| Contact web site | greatbedwyn.com |
The site for the
Wiltshire village of Great Bedwyn
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Churches in and
around Great Bedwyn
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| The
churches in and around Great
Bedwyn are part of
the Savernake Team: a grouping of 11 village
parishes
in beautiful countryside in North East Wiltshire. We are part of the
Deanery of Pewsey in the Diocese of Salisbury, England. Here is a link
to www.savernaketeam.org.uk
The Bedwyn
churches are: St Mary's in
Great
Bedwyn, St Michael's in Little Bedwyn and St Katharine's in
Savernake Forest
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St
Mary's, Great Bedwyn The present church of St Mary's was started in 1092 and took about 200 years to build. Beneath the church are the massive remains of a Saxon church begun in 905. The south transept houses the 14th Century tombs of Sir Adam de Stokke and his son, Sir John. In the chancel is a memorial to Edward Seymour, father of King Henry VIII's wife Jane, and later Lord Protector to the young Edward VI. The bells are one of the heaviest "rings" in Wiltshire - the tenor bell weighs over a tonne. |
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| St
Michael's, Little Bedwyn St
Michael's church was originally
a chapel-of-ease for Great Bedwyn,
and served the community which had moved down into the valley from the
iron-age fort at Chisbury (which has its own near-ruined chapel, St
Martin's). The small community straddles the railway and canal. Of
particular interest in the church are the differently shaped arches on
either side of the nave, and the collection of hand-stitched kneelers.
The rear of the church, which also doubles as the village hall, has a
map of the parish made for the millennium, with paintings of every
building and all the wildlife found in the parish.
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| St
Katharine's, Savernake
Forest This
"Victorian gem" of a church
serves a scattered community in
Savernake Forest. It was built in 1861 by the Marchioness
of Ailesbury in memory of her mother, to serve the family estate and
their household in Tottenham House. The church was severely damaged in
an accidental explosion at the end of the Second World War, and was
restored to use in 1952 by sealing in the arches of the north aisle,
which is now a pleasant meeting room.
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