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.

Not a sign you expect to see on a church

 

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.

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

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