The Earliest Times 8

Besides Egwin, Bishop of Worcester, mentioned last time, St.Chad himself, the great Apostle of the Midlands, made some attempt to convert the people of Alcester, with no greater success. This must have been before 669 A.D., when Chad became Bishop of Lichfield, for we know that after that he confined his travels to Staffordshire. He always travelled on foot. He came down the old Roman road which came straight from Letocitum, or Wall, near Lichfield, for there was no other way. He received rough treatment at Alcester, being driven away, as he said, ‘as though by beasts, not men’. By 712 A.D. Christianity in Alcester was sufficiently strong for an imp ortant Synod to be held there, attended by the Archbishops of both Canterbury and York. This seems to have been chiefly for the pur pose of confirming the foundation of Evesham Abbey. And by 723 Christianity at Wootton Wawen had existed long enough for the need of a proper stone church building to arise and a charter was grant ed for the building of the present church - or at least a part of it.

At Kinwarton the shaft of the Saxon cross which survives is dated 900 A.D. by the experts. The late Edwin Smith suggested that this shows that by then there was a place of worship there; yet it is just as possible that it indicates the exact opposite. Such crosses were frequently erected as preaching crosses, simply because there was no place of worship. Still, it does show that there were Christians at Kinwarton not only by that date but before it. They were sufficiently numerous to be able to erect the cross without opposition. Land in Kinwarton was given to help endow Evesham Abbey by Cenred, King of Mercia, in 708. Church or no church, this shows that Christianity was at least “official” by 700 A.D. or thereabouts, all over our neighbourhood. Churches, in any case, would have been built of wood, except, of course, at Wootton.

What I said last time about the Saxon workmanship beneath the tower at Wootton Wawen may be confirmed by reading ‘Looking for History in British Churches’ by M.D. Anderson (John Murray, London, 1951)

Winter 1985 Index