St Andrew's, Chinnor

A visit to the Doctors in Chinnor today to pick up a prescription, weirdly I live in Bucks and Chinnor is Oxon but the Surgery here is under the same practice as the one that is closer to me so I can choose which one I attend, I choose this one for a whole host of practical reasons and a few personal ones, how lucky to have a choice!

The Pharmacy is just round the corner from the Surgery and nearby is the huge Church of St Andrews, I have rung here quite a few times and like the bells very much but today was the first time I have seen the Church from this angle and I hadn't realised just how tall it was!

It is largely C14 and inside has one of the largest collections of brasses in Oxfordshire. There are huge oil paintings of the Apostles and Evangelists around the Church and I discovered an interesting article from the Oxford Mail explaining about these, they must have been thrilled to discover this!

"Parishioner June Cray, who died in 2002, “nearly jumped out of my seat” while researching the paintings at the V&A archives in London.

Miss Cray, former deputy head of John Hampden Infants School in Thame, showed that the apostles which had hung in the church for several hundred years were painted by Sir James Thornhill in the 18th century as designs for the glass-painter of the Great Rose Window in Westminster Abbey. Thornhill also designed figures for Blenheim, for Oxford colleges and the Clarendon Building in Oxford"

Pevsner describes Chinnor as a bleak village, he's such a mardy man in his descriptions sometimes, but that was sometime ago and since then Chinnors huge cement works have come and gone and a new Steam Railway centre has opened, I like the village!

We had some amazing storms last night, watched them for about an hour, the lightening show was fabulous........not sure if Ted even woke up!

Feeling better again today, climbing out of the fog slowly!