2024 Review

 

 Happy New Year to you all It is time for my review of the churches I visited during 2024, my intention to start with was to visit more of the churches in the book Oxfordshires Best Churches and at the start of the year I had quite a few to get through by the end I have around 14 left as well as a few on Oxford itself. The problem is now they are taking an hours driving to reach so I have to try and combine a few other churches along with them to make the trip worth the effort. This year I revisited a few of the churches I had been to before, visited more in Wales as well as thous in Oxfordshire, by Decemeber I had managed to visit 52 churches the most I have done in one year

January 

St Bartholomew Ducklington was the first church I wrote about and was one of the churches from Oxfordshires Best Churches, at the time of my visit it was being readied for Christmas and was quite a superb church to visit with some stunning carvings to see around tomb recesses in the south aisle not to mention the other carvings high up on the walls

St Mary Cogges  was not far from the last church but I fund quite hard to get to so I had to make a visit through a back road to get there. The church is another one mentioned in Oxfordshires Best Churches though from my point of view I found it a bit disappointing 

St Mary Ipsden is only a few miles from where I live and I felt it was time to update the photos with a re visit. It is one of thous churches that you can spend a few moments of peace in

February 

St Margaret Little Faringdon is one of the churches featured in the  book Oxfordshires Best Churches but was not an east place to get to being in the west of Oxfrodshirebut it was worth the effort of getting there

St Matthew Langford  was the next church I visited from the book Oxfordshires Best Churches, it was an odd church to look at but did have some really interesting features to see

St Mary the Virgin North Stoke is only across the river from our village and was a revisit to update the photos I took back in 2013. The church is on the Ridgeway path and one which is well worth looking at if you are walking the route, it was also another off my list of churches in Oxfordshire Best Churches

St James the Great Stonesfield rounded off February and ticked another of the list form the book. It was a beautiful church to visit with some superb stained glass and pulpit dated 1629 to see 

March

March saw me visiting St Mary Chalrbury a church that you may have seen on the TV series Father Brown.

The next church I went along to was St Mary Witney a rather formidable looking church with a tall spire and lots of history surrounding it. It was another tick in my Oxfrodshire Best Churches list

 St Johns Burford was a revisit for me to get photos of what I missed the first time so the blog was republished and another of Oxfordshires Best Churches. This church gets a lot of visitors during the year looking around the church and the churchyard with its famous bale tombs

St Kenelm Minster Lovell is a lovely church to visit with nearby ruins of the hall to visit as well.

St Nicholas Asthall is not that far form Minster Lovell and is an unusual church to look at and worth looking around, it also had some of the oldest dating headstones I have seen

April

Come April I wrote about St Mary Swinbrook a church that had some wonderful tomb effigies to see from one family plus a churchyard with very old headstones and lots of bale tombs to see

I went local for the next church which was Wallingford Methodist Church, as it happened I found it open when I walked past one day so went inside to find out if it was OK to get photo's. Turned out to be a lovely little church

My next church was St James the Great Fullbrook which was just up the road from Burford where I went after. It was a beautiful church with a superb mass dial on the chancel wall, though I missed out hearing the organ being played. Another church ticked of by list of Oxfordshires Best Churches

St Oswold Widford is another church in Oxfordshires Best Churches, this one looks like it is in a time warp sitting out in the middle of a field where a Medieval village once stood

May

On my visit to St Mary Westwell I found that I was nearly in Gloucestershire the village was so close to the county, what I found was a beautiful old church with an interesting churchyard and I could see why it was in the book Oxfordshires Best Churches

The next church was one I passed by on my way to Shilton so I stopped off at St Mary Holwell for a look at this Victorian church which to my disappointment was locked, being where it is I doubt I well revisit

I managed my first visit to a church in Wales at St Ellyws Llanelieu which was one I had been looking forward to visit for a while, the reason was because I thought it had a rood loft but what I found was a rather superb rood screen 

June 

Come June I had also visited Talgarth a town I drive though going to our caravan, the church I had spotted as I drove through so on the way back from the last church I stopped off at St Guwendoline for some photos  

I also updated a couple of churches I had visited in Wales many years ago with some new photos  St Michael Cefnllys is a lovely church sat out below a hill out in the countryside with sheep for compnay. This time I found out the pulpit was dated 1660. St Michael Bryngwyn was the second church I visited to update the photos I was not happy with

St Peter Alvescott turned out a disappointment for me because I found the church closed for what turned out to be safety reasons but there was a happy ending I as I managed to return for photos of the inside

 

St George Kencot did not disappoint, it was open and had some wonderful old features to see around the church dating back to the Normans 

St Stephen Clanfield was next and was another beautiful old church to visit with a Medieval statue of St Stephen to see on the tower

St Peter & St Paul Broadwell was another beautiful church with it's spire and churchyard with very old headstones dating back to the 1600's, inside was no less a joy to look around.

I will leave you at that and next week bring the second review of 2024,

Till next time may I wish you all a peaceful week