St Michael Begbroke

 

Now this was a church I never noticed in my searches around Oxford for Churches to visit and only spotted when I checked if I had visited the churches around that area on my laptop mapping. Well I soon sorted that by going along to visit the church which is off the A44 on the way to Woodstock. There is some history to read on Wikipedia 

"The Church of England parish church of Saint Michael was a 12th-century Norman building. The uppermost stage of the tower was rebuilt in the 14th century and the nave and chancel were repeatedly "restored" in the 19th century."

This is quiet a long blog so I'd get a coffee and cake if were you

 Fist look of the church and the roof of the bell tower

Walking down to the east end shows the roof better

The east end of the church

Walking around to the north side

Then down to the west and the tower

From nearby the tower looks tall

From the south you get a better view of the roof

Not far from the porch is an old preaching cross stump

Part of the churchyard looking north west

The over to the east side

At the far end you find snowdrops in abundance

Around the east end of the church older graves and tombs can be seen, in the foreground is a child's tomb slab, the words eroded years ago

Over the north side more graves though the churchyard is left to grow wild

Here you will find the Commonwealth War grave of S.J.Cox

Collage of the tombs you can see in the churchyard

Many headstones on the north side forgotten about though someone cars fro a more recent one

And Christmas wreaths have been left on others

Further west more recent graves are to be seen and the churchyard cared for

After following a path from the church I found this cemetery

The graves here the same

The marker is for Charles & Nora Robertson

Looking around I realised that they belonged to the Sisters of Nazareth

There were groups of crosses

The graves here had the names of monks who were here before  the nuns

The graves extends quite a way

A wooden cross in the centrer of the cemetery lay in pieces

I have never come across a cemetery like this one, behind the place the all lived at one time

The church can be seen behind the churchyard

The porch

The doorway hints at the age of the church, you can see the rusting hinges of the old door that once hung on the outside

Looking down the nave

to see the beautiful arch

The chancel

On to the altar and the small east window

The altar and east window

Turning around to see the arch again

Where you can look at the nave to the west end

Window in the south wall of the chancel

Two of the lancet windows where some older glass can be seen

I cropped these from one of the windows to show the detail

The double windows

Which also had some beautiful stained glass

The organ in the chancel

Memorial to the Robinson family

Couple of memorials in the chancel

Carved chair

Selection of the memorials in the church

There are also a few tomb slabs in the floor to be see, this one being the clearest to read

Picture and banner to St Michael

The west wall of the nave with bequests and a Royal coat of Arms

The font with a candle holder as a top, I'm guessing the font is really old

Collage of the font and a memorial plaque

I will leave you with is shot of a candelabra which I always love to find in a church, this one with an electric light added in the centre.

Till next time Have a wonderful weekend