SS Peter and Paul, Wantage
A handsome town church which is architecturally quite complicated. Originally a thirteenth-century cruciform church, it was rebuilt and enlarged in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and then significantly restored by both Street (1857) and Butterfield (1877).
Inside there are some notable brasses, including one of a priest in vestments.
It is always worth, when visiting a church, walking round it and looking at the exterior. If you do so at Wantage, you will find on the north side a (restored) memorial tablet telling you that in 1832 ‘between this wall and the pathway’ the bodies of sixteen people who had died in the epidemic of ‘Asiatic cholera’ that had ravaged the town. The outbreak was part of a pandemic that spread across the world, reaching Britain in the early 1830s: it must have been devastating to a small community, with the added fear that comes from a previously unknown disease—something we experienced with COVID. The memorial marks what must have been a hugely significant event for Wantage.
St Andrew’s, Letcombe Regis
The church consists of nave, chancel, and west tower (the lower stages, which the guide to the church calls Transitional Norman, are the earliest part of the church).
There are elements from a number of centuries (including fragments of fourteenth-century glass set in the east window), but what caught my attention most were memorials.
On the south wall, a tablet commemorating Harriet Ellen Silver (died 1879 at the age of 24) describes a young woman who might have come from the pages of a Charlotte Yonge novel. According to the inscription, it was put up by her grateful fellow parishioners and others ‘in token of their sense of her devotion to their best interests and especially those of the young people whom she delighted to instruct in the ways and works of God’.
The other memorials that interested me were brass war memorials commemorating the dead of the First and Second World Wars. Usually the balance of those lost tilts decisively to the First World War, with a much smaller
number recorded for 1939-45. In this case, the figures were much closer: 14 to 11. The tablets also record the specific theatres of war: they included Turkey in 1916 (I would assume Gallipoli), Dunkirk in 1940, and (for a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF), the Irish Sea in 1944.
St Michael and All Angels, Letcombe Bassett
The oldest part of this whitewashed church is the Norman chancel; the nave was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, and the west tower added in the thirteenth.
When you step inside, there is a feeling of clarity and simplicity, looking east down to the Norman chancel arch, before you notice the south aisle, added by Butterfield in his nineteenth-century restoration.
Coming up to the chancel arch itself (through which you get a good view of Butterfield’s characteristic floor tiles and reredos with a marble cross) you see the detailed carving on the abaci of the responds, with clearly defined leaf trails. Within the chancel on the north wall there are marks which look as though there has been some kind of alteration: this signals the (blocked) Norman door into the chancel, which Pevsner says has probably been reset. From the outside, it is well worth looking at, and you can still see close up the four signs of the Evangelists, eagle, man/angel, bull, and lion carved on the faces of the scallops of the four capitals.
By Elizabeth Knowles
About the Author
Elizabeth Knowles is a renowned library researcher and historical lexicographer who devoted three decades of her career to Oxford University Press. Her time at OUP began with contributions to the OED Supplement and the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Subsequently, she spearheaded the Quotations publishing program, solidifying her reputation as a leading expert in quotations and lexicography.
In 1999, Knowles assumed the prestigious role of Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, a position she held continuously until her retirement from OUP in 2007. Under her editorial guidance, the eighth edition was published in 2014, marking a significant milestone in the dictionary’s history.
Knowles is a prolific writer and lecturer on the history of quotations and dictionaries. She has shared her extensive knowledge with both academic and general audiences, significantly enhancing our understanding of the role of quotations in language.
Beyond her work on the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Knowles is also the editor of “What They Didn’t Say: A Book of Misquotations” (2006) and “How To Read a Word” (2010). Her work continues to inspire and inform scholars, writers, and readers fascinated by the English language.
Churches visited on this route
