St Edburg Bicester

 

 This week the Church Explorer takes you to St Edburg Bicester. This is one church that I have been wanting to visit for a while but left it because it was in a busy shopping town. When I found it where I could park I made the effort to go along to see this amazing church which is one of the churches in the book Oxfordshires Best Churches. I'm going to show this church over two weeks as I feel I cannot do it justice in one post so you will be seeing the inside next week

History I copied form Wickipedia but if you click on the links you can find out more about the church  St. Edburg’s Church in Bicester was founded as a minster, perhaps in the mid 7th century after St. Birinus converted Cynegils, King of Wessex, following their meeting near Blewbury. The site was just east of the old Roman road between Dorchester and Towcester that passed through the former Roman town at Alchester. The earliest church was probably a timber structure serving the inhabitants of the growing Saxon settlements on either side of the river Bure, and as a mission centre for the surrounding countryside. Archaeological excavations at Procter's Yard identified the ecclesiastical enclosure boundary, and a large cemetery of Saxon graves suggesting a much larger churchyard has been excavated on the site of the Catholic Church car park almost opposite St. Edburg's.

St Edburg from the entrance to the churchyard

The south side

Going along to the south east end

East end with south and north aisles with my shadow

 

View of the north side looking west from the path

 

The tower

Tower window and door

This is the south doorway

 

Chest tomb in the corner of the south aisle and chancel

 

Porch and north door, there also looks like there is a room over the porch

Churchyard on the north side of the church

West of the tower is a wall which is lined with old headstones and one of the reasons I could not get a complete view of the tower from that side

Churchyard south of the church

Some old headstones beside the wall

Coffin slab surrounded by old headstones

The north side churchyard looking west

The east end of the churchyard

South boundary wall with older headstones

South of the church from the path leading to the cemetery next door

Which is where you see the wildlife scurrying around

Bicester cemetery which is next door to St Edburg's churchyard

More recent headstones can be seen dating to Victorian times

The headstones are packed in

It's full of squirrels running around

I must admit you could spend a long time walking around it

The cemetery is well laid out and kept tidy

It also has this chapel in it which was locked when I walked past

The commonwealth war grave of Second Lieutenant H.J.Lamb RAF

Looking south down the cemetery

Towards the far end more recent graves

This is where you will find a lot of commonwealth war graves

Most are from WWII like these who all died the same day so I suspect were the crew of one plane

These graves are from a couple of different decades the two at the top from 1942, the lower half from 6th July 1965. They died in the Little Baldon air crash  there is a memorial in St Lawrence Toot Baldon

There are not only RAF some are more recent, two graves on the end the personnel were in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps who died in 1968 and 1970

The cemetery is huge

Over the fence is another part which I did not have the time to look around

I will leave you with this photo I took of a squirrel sat on the base of a cross in the cemetery. I will show the inside of the church next week.

Till Next time Mat I wish you all a peaceful week