A Thousand Years

On By Adampayne

There’s a saying that goes something like, “To an Englishman, 100 miles is a long way. To an American, 100 years is a long time.”

While we can debate the nuance of that, I think it definitely says something about how citizens of each country look at age and history. We are constantly astounded by the age of places that we encounter every day. Even just walking down the high street of a town like Godalming, a significant portion of the buildings are older than the United States.

This really hit home today when I got to stand in a church that was built in 950 A.D. Over 1,000 years of the Gospel of Jesus Christ being proclaimed in this place and I got to stand in the same spot and add my voice to the history of that church.

St. Mary’s in Guildford was built on the site of a previous wooden church that possibly dates back to around 700. In 950, the tower was built to replace that wooden church.

This square is the tower, the oldest part of the church. If you look closely, you can see the wear pattern of hundreds of years of priests standing in the center.

About a hundred years later, the current nave (the part where the congregation sits) was added.

The chancel, where the altar sits, dates from the early 1200’s. The window above it is from the second half of the 19th century and shows the five most important events of Jesus’ life.

High Altar with East Window

There are smaller chapels on either side of the altar. St. John’s, to the left, was added around 1180. One of the tragedies of the Reformation, and later the Puritan movements, in England was a removal of some of the beautiful artwork in medieval churches. In St. Mary’s, this is illustrated by the whitewash that covers all the walls and columns, added during the Victorian era. On the arch at the far end of the chapel, the whitewash has been removed, allowing the decoration underneath to show, but unfortunately my picture of it turned out blurry. The chandelier you see was given to the church by Muslim soldiers at the beginning of World War I. You can find that story Here.

Besides a new entryway, with facilities, built in 2019, the NEWEST part of the church, the aisles, were finished around 1250.

To be able to preach in such a place is humbling. I’m not sure anyone over here really “gets” it, but to me, this morning will go down with my ordination and my induction services as a worship service I will always remember.

There were 100 interesting details to the church and I’ve included pictures of a few of them below.

Blurry picture, but this is a 12th century piscina, which is a bowl for washing Communion vessels.
The Victorian baptismal font.
The old style pulpit. We had Lizzy pose in it as it was preached from by Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, which is one of her favourite stories.
Finally, our mandatory selfie, standing under the tower with the East window in the background.

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