It a lovely sunny day in the season of Advent,
I was churching again with Rosie the puppy with the added bonus of
Cousin Wendy, who knows the county too well.
Yarntonvillage, where my cousin lived for sometime,
St Bartholomew’s Church,
Norman, Early English yet stamped ‘Jacobean’,
Monuments both extravagant and foppish are installed in the side chapel.
Light floods into this generous church.
Local worthies collected bits and pieces from Europe
And brought them all back here and installing them in Yarnton.
This collection from the continent included a reredos of alabaster panels, and stained glass from Flanders and France.
A church showered with treasures from those with means and taste.
Kidlington,
Its spire, known as ‘Old Lady’s Needle’ can be enjoyed from a great distance.
Inside and out this big church glowed in the December light.
We got into conversation with the Rector who pointed out that the chancel ‘weep’ to the right.
Meaning everything is not quite square or lined up from nave to chancel.
Misericords from the 13thC, the carvers art again bathed in sunlight.
The east window of 14thC glass cobbled together from other windows in the church by the Victorians and re-done in 1951 – now quite magnificent!
Shorthampton
First find this place, little more than a tiny chapel,
Nestled in a farm that overlooks the River Evenlode, Another splendid Oxfordshire river.
What the steep step as you enter!
Inside it was remarkably cold however there was much on which to feast.
Simple 12thC with chancel added 100 years later.
Box pews and two-decker Georgian pulpit.
The walls are adorned with precious fragments of wall paintings including a saint teaching a child to read, a Last Judgment and Jonah and his whale.
It must have been a dazzling interior.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you very much for your comments - Tim