2020 Review

 

Normally this review would have been published last week has it not for the situation we are in at the moment, in fact it became worse a few days later as the country went into a nationwide lockdown. This left me with a bit of a problem in that I have not been out to visit any churches even to get photos of the church and churchyard leaving me with nothing to blog. I have decided to spit the review into two parts and then start republishing some of the older blogs again as a last resort I will just have close the Church Explorer for a while till things pick up.

After publishing the review of 2019 the first church I posted was St John Kidmore End it was one of the last churches I visited in 2019 going there just before Christmas and one that was locked at the time, I'm not sure I will be going back to it but we will see.

St Marks Engelfield was the first visited in 2020 and one that was worth going to that day because I was treated to an organist playing the magnificent organ there 

St Denny Stratford Dingly  followed one I was pleased to see dated back to before 1066 

 

By the time I published St Mary Bucklebury we were in February one church I had longed to visit

and found it well worth going to. There is another church at Lower Bucklebury which is more modern that I doubt I will visit.

St Laurence Tidmash  was a revisit for me on the off chance it would be open because when I visited many year prior there was a church service going on and I thought it would be rude to go in while it was going on. The church was open this time and I found it a very pleasing one to go around

 

Pishill Church was a spur of the moment visit after I noticed how close the church was, a struggle to find but worth the visit

The next tree churches were planed as I noticed they were in the same benefice and all within easy reach of each other. The first St Swithun Kennington was built in the late 1950's and was more interesting than I thought it would be for such a new church. The church it replaced stood next door and used as the church hall.

St James the Great Radley was next on the list, I found it a superb church to look around well worth visiting

 March came around and worrying news but I featured St Leonard Sunningwell which was the last church on the list and another that I found worth searching out.

 St Helen Dry Sandford turned out a disappointment dues to it being closed for repairs, the building was in a dangerous state and was being repaired at the time

Not long after publishing the last blog I hurt my back and could not go out to visit any churches though I did have a few I had yet to publish. A few days after the last blog the UK entered a pandemic caused by the Covid19 Virus the following week we were in Lockdown and not allowed to go out other than exercise going shopping or the doctors. I decided to republish some of the older blogs I had written starting with the First one Joe   I might add I am going to have to do the same this year as we have now entered a third lockdown

The next post was on Agatha Christie the well know author who lived locally and is buried in Cholsey Church

 

While I have been writing the Church Explorer I have been finishing my blogs with a gif that I found on Google search and had modified the colours for the blog. I was shocked to find it belonged to a website called Explore Churches so I asked if the minded me using it a while later the came back to me and said no but would I mind writing something about them and adding a link which I have done with a few other on the right hand column. I also wrote a blog on Explore Churches

 As we came into April Lockdown did not seem to be ending any time soon I came across a place I had not blogged about St Margaret's Chapel at Glastonbury Almshouses. Glastonbury is a place I love going even though you do see some odd people there. The Almshouse is a must for you to visit

The following week I wrote about the Church Conservation Trust who look after redundant churches, I'm lucky to have three very near to where I live and they are always worth visiting if you come across them

 

The Fair mile Chapel is a place I never posted on here so this week I changed that and wrote a blog 

 

Thinking for blogs to write in May I thought of a trail I had come across in Wales Called the Clerics Trail, I had visited many of the churches so featured them in it

I was on a roll by the next week thinking of items to write for the church explorer and came up with the Church Benifice which is one of the bigger ones in my area comprising of around 7 churches all of them worth visiting

Graves of the Famous was more of a rewrite of an older blog, the photos were on Flickr and as I did not have an account any more it seemed a good time to write a new blog

Tomb Effigies seems like a good blog to feature and I published that in June

I visited St Peter Wooton for next it was one of the last two churches I visited before lockdown and felt lucky it was open, normaly it is locked 

St Mary Shippon was the fist church I got to visit since March but was locked on the occasion I visited, I hope to get a chance to return

The month finished with a church I quickly visited a number of years before to see the grave of an airman who was killed in WWII saving a nearby town I only had a quick look at St Michael & All Angels Kerry 

I will close the Review here and publish the remaining part next week.

Till Next time Stay safe and have a good weekend