Woodland St Mary

 

I had written a blog to post today but had a change of heart and decided on posting this one I visited back in February, the blog I did write will be posted another time

I noticed this church when I took my son to collage one day and we took a detour because of heavy traffic on the M4. I glanced it out of the corner of my eye as we drove past. That was before Covid struck. It has been on my mind ever since. A few weeks ago I decided to go along and Visit. The church is now looked after by the Conservation Trust. the only history on the church is two lines in the village Wikipeda page :- "St Mary's church was built in 1851 and designed by the architect, Thomas Talbot Bury. It is a Grade II listed building." but if you click on the link it takes you its own Wikipedia page

 Not the best of days to visit as the place was dark, I've adjusted the photo to show it better

 The entrance through the Lych Gate

 The west end with bell tower off to one side

Porch on the south side

Right around the east end

 

 

 Heading around to take a wide view of the north east side

The bell tower with spire which is unusual

Another north east view of the church

Along to the north west end though the branches

Back around to the south side showing the headstones, the thing which struck me was the snowdrops

Ragged Robin pointed out the plants with yellow flowers are aconites  which are putting on a superb display 

Far east side of the churchyard

Some of the headstones

The commonwealth war grave of Private C Choules

Near the west end of the church some of the various graves

This one stands on it's own on at the south west corner of the church

Graves and tombs at the east end of the church

From the far east end of the churchyard looking west to the church

Barrel tomb and headstone

The snowdrops on the south of the church

Time to go in the church

The first few are taken with my mirror-less camera with a wide angle lens. Looking at he nave with north aisle to the left. Like all the Church Conservation Trust churches the electricity has been removed so you only get natural light. This made getting the photos difficult as I did not have my tripod

Towards the north aisle

North aisle

Chancel

looking out of the chance to the nave

The altar. By now I had just about given up with my camera as the settings needed changing and the shutter speed was so slow I was lucky to get any photos which were in focus

Change over to my iphone, this gives you an idea as to how dark the church was on my visit, if it was sunny the church would look better

 

Wide view down the nave

 

Wide view of chancel

Portrait view

 

Altar in original position

 

Altar and altar panel

 

 

The altar panel which is looking rather worse for ware 

 

The east window looks very impressive

 

Looking back out of the chancel to the nave

Memorials in the church

Choir stall

 

Stained glass windows in the church

Pulpit

looking down from the pulpit to the nave and north aisle

The organ at the back of the church

The font with cover

Eagle lecture which is chained down

 

North aisle

 

At the west end you can see this bier

 

On the north wall you find the rolls of honour

 

These added from a memorial garden

 

Major Patrick Arthur Angier was killed in the Korean War

 

His brother David Angier died in 1945

 

Memorial to George Short Barwick 

 

Lancet window a the east end of the north aisle

 

Chandelier of a type which seems quite common to CCT churches

 

Different view of the nave

 

The bible on the pulpit 

 

 

 

I could not resist finishing with a view of the snowdrops

 

Looking the other way

 

South side snowdrops

 

This little grave is at the west end with snow drops and daffodils to brighten it up RIP

 The link below is a slide video I made, let me know if it is OK I may well make it a feature.

Woodland St Mary 

Till next time have a peaceful weekend