Churches are places of Christian worship, of any denomination, that serve, or once served, a community of any description. Most of Britain’s parish churches are medieval in origin.
We tend to see modern towns and villages as permanent things. They may change, but it’s hard to imagine the landscape without them and easy to take it for granted that they will last forever. Yet the world is littered with places that have been lost along the way – abandoned communities, traces of old
Not to be confused with the sound that a cockney makes… There has been a church on the site of St Mary le Bow, on London’s Cheapside, since Saxon times. And this is where Cockneys come from. Or, rather, a Cockney is deemed to be one born within earshot of the sound of St Mary
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London
Almost hidden, tucked away from the jarring bustle of London just off the Strand, you may stumble upon a church that was built by the Knights Templar. Like all Templar churches, it is round – modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, traditional site of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. The Order
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London
In a field opposite the Crooked Billet pub near the village of Saxton, in North Yorkshire, stands the tiny chapel of St Mary’s, Lead. Cross the field over Cock Beck, which was said to run red with blood after the nearby Battle of Towton in 1461, and you are stepping through a vanished hamlet to
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Yorkshire and the Humber
I was looking for Geoffrey Chaucer’s Granddaughter – as you do. In the process, I discovered a unique church and the last resting place of Jerome K Jerome. Let’s start with Chaucer’s granddaughter, Alice de la Pole. Alice was quite a lady, a duchess, with extensive lands in the Thames Valley, East Anglia and overseas.
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South East
This is the story of England’s first known poet. Once upon a time, many many years ago, there was a good herdsman who lived on a cliff top called Streaneshalch. The herdsman’s name was Caedmon; he was no spring chicken and was actually quite shy. Nearby on the cliff top was a great Abbey, ruled
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Yorkshire and the Humber
The unique Saxon church at Earls Barton in Northamptonshire has been there for a thousand years or more and will probably wait for you. But, if you like your history, you do need to get there sometime. There was probably a settlement at Earls Barton as early as the 6th century – possibly even a
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East Midlands
Northamptonshire is blessed with some fine Saxon churches. And the largest – in fact the largest Anglo-Saxon church in Britain – is at Brixworth. Actually, a monastery was founded at Brixworth sometime before 675AD, more than 1300 years ago, when this part of the country was in the Kingdom of Mercia and England did not
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East Midlands
Legendary Britain is a more illusive place than it once was. But there are still places where it is sometimes hard to tell where fact ends and fiction begins. Mysterious Glastonbury Tor, a natural feature rising some 500 feet above the watery Somerset Levels, has been a sacred site since before the Romans came. It
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South West
For centuries, Bosham was a fishing village, famous for its oysters. You’ll find it on a small peninsula in Chichester Harbour in West Sussex; a bit of a yachting place, also beloved by artists, walkers, cyclists and casual visitors. Yes, Bosham (say ‘Bozzum’) can be a busy spot, particularly on a fine day. There are
Bosham, Cnut, the king’s daughter and Harold Read More »
South East
Sooner or later, the curious traveller will end up at Rosslyn. Not far from Edinburgh, it is a magnet for mystics, myth-lovers, madmen, movie-goers and the mildly interested. It has been claimed that the chapel was built by the Knights Templar, on the site of a temple of Mithras, and modelled on Solomon’s Temple in
The Victorian novel, ‘Lorna Doone – a Romance of Exmoor’, is generally assumed to be a work of fiction, set in a stunning location on the borders of Devon and Somerset and against the turbulent historical backdrop of the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685. Yet some believe that the author, R D Blackmore, drew upon illusive
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South West