Saturday, 19 May 2018

St Mary Lyford


A chance comment from a Manager at work brought me to this church for a visit, I had not heard of the place until then. The Village had some interesting history as does the church.
"The Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin was built as a chapelry of Hanney in the first half of the 13th century. There is a Mass dial scratched on the south wall. The wooden bell-turret was added in the 15th century, has a scissor-braced timber frame and three bells. The Perpendicular Gothic clerestory was added either at the same time or early in the 16th century. The church was restored in 1875 under the direction of the Gothic revival architect Ewan Christian. It is a Grade II* listed building.
St Mary's parish is now part of the United Benefice of Cherbury with Gainfield"


The path leading up to the church




Better view of the church from the churchyard




Going around the North side










The East end and West end with Bellcote











The cross on the church below the bellcote




Across the wall








The porch and entrance door












View along the nave






The Chance arch and inside the chancel













Looking out of the chancel to the bellcote support at the back





Simple altar adornments





The cross is in memory

Right the pulpit












View of the church from thepulpit
The church font
Which you can see is covered in Graffiti







Some of the windows in the chancel
Choir stalls



Opposite side with light streaming through the windows


Spotted this little angel in a Squint or hagioscope







The huge bellcote support and church organ












The war memorial for the village of Lyford

On 8 April 1945 an Avro Lancaster B.I Special bomber aircraft, HK788 of No. 9 Squadron RAF based at Bardney in Lincolnshire, had taken part in a raid on a benzole factory in mainland Europe. On its return flight the plane caught fire and crashed in a field barely 400 yards (370 m) south of the parish church and Manor Farm.
All seven aircrew were killed. Six were members of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. The seventh was a warrant officer from the Royal Canadian Air Force. All are buried in the Commonwealth War Graves section of Botley Cemetery on the outskirts of Oxford.
In October 2008 the widow of one of the crew provided a plaque commemorating the seven dead. It was installed in St Mary the Virgin parish church, where the actor Richard Briers attended the ceremony and read Noël Coward's poem Lie in the Dark and Listen
Part of the Lancaster that was found sits on top of the memorial


Above the royal coat of arms from 1787








Couple of shots of the bellcote support and a chandalear










Sunlight shins through the windows





Outside in the churchyard you can see the place is kept neat & tidy




with headstones and tombs kept clear of grass





Near the south side of the church




Over in in corner of the churchyard


Above a group of headstones belonging to one family

Right a couple more recent headstones




Three of the older tombs in the churchyard

Nathan William Coe of the Berkshire Yeomanry





Above the grave of a young person

Right a family plot










The blocked off North door and the windows in the chancel













Above a mass sundial which
 would tell you the time of the next service

The walls are covered in these crosses. I have come across them before but not in the numbers I saw on this church





One of the reasons could be that Edmund Campion was captured at nearby Lyford Manor, Pilgrims may well have visited the church and marked the cross on the walls of the church







I feel the post is unfinished with out showing the last resting place of the Lancaster crew so I  visited  Botley Commonwealth War Cemetery to find the Bomber Crews graves. You can find them in a row buried beside each other.
Have a Happy Weekend





7 comments:

Jim said...

Thev stonework is great and it's beautiful inside.

Tom said...

...what a gem, but who what write graffiti on a church?

Brian Carlick said...

Lovely to see all these photos. I have been tuning the organ there today having set it up originally in 2005 after it had been brought from Holland by two church volunteers.

Billy Blue Eyes said...

Nice little organ, I have only heard some one playing one once in a church and that was after a service in Streatley. Do you go arund the country tuning them? Oldest I have seen was in Old Radnor

Brian Carlick said...

I go round a few in Oxfordshire villages tuning. Other and much bigger firms have much larger tuning rounds.

Billy Blue Eyes said...

I presume you mean you Tune Organs if your linked in profile is right, it's small in comparison with some I have come across. I've bumped into a few tuners on my visits

Brian Carlick said...

Sorry I did of course mean tuning organs but I was not sure what happened to the text of my post