Default Image We do not have a
Photograph at present.
Image by courtesy of
openclipart.org

St Faith's Church (formerly St Michael's),
Farmcote, Gloucestershire.

Cemeteries

This Church has (or had) a graveyard.

Note: any church within an urban environment may have had its graveyard closed after the Burial Act of 1853. Any new church built after that is unlikely to have had a graveyard at all.

Church History

This Place of Worship was founded in the Saxon period, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1923 records Farmcote with Pinnock and Hyde, which together form a civil parish. Ecclesiastically, Pinnock 3½ miles east of Winchcombe, and Hyde 4½ east of Winchcombe, belonged to Didbrook parish, its living being a rectory, annexed with the chapelry of Hailes, to the vicarage of Didbrook. Farmcote, 3 miles east of Winchcombe, was a chapelry attached to the living of Guiting Power, and St Michael's chapel of ease is described as a small building of stone with 40 sittings.

At the time of the Religious Census of 1851 (HO 129/343/1/5/6) "Farmcote Chapel, appended to the parish of Lower Guiting" was said to have 12 free, and 25 "other" sittings. The return was completed by Joseph Greene, who held the post of "Bishop's Curate for Farmcote", and he lived in Stow on the Wold. He gave no figures given for attendance, explaining that "This is a small chapel. There are but two farm houses, one of which is at present unoccupied. It is distant 4½ miles from this place, & duty is performed there once every second Sunday by the minister of Lower Guiting."

Lower Guiting is an older name for Guiting Power.

Evidently since 1923 the Church's dedication was changed from St Michael to St Faith. There is a nice description of it in 1986 in the BBC's Domesday Reloaded collection, and a lengthier description on the British Listed Buildings website (under Temple Guiting). Note: the 1986 description refers to "a tiny chancel linked to [the nave] by a narrow Saxon arch", but the Listing text, quoted from The Buildings of England: The Cotswolds (1979), says the chancel has been demolished, and the chancel arch (described as "Saxo-Norman", is now blocked.

Denomination

Now or formerly Church of England.

If more than one congregation has worshipped here, or its congregation has united with others, in most cases this will record its original dedication.

Maps

This Church is located at OS grid reference SP0614129029. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

• St Faith's Church (formerly St Michael's), Farmcote shown on a Google Map.
• Places of Worship in Farmcote shown on a Google Map.
• Streetmap.co.uk (arrow on map shows the Place of Worship's location) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Bing (Ordnance Survey option) (verified 2018-10-13)
• Bing Maps ('Bird's Eye' View) (verified 2018-10-15)
• Ordnance Survey "getamap" (NB some of the 'Change Map' options may require a subscription) (verified 2018-10-15)
• OpenStreetMap (Maps © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA) (verified 2018-10-15)
• A Vision of Britain Through Time - useful for Boundary Changes (verified 2018-10-15)
• www.magic.gov.uk (Modern Maps with various overlays) (verified 2018-10-15)

Resources

I have found many websites of use whilst compiling the information for this database. Here are some which deserve mention as being of special interest for Farmcote, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

• Please note that from June 2018, the BBC's Domesday Reloaded (null) (verified 2018-11-15)
• Learn more about Buildings of special or historical interest on the British Listed Buildings (null) (verified 2018-09-19)

The above links were selected and reviewed at the time I prepared the information, but please be aware their content may vary, or disappear entirely. These factors are outside my control.