English Country Church Calendar 2008 Continental visitors famously referred to England as the ringing island as you were never out of earshot of

Transcription

1 English Country Church Calendar 2008 Continental visitors famously referred to England as the ringing island as you were never out of earshot of church bells. There are of course the well-known great churches - Cathedrals such as Salisbury, Winchester or Wells, or Abbeys such as Lacock, Sherborne or now-ruined Glastonbury [all pictured on this page], located in towns. There are also large Priory and Minster Churches in towns like Christchurch and Wimborne. But there are also many smaller country church sites worth exploring on a day out. This calendar covers 12 examples of these around the south-central region.

2 Church of St. James, Avebury, North Wiltshire Avebury is most famous for its prehistoric henge, containing a ring of standing stones, which is part of the same World Heritage Site as Stonehenge 20 miles to the SE). The Parish Church of St. James, which in effect replaced the prehistoric pagan site, is on the other side of the village, and contains features from many periods, from the Saxon through the Victorian eras. January

3 Church Of St Nicholas, Moreton, Central Dorset The church is famous for its unique etched windows created by artist Laurence Whistler in the decade after WW2. The motifs include war memorial references - the church itself was bombed and this was part of the restoration. This is where the funeral service for a then Dorsetresident T.E. Lawrence ("of Arabia") was held in 1935, and Moreton has been the object of pilgrimages since, to see his gravesite in the cemetery across the village road. February

4 All Saints Church, Minstead, New Forest, Hampshire Minstead is most famous as the final resting place of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had a home nearby. His grave is under the tree at the far end of the churchyard, with the motto, "Steel True, Blade Straight." The church itself has an almost unspoilt Georgian interior. March

5 St Aldhelm's Chapel, St Aldhelm's Head, near Worth Matravers, South Dorset This late Norman Chapel stands on the clifftop of the Purbeck headland named after it, was a sea-mark used by sailors, and after dark may have functioned as a lighthouse. (It appears there was a fire-brazier on the pyramidal roof.) The dedication is to Dorset's patron saint, "the first English scholar of distinction," in the words of The Penguin Dictionary Of Saints. It survived as a local chapel, still in occasional use. April

6 St Mary The Virgin Church, Tyneham, South Dorset Tyneham became a deserted village in 1943 when the Army requisitioned the entire area for training, but the site is open most weekends and the church is maintained by the Army. The other village buildings are now roofless, apart from the village schoolroom, preserved as a museum. The largely mediaeval Church is built in cruciform pattern, with walls of limestone rubble. May

7 Holy Trinity Chapel, Fleet, West Dorset The hamlet of Fleet sits alongside the Fleet Lagoon inside Chesil Bank (the world's longest pebble ridge). This church remnant, now a chapel, is all that survived a storm in 1824 which came over Chesil Bank and swept away the rest of the church, leaving only this - originally the chancel. The event is referred to in JM Falkner's 1898 classic smugglingadventure novel Moonfleet, which is mainly set here. June

8 Knowlton Church, near Horton, East Dorset This largely Norman church (the tower is 14th C.) is of unknown foundation date and dedication. Local folklore that it was deserted when the village was wiped out in the Black Death of the 1340s is not true, for there are records of it being still in use in the 17th C. What is of interest here is the fact it was built inside a Neolithic henge site, probably in pursuit of St Augustine's policy of replacing 'pagan' sites and festivals with Christian ones. The prehistoric standing stones are all buried, but the grassy bank and ditch surrounding the church remain. Long overgrown, the site is now maintained by English Heritage. July

9 Church Of St. Michael, East Coker, East Somerset Near Yeovil, East Coker is a village name now well-known from the poem-cycle Four Quartets by the US-born poet TS Eliot, whose ashes were buried here as his ancestors came from the parish. Built of Ham Hill Stone, the church stands on a hill overlooking the Somerset Levels. Inside, the Eliot shrine is marked by a plaque quoting the opening of his Four Quartets poem-cycle, "in my beginning is my end" - his own chosen epitaph. August

10 Church Of St Nicholas, East Chaldon alias Chaldon Herring, Central Dorset The church is not especially distinctive, being a mix of mediaeval and 19th-C, but the graveyard is much visited because of the village's literary associations, which extend to its local pub-restaurant, The Sailor's Return. In the first half of the 20th century, it became a writers' and artists' colony, and several authors are buried here. Look out for the joint graveslab of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland, whose Latin motto can be translated 'Death is not all.' September

11 St Mary's Church, Breamore, Avon Valley, West Hampshire The architectural historian Pevsner, author of The Buildings Of England series, said of Breamore it was by far the most important and interesting Anglo- Saxon monument in the south of England. One reason for its survival is no doubt that it stands right next to the local manor, Breamore House, which is open to the public. October

12 Church Of St Thomas Becket, South Cadbury, East Somerset The hamlet of South Cadbury receives visitors from all over the world due to its "Arthurian" associations. These began with the report by Henry VIII's travelling antiquarian Leland, who recorded local folklore that "By South Cadbury is that Camelot...". The hill above in fact was a major Dark Ages fortification, and offers a commanding view over the Somerset Levels, all the way to Glastonbury Tor. The restored th C. church itself has a relatively uncommon dedication, to Henry II's Archbishop of Canterbury, slain for political reasons in AD 1170, during Christmas church services. November

13 Church Of St Nicholas, Studland, South Dorset The church, at the back of Studland village, with a churchyard overlooking the sea, is famous as the most perfect survival of a Norman church in Dorset. In fact parts of it are Saxon, and parts mediaeval. The interior is pictured here at the midwinter solstice with its Xmas tree - the church's dedication being especially apt at this time, since St Nicholas Of Myra was the Christian component of Santa Claus. December