WOODNEWTON. CHURCH : ST MARY.

Mid February 2008, and a Saturday morning that seemed more akin to mid April. Beautiful sunshine all day and seven churches visited as the cycle came out of its Winter hibernation. Church number five of the day was that St Mary's at Woodnewton. The church of St Mary stands proudly on high ground to the West of the village. The church dates from the early 13th Century, with the tower dating from the 16th Century. This church is in a lovely setting and looked glorious bathed in the Winter sunshine. Beautiful blue sky; a delight to be out and put the stresses of the working week to the back of your mind for a while.

  Woodnewton is a charming East Northamptonshire village, with its main claim to fame probably being that Nikolai Polakvos, Coco The Clown, retired to Woodnewton in 1973, and died there shortly afterwards. His grave can be found at the church.

  This was my third visit to Woodnewton, and each time that I have visited the church has been open. On my previous two vists the jight quality has been very poor with interior photographs suffering as a result. For that reason I did a re-shoot of the interior. Unusually, there is a small wooden cart to be found inside the church, pictured second from the bottom on the right. Obviously, some local history behind this somewhere.

  Also worth noting inside this church is a carved capital with some ancient looking heads carved around it. Sitting above the heads is a considerably more modern cherub. Inside the porch is a Saxon coffin lid, again pictured below, whilst also pictured on this page is a Norman doorway with jagged "dog tooth" design decoration over the top.

  Lots of gargoyles to be found on the South wall of St Mary's. Sadly, these are nearly all very badly weathered and not such good quality as can be found at Kings Cliffe just up the road!

  Enjoyable stay here, it always is, and not far to the next point of call, Apethorpe with its magnificent Mildmay monument and 17th Century stained glass window.