previously visited church.  First look at the church shows it is old and reading Wickipedia shows it is which you can read in the history I took from it.
"The Church of England parish church of Saint Peter was built in the 14th century. It consists of a continuous nave and chancel with no chancel arch between them. The chancel masonry is ashlar, noticeably better-dressed and more evenly coursed than that of the nave.
The church building includes a 12th-century Norman doorway re-used from an earlier church on the same site. The font is tub-shaped, suggesting that it too is Norman.
The chancel windows are Perpendicular Gothic. The east window has ogee tracery and includes 14th century stained glass.The piscina also is ogeed. Beside the east window on the east wall are the remains of a mediaeval wall painting.
The woodwork of the pulpit and reading desk are Jacobean items carved in the 17th century. The pulpit bears the date 1633 but Sherwood and Pevsner suggest that it was assembled in the 19th century from Jacobean materials.
St. Peter's is a Grade II* listed building"
Visiting the church seems a little strange as you seem to be driving into a farmyard and the entrance is beside a house.

 




Above the church as you come through the gate. Right the west end with a bellcote




View of the South side giving a better view of the small bellcote




The East end



Another shot of the East end and the tracery




Above a view along the South side and right the open porch to the church





The reused Norman doorway and decorated stonework beside it





This side looked a little incomplete




Above the single cell nave and chancel with left the altar






Above the altar & chancel window with Ogee Tracery. Right the simple wooden cross & candle holders




View back through the church while on the right the Jacobean  reading desk





Left another view of the reading desk and left the Jacobean Pulpit














View from the pulpit of the nave




turning around to see the altar






Some of the decoration of the pulpit


















Above the sounding board to the pulpit while right the candle with candles





At first I thought this a mistake but if you look the date is 1916





Right the decorated panels




below which the date of 1633 can be seen





Above a view of the Ogee tracery and windows. Right a memorial to Anne Susanna Greenwood




Memorial to Charles Greenwood





There are a a few family vaults in the nave floor
















Above the Tub Font which is thought to be Norman. Right view along the aisle













Couple of the pews









part of the medieval wall painting on the East wall




memorial to Thomas Brown who was chaplain at Magdalene collage and  rector at the church




Another carved section which looks like its from the original church here




Above more sections of medieval painting



Right little pieces of exposed plaster that was found and left the West end of the church with bell rope











Left  a shot of the ceiling and roof joists




Back outside you find the churchyard on the north side





There are some quite recent burials in the churchyard




along with olser wones




If you remember the two memorials in the church to the Greenwood family, they are buried here in this family plot






the inscriptions are still visible though moss is now growing on the headstones











over on the far west side of the churchyard under a yew are more graves




upturned earthenware pots by the West wall





Family plots by the West end, the entrance you see in the distance leads to the farmyard while the one on the right to the house



A headstone which had most likely fallen over lays on the ground while right a sapling grows in between a head & footstone on a grave






I will leave you this week with a view of the church taken from the gate
Take Care and have a Wonderful Weekend