We have touched upon village churches before (incidentally, it’s one of my favourite posts) & I thought that we could start this week with a picture of the church in our village

Apparently, there has been a church on this site since the 12th Century & indeed the first recorded parish priest was in 1306. No one is quite sure quite how old the current church is, but village records show that the nave & tower were added in circa 1523 & it is clearly shown on this parish map from 1773

The church was rebuilt by J.L. Pearson in the mid 1850s and re-opened in 1858. A newspaper report claimed "the number of sittings is 121". Clearly Victorian congregations were a little larger than they are these days. Mind you, there used to be in excess of 60 dwellings; today there are 34 and the village has a population of just under 100.