Thankfully it's been another quiet week, but I'm very conscious that we're coming to the end of November and December days will be rather busy with seasonal events and social occasions before the Christmas holiday period.
Today I'm looking back to when we went down to Berkshire a few months ago.
When we drive down to my home town we usually take a break in one of the Oxfordshire villages on the border with Berkshire where the winding road takes us through the beech woods and the Chiltern Hills. At the hamlet of Cookley Green on this last trip we turned down a narrow track lined with lime trees which gave us access to Swyncombe Church.
The name Swyncombe means 'the valley or hollow in the flank of the hill' (cumb) and 'wild boar' (swin). There was a Saxon settlement and the pre-Roman Ridgeway track, part of the Icknield Way, runs past the church.
Cookley Green
The Ridgeway track and Icknield Way
The Ridgeway track and Icknield Way
The church is early Norman with some Saxon parts and is dedicated to St. Botolph who lived in the 7th century AD. He was an Anglo-Saxon monk of the Benedictine order who made missionary journeys around East Anglia, Kent and Sussex, travelling on horseback or on foot and he was constantly exposed to danger from robbers who hid in the woods and forests.
It is thought that the church of flint and stone was built by Saxon builders under the direction of the Normans to a traditional design with one long nave terminating in an apse. The porch was added in the 19th century when the church was restored. The windows are Early English in style and only one in the south side of the apse is original. Outside on the south side of the church can be seen a blocked Norman doorway and on the north side is another. Many of the grave headstones have inscriptions dating from the 18th century.
The stained glass of the lancet window depicts the three saints associated with the church, St. Botolph, St. Martin and St. Thomas Becket and the other shows the armorial bearings of the families who owned the estate of Swyncombe and the nearby Ewelme, including Thomas Chaucer, the son of the poet, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, who married Alice, the daughter of Thomas and Matilda Chaucer.
Later on these estates were given to Charles Brandon, married to Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII, who became the appointed Duke of Suffolk. Then a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I owned them and the manor was an important one with hundreds of acres of land.
The farm buildings next to the church looked as if they were derelict, but there were sheep in the pastures and the surrounding land was being farmed.
Although the settlement is tucked away in a secluded valley there are views across the Downs towards Oxford and one can imagine the travellers through the ages who would have used the ancient track of the Icknield Way which passes Swyncombe.
