Blaydon, Woodstock and Long Compton

Another trip to Mum and Dad's last Saturday, this time via the old Oxford to Stratford Road. We first stopped at Blaydon (near Blenheim palace). Sir Winston Churchill had expressed a wish to be buried at Bladon, the small village close to the family home of Blenheim. So, on 30 January 1965, after his state funeral service at St Paul's Cathedral, London, his body was transported by train to Bladon.



Close to Blaydon is the small town of Woodstock. The old town stocks in the centre of Woodstock have holes for five legs….why?



Further along the road into Warwickshire we then stopped at Long Compton. The Lych Gate at St. Peter and St. Paul, Long Compton is quite unusual. According to a sign posted on the notice board beneath the lych gate:

"The parish lych gate dates from about 1600, when it was the end of a row of cottages. Most of these were demolished in the 1920s. The lych gate became first a cobblers and later an antiques shop in the middle of the last century.

It was re-roofed and restored by a past resident, Mr George Latham, and given to the Church as a memorial to him by his wife, Marion, on 12th November 1964. The room above the gate is loaned to the Compton District History Society."




The church itself is pretty impressive : it is believed that St. Augustine preached on this site in 597AD. The present building dates from the 13th century



Inside the Easter story was presented as a model on the Font - something I haven't seen since I was a child at Churchill Church in Worcestershitre.