OXFORD DIOCESE PILGRIM PROJECT OXFORD DIOCESE PILGRIM PROJECT

Oxford Diocese Pilgrim Project: You might also like to visit Holy Trinity, Cookham other nearby churches in the SL6 9SP Pilgrim Project: St Thomas of Canterbury, Goring Website: www.holytrinitycookham.org.uk Site of ancient priory

St Giles, Stoke Poges Gray’s ‘Elegy’

PILGRIMAGE PRAYER

Pilgrim God, You are our origin and our destination. Travel with us, we pray, in every pilgrimage of faith, and every journey of the heart. Give us the courage to set off, the nourishment we need to travel well, and the welcome we long for at our journey’s end. So may we grow in grace and love for you and in the service of others. through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen

 John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford Holy Trinity,

Illustrations by Brian Hall © Cookham Holy Trinity dates from the early 12th century. There is evidence of a squint window from the cell of an anchoress (a religious hermit), whose duty was to offer prayers on behalf of Henry II when he regretted his part in the murder of Thomas à Becket. Pray for those crippled with guilt, that they may find forgiveness.

There are several old brasses, including an painstakingly hacked out. There is a rather sad The tower was a late addition in about 1500, and Winthrop Young, a close friend of Mallory, of unusual one, depicting the Trinity, on the tomb inscription on another tomb to a young 26 it now contains a ring of ten bells, enthusiastically Everest fame. We also have what a former ‘squire’ of Henry VI’s ‘Master of the Royal Spiceries’, a year old soldier who was killed in a skirmish rung by the resident team and visitors. Inside the described as ‘rivalling the worst epitaph in the critical responsibility in those days. On the walls near Warminster, which must have been when church the music is equally memorable with the world’, to a young man who drove his carrier you can see one of those carved depictions of William of Orange was on his way from Torbay to long standing men’s and boys’ choirs now being vehicle too fast round a corner and died in a local family who died in 1561, showing the London to take over from King James in 1688. supplemented by a girls’ choir. All of them share 1813. parents facing each other in prayer, backed by the music for the very well supported services their extensive family. Pause for a moment and Much later, when a local man died in a boat on each Sunday. Give thanks for the gift of music The churchyard is a quiet and peaceful place consider those who have been an important the river, the distinguished Victorian sculptor, and all those who share their talents to enhance with a gate giving immediate access to one of influence in your life, who are no longer with us. John Flaxman, was called upon to illustrate the worship. the most lovely reaches of the Thames, where Give thanks as you remember them. event. The head of the Victorian artist, Frederick the visitor can walk for some miles over the Walker, is portrayed on the back wall with some In the churchyard, there is a stone fields beside the river, along the . Little harm seems to have been done to the distinction. But the artist most associated with commemorating . It was here Give thanks for the , for the life and church during the Civil War, although we have Cookham is Stanley Spencer. A copy of his Last that Spencer set his most celebrated painting, leisure it supports. Give thanks for the gift of fresh an inscription on one of the tombs vandalised Supper is on display in the church. You can see the Resurrection in Cookham, in which former water which we so easily take for granted. by an over enthusiastic Puritan who thought more of his work in the Spencer Gallery, yards residents climb out of their graves to join their the Latin reference to the ‘Mother of God’ was from the church. Give thanks for the God-given friends. Almost hidden amongst the other too Catholic, and the offending letters were talents of artists whose work enriches our lives. graves lies the poet and mountaineer, Geoffrey