St Mary & St Nicholas Littlemore

 

 I had been putting off visiting this church because I could not see where to park but after emailing the Vicar I found out it was possible to park on the road nearby so after visiting Sanford Church I went along in the hope it would be open. Alas not at the time I was there so it will have to wait till I make a return visit in a couple of weeks. My first thoughts on seeing the church was that it looks like it had some older parts but in reading the history I was a little disappointed to find it was built in the 19th century. Some history from Wikipedia :-

"St Nicholas' priory had a priory church, but until the 19th century Littlemore had no parish church. In 1828 John Henry Newman was appointed vicar of St Mary's and he started agitating for a separate church at Littlemore. The new parish church of Saint Mary and Saint Nicholas was designed by the architect H. J. Underwood, built in 1835 and consecrated in 1836. The chancel and northeast tower were added in 1848, and the vestry in 1918. The church is in a Gothic Revival style and became a model for smaller churches of the time"  The church also has it's own wikipedia page with a little more history.  

 A lych gate leads you into the churchyard

Viewing from the right a little you can take in the tower as well

The path takes you to the west door that opens into the church

The tower is over to the north of the church at the east end

The east end with chancel and from the look a vestry

View of the church from the north east

The south side where a covering of trees hides your view of the church

In the corner of the tower and north wall the entrance to the bell loft

back around to the west end

The churchyard wraps around the church both on the north

and south sides

 

with parts of the south side left going wild

 

I noticed a faire few commonwealth war graves in the churchyard

 

with even more in the extension on the east end

here you can see the churchyard left to go wild with mostly cow parsley growing

 

which hide some of the broken headstones around

 

The headstones poke out of the cow parsley

 

The churchyard extension is more a wildlife refuge in the suburbs, around you find notices telling you what wildlife you can see if you are quiet  

 

The church hidden behind the trees

 

Some bluebells grow on a grave though not the real English verity, they bring colour to a sea of green

 

A stone cross along side a wooden roofed cross  in the wildflowers

By the entrance door a small flowerbed

 

A home made cross leans against a fir tree in the churchyard.

With that I will take my leave, till next time I wish you all a Happy Platinum Jubilee weekend