My visit to this most extraordinary church took place
shortly after leaving Pendock Old Church (see the previous post of this
title.) I had noted the site on the map
but had no idea what to expect when I arrived at the small village. For a community of little over three hundred
souls Pendock is quite delightful. It supports a good primary school, has a
general store and off license, and on the central crossroads a unique wooden
church.
The History of the County simply says, “A wooden church was erected at Pendock in
1889 on a site given by Miss Higgins,[1]” and as it was written before that
date Noake’s Guide to Worcestershire
only refers to the Old Church and its living.
Sadly the church was locked – and probably for reasons of
safety. As the images will show it was
undergoing major structural repair and refurbishment, about which more will be said
shortly. I took a few photographs and
left with the intention to do some online research. This was disappointing. There’s little if anything out there. I decided to write to Malvern Library to see
if they could assist, but then thought:
Hang on! What about local clergy? Thanks
to the Church of England’s online search engine A Church Near You I was able to send an email to one Reverend
Anthea Elston (a Non-Stipendiary Minister in the benefice) who passed on my
note to Martin Knott, secretary to the Berrow-with-Pendock
Parochial Church Council. Rather than redact
his kind and detailed reply I publish it gratefully in full.
In much earlier
times, there were two separate parishes of Berrow and Pendock, each with its
own ancient church building (both had Norman origins). For historical
reasons dating back to medieval times, the parish of Pendock had a shape
resembling an egg timer along an east/west axis with the church, the rectory
and the manor house all lying close together at the eastern end of the parish.
Originally, there were very few people living at the western end but, during
Victorian times, a larger community sprang up at that end of the parish.
Since the existing parish church was over a mile away, it was decided to build
a small wooden church to serve the everyday needs of this community. It would
seem that it was expected that this building would only have a life of about 30
years. It was consecrated in 1887 and, it has to be said, was rather
looked down upon by the people of Upper Pendock at the eastern end. Elements of
this remain even to this day, even though the former parish church is now in
the care of the Historic Churches Trust as it had become impossibly expensive
for a dwindling population to maintain. Thus The Church of the Redeemer is now
the main place of worship for the people of Pendock. Having been built to
last for 30 years and constructed in haste and almost entirely of wood it has
recently been in dire need of a renovation and this is in progress as I write.
It is intended that there should be as few changes as possible because the
building is rare in type – it is believed that there is only one other remotely
like it (somewhere in Yorkshire) – and has a unique charm. It will be better
insulated, the original insulation was sawdust between the two layers of wood,
and better underpinned but will look much as ever to the visitor and the
worshipper. Once the work is completed we can look forward to another 127 years
of life for a very remarkable church!
And a gem of this unique building?
They have an outside font!
The above image was taken from the Geograph
project collection. The copyright on this image is owned by Pauline
Eccles and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
license.
[1] History of the County
of Worcester Volume 3.
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