This grave at St. Nicholas Church in Twyford commemorates the life of Barbara Savoury, the daughter of Coulsey and Elizabeth Savory. Coulsey seems an interesting person, he was a small-scale landowner who found himself in a financial situation later in life that was sub-optimal, although like Alan Partridge, he bounced back. He was to die in 1837 and was buried in the church, although his gravestone is no longer extant.

At first, I struggled to read the name on this grave, but the death at a young age was visible and I was intrigued. It was easy to work out by going to do the burial records of the church from that year and this is the only death in 1800. Barbara died on 6 December 1800, aged just two years and three months. Although there’s quite a lot of media attention about her father over the decades, there’s no mention of Barbara other than the birth and funeral record. A few years after her death, her parents had another girl who they also named Barbara, although she also died young and was buried on 4 February 1829 at the age of 20. Her parents also had a son called Edward who was born in 1807 and he grew up and lived in the village, later naming his own child Barbara Savory and I’m pleased that she had a much longer life. So, in some form, the name of young Barbara did live on.

St. Nicholas Church in Twyford feels both remote, but also heavily impacted by the heavy road going right by it. The village currently has fewer than thirty residents, which has inevitably made this rather challenging to run as a viable church. The name of the village, meaning ‘double ford’ is Saxon, but there’s no evidence of a religious building here from before the Norman period. It’s thought that the nave dates to the early twelfth century and the chancel is a little later, although they are now under the same roof, which I’m not entirely sure has always been the case. George Plunkett came this way in 1992 and since that visit, the render has been removed from the chancel so that the historic stone is visible.

There’s scaffolding up as there was a little incident a couple of years ago when a tree fell down during a storm and hit the church and some gravestones. This porch, which could arguably be called a tower, has been added to the church in 1732 and I’m not sure that it was ever the most congruous of arrangements.

Work on the porch, which is expected to be completed by the Autumn of 2025. Unfortunately, the church was locked and so it wasn’t possible to look inside.

The news update about the matter.

It’s not clear that there was ever a tower to this church, although it would have likely been where the porch is located if there had been, which I doubt was the case. There looks like a bricked up door here into the nave, although it’s hard to make out.

The end of the chancel. There was some remodelling during the Victorian period, but I suspect it was more tidying up than anything more substantial.

This former doorway is thought to date from the fourteenth century and it’s another church that I’d like to go inside, but I suspect arranging that would be relatively difficult. It’s positive that there is funding to repair the damage to the porch, but I can imagine this is a tough one to fund raise for given the limited local population size.