St. Peter’s Church in Hanwell, Oxfordshire, has a history stretching back to at least 1154, though only its Norman font survives from that era. The church was significantly rebuilt in the early 14th century, featuring decorated Gothic architecture with distinctive carvings. Further additions included a perpendicular Gothic clerestory around 1400 and new windows in the Tudor period. The church served as a place of refuge for Royalist soldiers before the Battle of Edge Hill during the English Civil War and was later occupied by troops before the Battle of Cropredy Bridge. It is now a Grade I listed building in the heart of historic Hanwell. 

We felt privileged to be back again at St Peter’s for the service of animal blessing (the Pet Service) which took place on Sunday 21 September at 3pm. There are normally plenty of dogs (with accompanying humans) and this year, we were also joined by a giant Japanese stick insect who is called ‘Sticky’ by his owner. Sticky was balancing on some foliage and during the service itself, seemed pretty lively – I’d like to think Sticky was dancing along doing a cross between a jive and a moonwalk!

It was really lovely to be joined by Alicia on violin for the two hymns and we all enjoyed Guy’s talk – an A-Z of animal names, with much human participation. Guy was fully prepared with fairly obscure names of animals for the more challenging ‘name that animal’ alphabet letters and he concluded his talk by making the point that they are all God’s creatures.

Our thanks to Revd Alicia Baker and Revd Guy Edwards for the invitation to participate and to the church wardens and team of helpers who put together a delicious post-service BBQ with salads. Our observation is that animals seem to enjoy this kind of event and the blessing component of the service when they receive a dog biscuit treat. Alas, the biscuits were a little too large for Sticky!

Richard

St Mary the Virgin is a large and ancient building with a rich history. The parish church of Shipton almost certainly started life as an Anglo-Saxon minster and the church is first mentioned in documents dating back to 1115. The present church is mainly early 13th century and the tower, spire and door are thought to have been started around 1200. Given the ancient status of this beautiful church, we were really pleased to support the fundraising efforts for a new heating system. Our contact, Rev. Canon Sarah Sharp, is a great organiser and fundraiser – skills that we discovered when Sarah was vicar of St John’s Bodicote. Last Saturday was just as I’d imagined it would be: lots of people came and their ticket included an interval drink. As ever, Sarah our thoughtful host, provided us with refreshments while we setting-up and in the interval. Given that we were ‘competing’ with the new series of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ on TV, we were so pleased that a good-sized audience came and sang beautifully with us throughout.

We have experimented with narrative and visual material in the past and last Saturday, we trialled a new concert format: ‘Roots of Gospel music: A journey in songs, stories and history’ with four short sections of history (accompanied by projected images) read beautifully by Rachel and early photographs of some of the key songwriters in the genre to accompany Donald’s excellent story-telling. Donald, Rachel, Thabo and I were delighted that Adrian could sing and play harmonica with us.

Sarah said that everyone who came along enjoyed our music and that the evening raised £546 towards the new heating system. Thank you Sarah and your fantastic team of helpers for the invite, we’ll look forward to coming back in due course.

Richard