Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Todenham, Gloucestershire, Church History

Gloucestershire Places of Worship

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Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Todenham

Church of St Thomas of Canterbury,
Todenham, 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 before 1157, and we understand it is still open.

Kelly's Directory of 1923 describes Todenham as a village and parish on the Warwickshire border, 3 miles north-east from Moreton-in-Marsh station on the Oxford and Worcester section of the Great Western railway, and 31 north-east from Gloucester. The Church, said to be dedicated to Thomas à Becket, is "a building in the Decorated style, consisting of chancel, with chantry chapel, nave of three bays, with south chapel, north aisle, south porch and a western tower, with pinnacles and spire, containing a clock and 6 bells". The chancel retains some stone sedilia with canopies, and a piscina. Portions of the stairs to the former rood loft also remain. The chantry chapel on the north side of the chancel was then (1923) used as the family pew of the Pole family.
The chapel on the south side of the nave contains a canopied piscina and credence and a monument to Lady Louisa Pole, who died in 1852. The Decorated east window was filled with stained glass in 1879 as a memorial to the Rev. Gilbert Malcolm, a former rector. In the chancel is an inscribed brass to William Moulton, d.1614. There are 250 sittings. The parish register dates from 1721, and includes a list of former rectors from a very early period, amongst whom was Thomas Merkes, abbot of Westminster, and afterwards Bishop of Carlisle (1397-1403), degraded by Henry IV. for some declaration in favour of Richard II.
According to the Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 6: Slaughter hundred, and the upper divisions of Tewkesbury and Westminster hundreds (1965), pp.250-258 (Todenham), the Manor of Todenham was given to Deerhurst Priory in 804. Their earliest known documentary evidence of a church is a papal confirmation of the church to Westminster Abbey in 1157.
The parish included a hamlet formerly known as Upper Lemington in its south-west corner. It is shown on Old Maps before 1922 as a short distance to the south-east from Lower Lemington. Later Maps show the area labelled as Lemington Manor, as indeed it remains today. In 1928, according to "Units & Statistics" on the Vision of Britain Through Time website, the benefices of Todenham and Lower Lemington were united to form a joint benefice to be known as Todenham with Lower Lemington.
See also "Our Churches" on St David's Church, Moreton in Marsh website, which has (as of January 2019) a very nice leaflet on St Thomas's Church available for download.

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 SP2431436320. You can see this on various mapping systems. Note all links open in a new window:

Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Todenham shown on a Google Map.
Places of Worship in Todenham 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 Todenham, and perhaps to Local History and Places of Worship as a whole.

The Victoria County History series: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 6: Slaughter hundred, and the upper divisions of Tewkesbury and Westminster hundreds (null) (verified 2018-11-06)
Particularly useful as a reference source for Boundary Changes - the Vision of Britain Through Time (null) (verified 2018-10-15)
Information provided on the St David's Church, Moreton in Marsh website. (verified 2019-01-24)

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.

Information last updated on 24 Jan 2019 at 10:20.

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This Report was created 16 Nov 2024 - 16:22:32 GMT from information held in the Gloucestershire section of the Places of Worship Database. This was last updated on 13 Oct 2021 at 14:13.

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