Twyford – St. Nicholas Church

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.