2021 Review

 

Who would have though that after all that we went through in 2020 that we would still be in the same position with the Virus still with us and everyone living with the threat of catching it. Things did look up with us all being able to go out and visit again but now it looks like we are nearly back to square one. We can only pray that things do get better. This year for me started with just visiting a few churches and looking around the outside and churchyard, sometimes I was lucky and found the church open for prayer but more often or not they were closed. As the year drew on I found I was returning to the churches I already visited to get photo's inside, I also managed to visit a few new ones which were not on my list plus a few old ones I visited years ago but at the time were locked. It turned out I visited 30 odd churches in the year

On with my Review, the first post was called Hope is Born which was a Nativity walk around the village where you found all the figures in the scene. That was followed by the reviews of 2020 Part1 & two

Got to admit that the following blogs that year were going to pose a problem because by then I had run out of churches to write about as I had not been able to get out to take photos so I came up with the idea of using some of the photos I had and writing a blog around them. I stared off with Tower View where I managed to go up a couple of church towers and showed the views from them and the bells in the tower 

Struggling for what to write next I remembered I took a few of Ickford Church and no one noticed I posted two different churches only the first second and last are, the rest of the photos in the blog are from St Giles Newington.

 

I have to admit I was struggling with what to post over the next few weeks because of Covid it was not easy to go out and visit places so the next post was about the Stained Glass windows you see in churches

Mid February and I remembered a few photos I took of a redundant Church in a nearby town so I managed to write a blog on that. The nice thing is it is still in use if not the original purpose 

The following week I came up with the bright idea and wrote about Church Memorials that you can see when you visit many 

In March we were still under lockdown but as I had to take my son to a Hospital in Oxford I went out and visited St Giles Horsepath nearby while he was having his treatment I knew it would be only the outside but it was a start.

I had already written about Builth Churches  in tribute to Phil Jones who had passed away in 2011 and who I used to email from time to time. I discovered his website after he died.

I visited a place I was familiar with from when I worked over in the village and went to the two churches I knew there, the first one was St Peter a Catholic church near the Church of England one.

It was followed by St Leonard which is in the village centre. Both of the churches I would like to return to for photos of the inside.

 

 

April came around and I had managed to visit St Mary Magdaline Shabbington which was a nice looking old church I must try and return to 

 

This was followed by St Leonard Waterstock which like other churches was locked because of the pandemic.

 

I returned to  St Nicholas Ickford again in the next post and found out the church was going to be open later in the day which I unfortunately missed doing

 

The end of the month saw me visiting St John the Baptist Stanton St John a wonderful old church which I was pleased  to find open I split the blog over two weeks

and showed the inside the following week

 

 The week after I visited area I knew from when I worked nearby and a church I used to pass by on a regular basis  St Laurence Besselsligh was a beautiful old church which I found locked but after phone up a number left in the porch I was granted access 10 min later, well worth it.

This was followed by Assumption BSV Beckley  which to my surprise was open and you did not have to ask me twice to go inside

 

 St Laurence Appletonwas a church I had wanted to visit for a while but due to the lockdown rules was still out of bounds but I did come across the last resting place of an old work Collogue.

 

 A visit to St Giles Noke ended the month of May and a need for a return visit as the church was locked

In June I visited St Nicholas Islip which at the time was having work done on  the electrics but after peeking inside I vowed to return

 

 The following week I took you to St Andrews Oddington which although locked gave me my first look at a complete preaching cross, up to now most have just been the base of stump with the top missing. 

For the last two churches in June I was in Wales and St Gwrthwls Llanwrthwl a fine looking church with a pagan stone sat outside the porch

A few miles away up in the hills you found St Marks Ysfa which has a wonderful monkey puzzle tree outside.

That brings us to the end of the first half of the year so I will finish there and bring you part two next week.

Till then stay safe and may I wish you all a Happy new Year 

Have a great Weekend

 

Remember in your thoughts Bishop Desmond Tutu who passed away last week 

and those affected by the Colorado Fires