OXFORD DIOCESE PILGRIM PROJECT DIOCESE PILGRIM PROJECT

You might also like to visit other nearby Oxford Diocese Pilgrim Project: churches in the Pilgrim Project: St Thomas of Canterbury, Dorchester Abbey Goring-on-Thames Ancient abbey church RG8 9DS St Mary the Virgin, Speen Website: www.st-thomas-goring.org.uk Medieval pilgrimage to the lady well

Holy Trinity, Cookham Stanley Spencer 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, of Oxford St Thomas of Canterbury,

Illustrations by Brian Hall © Goring-on-Thames Goring grew up on the site of an important fordable river crossing and at the junction of major overland routes. It would almost certainly have had a modest timber church or shrine from early in the Christian era but the existing stone building, in classic 11th century Romanesque style, would have been built in the years just before or just after the Norman Conquest of 1066. It seems originally to have been dedicated to the Virgin Mary, as was the nun’s priory which was founded on the same site in the early years of the 12th century.

In its heyday the extensive priory buildings Tomorrow’, The Canterbury Room is available and the magnificent ground floor chamber with The organ chamber was built in 1888 and the surrounded the church on three sides and for hire by the wider community as well as its lofty vaulted ceiling. organ installed in it the same year. The apse included a large priory church. After the providing additional worship space. Pray for all arcade of round-headed interlacing arches in Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s those who use The Canterbury Room, that they The Norman font was removed from the church Norman style was built in 1937. this and most of the other priory buildings may be drawn closer to God. in 1848 and taken to Gatehampton, where it lay were demolished. Today nothing of the priory neglected for almost 90 years. In 1937 it was The finest brass in the church is that of Elizabeth survives other than a few floor tiles and the The Nuns’ Doorway – Inside the church on the recovered and repositioned at the base of the Loveday (who died in 1401). It is on the north stone corbels which would have supported the south side, the doorway that now leads into The tower. It is now in the nave. wall of the chancel and provides an illustration roof of the nun’s north cloister, clearly visible on Canterbury Room originally led into the nuns’ of the dress worn by a lady of rank in the reign the exterior of the south wall above the new cloister. The height of the arch was extended in The church has a fine peal of eight bells and of Henry IV. Canterbury Room. Pause and remember with 2009 as the floor of the church must have been a dedicated team of ringers. The bell mounted gratitude all those who have prayed in and at least two feet below the present level. Pray above the west door of the nave is almost the Erected in 1910 and reputedly built of timber around this church over the centuries. Pray for for the many religious communities within our oldest surviving bell in England dating back to salvaged from one of the ships of the line at those who regularly worship here today. diocese today. about 1290. For more than 600 years it would Trafalgar, the rood screen has eight angels, have rung out over the village but was removed each bearing a shield carrying an emblem of Opened in 2009 as part of a comprehensive The Tower is probably the most striking feature from the tower in 1929 when the other bells the Passion. The rood itself is flanked by figures refurbishment and extension project to the of the original building, particularly the unusual were re-cast and re-hung. representing the Virgin and St John. church which was entitled ‘St Thomas’ Builds for stair turret projecting from the north-west corner