Image: The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Twyford, Hampshire (5867317453)

Description: "Probably the first, Saxon church in Twyford was mentioned in the Domesday Book in AD 1088. This was replaced by a Norman church in the 12th Century, extensively rebuilt in 1402, although the basic structure of the Norman church remained in place. It is quite possible that the renowned conical yew was planted at about this time, as in 1988 the Yew Tree Conservation Foundation judged it to be 450 years old. By the early 1870s the old church was no longer able to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend services, and a replacement building in the Gothic style by the famous Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse was opened in 1878. The ancient columns of the Norman building and some features of the 1402 building were incorporated in the new building - the East window (now in the Lady Chapel), the clerestory windows which were re-used, and the priest's entrance on the North side of the Vestry. The beautiful square-headed perpendicular window now in the East wall of the Vestry is thought to date from a later embellishment carried out in about 1520. The Vicar, the Revd Roger Buston, appointed in 1849, had devoted a lot of effort to making his services more attractive, building upon the musical tradition of the church with great success. It was on his initiative that a new pipe organ built by J W Walker of London had been installed in 1867, replacing a barrel organ of 1838. This organ was reinstalled in the new church. Few changes have been made since 1878. A new Lady Chapel, at the South East corner of the church, was presented in 1924 by the Revd Smith-Dampier, in memory of his parents who had lived at Twyford House. In 1965, the original tinted glass of the West window was replaced by a beautiful, predominantly blue stained glass design by Miss Moira Forsyth. Two meeting rooms, a small kitchen and toilet facilities were built within the West end of the church in 1995, with a new gallery above the meeting rooms." www.twyfordpc.hants.gov.uk/history.htm
Title: The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Twyford, Hampshire (5867317453)
Credit: The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Twyford, Hampshire
Author: Robert Cutts from Bristol, England, UK
Usage Terms: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0
License: CC BY 2.0
License Link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
Attribution Required?: Yes