St Michael St Michael on Arrow

I found this church while looking on the Ordnance survey mapping I have on my laptop, I had been looking at the last two places I visited and noticed a road going East from Newchurch towards the Welsh Boarder and nearly missed the small cross marking the church. St Michael on Arrow is only a short distance from the boarder with England. Parts of the church date back to the 13th Century though most of it was restored in the 19th century. A more detailed history can be found on the CPAT website

The walk to the church is a long grass path through the churchyard

You walk between  fenced off  graves which are either side

Above the porch and tower which is one of the more unusual ones I have seen with a North to South roof on it

The walls of which have lancet windows on

Above the North side with vestry and Right the East end wall of the chancel, not often you see no window.

The tower for some reason reminds me of a barn

Right the South side of the church

Enter the church through the porch

Found the nave quite dark for my Compact

Above nice to see a screen that looked very old

Left inside the chancel

The altar with altar cross and candles

Plastic covered the cloth on the altar

Left  a rear view of the screen

In the chancel is a nice stained glass window of the Good Shepherd


Right a seated window

Behind the Choir stalls is a very nice stained glass

Above the pulpit

with the view down the nave from it

Above the font which does not look older than 19th century

Memorial to Hugh Lloyd

There are a few memorials in the church  like Thomas Mainwaring here on the right

Above a tomb slab which is in the nave

Left a painting of the Last Supper

Outside you can look around the churchyard though you need to get over the chicken wire fencing there

















Most of the headstones are quite old

With a few tombs on the East end lost in the ferns growing there

The odd monument is also found in the churchyard

This is the right hand side you see walking North up to the church

and the left, I am looking South down from the church

Another monument in better condition

I will leave you with this prayer I took on the way out.

Till Next time take care and have a peaceful weekend

St Mary Newchurch

After a second visit to the church I managed to get some external photos I was happy with. Could find no history about the church on Wikipeda but there is some on the Church in Wales site
so I would suggest you went to the link to read it. I will say that the church looks to date back to the 1400's though the church was restored in 1856. It sands not far from the Offas Dyke path and offers hospitality to walkers who pass by.

The churchyard is well overgrown as you can see from the photos of the church taken across the grass

The North side is fenced off so I could not say if there are graves there

Nearby some one used a bit of  ingenuity and made a seat from a couple of old waggon wheels
As you could not go around the East end I went into the church

From the entrance you see the nave and walking across look down to the narrow chancel arch

From the arch you look back to the West end

The altar was covered in a red cloth

with a stained glass window letting in light

On one side of the chancel arch is the pulpit

which is quite high and give a good view of the nave


Left the memorial to David Vaughn and his wife Margaret

Left the coat of arms is above the door with right the memorial to John Owend and his wife Eliza

above memorial to the Beven family

There are a couple more Beven family memorials in the church as well

This one is to Major Samuel Beven

Above the Roll of Honour for those lost in the Second World War

The Stained glass windows in the Church are nice, one showing a coat of arms

at the front of the nave is a box pew

Above relics of a time when there was no electricity in the church

Right a balcony in the bell tower though there was no access to it for me

Above the font which looks a lot older than the rest of the church
Left the hospitality provided for walkers, you can leave money in the honesty box

Photos showing churches and the life of Francis Kilvert who wrote a book on the area and is celebrated in quite a few of the Churches

The church from across the road

A welcome site for many walkers

The churchyard looking very overgrown but it is insect friendly

Above the front of the churchyard by the road is mown
The rest grows wild

You find paths were people have walked through the long grass

Above som eof the older headstones.

Left near the porch this part is mown

Over on the North side is a mown area by the seat

And the more recent burials

The well kept graves near the road

Time to leave

But not before I show you the residents of the porch

I will leave you with these young Swallows who watched me walk under them to the church

Till next time have a wonderful weekend