Saturday, June 5, 2010
7.30pm 0
Beckley, Oxon
Raymond Burley
St. Mary's Church
Beckley, Oxon
phone: 01865 351 270
Beckley is a stone Village standing on a ridge of Oxford heights 350 feet above the four square mile plain of Otmoor. We have a fine church, The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built in stone in 1150 in the late Norman style replacing the original Saxon building that was made of wood.
The village still retains much of its original character, and is set in rolling countryside with outstanding views over Otmoor and the Oxfordshire countryside. Everywhere one walks one touches history and nowhere more so than at Beckley's glorious medieval church standing on its windswept knoll. Each generation has left its loving mark on the church. There is a treasury of rare l4th century glass, wall paintings, a beautiful timbered roof, a tub font which could be Saxon, one of the oldest church chests in England, a Jacobean pulpit and some very fine Victorian glass in the chancel.
The village suggests roots back to Roman times with a Roman road now called Sand Path, and there is a reference to the village in the Doomsday Book, where it is listed as Bechelie, Oxenefscire.
For info: 01865 351 270
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