The Monday Photo

Wingrave’s church font was made in the 12th Century. It seems to have been made in sections; the bowl is all in one piece, but the carved cable moulding around the bottom looks like it was made in four equal pieces.

You can see a couple of the joins in the photo, where the moulding has vertical breaks.

The base, according to the 1925 A History of the County of Buckingham, “is supported on a modern stem and base”.

Take that how you like, but they might mean the font was put on that (somewhat wonky) base when the church was restored in 1887-88. But that font has been in use for a long time. How many babies has there been?

St Peter and St Paul’s church is open every day. The church has some fine stone and wooden carvings.

The ladies of St Laurence’s Church in Winslow have been flower arranging, decorating the church for the Coronation weekend. They did a fine job; I can add no more, so here are photos of just some of their flowers.

The Monday Photo

The churchyard of Holy Trinity Church is in the bailey of the 12th Century castle of Old Wolverton. In the background rises the castle motte, covered in trees and shrubs. There are no stone remains; this was, it’s thought, only ever a timber castle.

The end of the church is just visible at top left behind a yew tree. It also has 12th Century origins, but apart from the 14th Century tower it dates from 1809-1815.

It’s very likely that the old church, a bit more to the West of the 19th Century one, included parts of the original castle church. In that church the present tower was central, not on the West end as it is now.

In the fields around are earthworks from the long gone Medieval village, some of them on the far side of the Victorian canal. At the very edge of Buckinghamshire, the canal crosses the Great Ouse via the Iron Trunk aqueduct.

Lots to explore here, and there’s parking on the far side of the canal from the Galleon pub, not to be confused with the pub’s own car park, across the road from their front entrance.

The clock face at St Lawrence's church, Winslow. Note how the '4' is shown.

Roman numerals can be seen in nearly every village and town on the church clock. Sometimes you’ll see them on milestones or you’ll have a clock at home or a watch that uses them.

Many films have their copyright notice with the year written in Roman numerals, and the BBC used to do it too. Let’s have a look at what these numerals mean, and how to read them. Unlike our Arabic numerals the value of a numeral doesn’t depend on where it is in a number. If we write 511 we know it’s 5 hundreds, 1 ten, and 1.

The Roman numerals for 5 and one are V and I. Write VII, (a 5, a 1, and a 1) a Roman will read it as 7, they’d be right.

They had no numeral for zero, so where we might note down 500 for our 5 hundreds, no tens, and no units, they couldn’t. Instead, they’d write 500 as C. This example is simpler to write, but often their system of numbers was far more difficult to use.

First let’s see what their numerals mean.

But there’s a problem. Not every number we use has a Roman equivalent, so to write those numbers Roman numerals have to be combined. To make 6, a Roman would write VI; 6 + 1.

But to write 4, they would usually write IV; to put the I before the V means to subtract it, not add it.

Here are a few examples.

Viewed from the chancel, Wingrave's nave roof.

Wingrave’s church of St Peter and St Paul has 15th Century corbels and carved wooden figures under the main beams of the nave roof. Hard to make out from ground level, these close up photos reveal a wealth of detail.

There are twelve carved corbels and figures, so at first I thought they were the twelve apostles. But when got home and looked at my photos on the big screen, I saw that each one is holding some object that’s a clue to their identity.

In the front left corner of the nave, I think this is St Peter. He holds the key of heaven in his right hand, and a book, almost certainly the bible, in his left. I’m not sure what or who the corbel represents.

The Monday Photo

Churches are often the oldest building in a village by several hundred years. This makes them important.

As well as the dated monuments which tell of who lived and died, churches hold a record of the fortunes of the village in how and when they’ve been altered over the centuries.

That’s why, every time I visit a church, I’ll give a donation. This donations box, at St. Augustine’s, Westbury, sits on one of the octagonal columns inserted when the North aisle was added in the 14th Century.

At that time the congregation must have increased and there was also enough money to extend the church. There’s also a South aisle, thought to be earlier than the North one but still 14th Century.

If you don’t know, most donation boxes are inserted into the wall by the entrance, or occasionally into a nearby column. It’ll be a locked steel plate about the size of a small letterbox, with a money slot.

Churches are an important part of our heritage so please, give them what you can.