We thought it would be nice to go to the far west of the county and look at four of the churches in the Shrivenham Benefice namely St Andrew Shrivenham, St Mary the Virgin Longcot, St Swithun Compton Beauchamp and St Mary the Virgin Ashbury. There are some rare treats among these. Two are listed Grade 1 and two of them Grade 2*. At least three of them have completed OHCT funded projects recently. They all lie at the western end of the Ridgeway and for a variety of reasons have intriguing reasons for being.
The order of visits will be as listed above with lunch included at the Woodman pub at Fernham. We shall adopt the usual pattern of about an hour at each church starting at Shrivenham at 10:45 where coffee will be laid on. There are WC facilities and Shrivenham, Longcot, the Woodman (of course) and Ashbury at the end of the afternoon. Access is fairly good for all but Ashbury but do bear in mind that churches tend not to live up to modern accessibility standards. Ashbury is approached by a few steps up the slope.
I am reluctant to spell out too many details at this stage so as not to spoil your enjoyment. Suffice to say there are some good stories at all of them and we will have the benefit of a number of local parishioners to share their knowledge with us.
We thought it would be nice to go to the far west of the county and look at four of the churches in the Shrivenham Benefice namely St Andrew Shrivenham, St Mary the Virgin Longcot, St Swithun Compton Beauchamp and St Mary the Virgin Ashbury. There are some rare treats among these. Two are listed Grade 1 and two of them Grade 2*. At least three of them have completed OHCT funded projects recently. They all lie at the western end of the Ridgeway and for a variety of reasons have intriguing reasons for being.
The order of visits will be as listed above with lunch included at the Woodman pub at Fernham. We shall adopt the usual pattern of about an hour at each church starting at Shrivenham at 10:45 where coffee will be laid on. There are WC facilities and Shrivenham, Longcot, the Woodman (of course) and Ashbury at the end of the afternoon. Access is fairly good for all but Ashbury but do bear in mind that churches tend not to live up to modern accessibility standards. Ashbury is approached by a few steps up the slope.
I am reluctant to spell out too many details at this stage so as not to spoil your enjoyment. Suffice to say there are some good stories at all of them and we will have the benefit of a number of local parishioners to share their knowledge with us.
