PATRONAGE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

The population of Wyck Rissington is now around 60 people: in Victorian times it was around 200, in the Middle Ages who knows.

It is probable that with a community of this size never in its history has the parish church been financially self sufficient.

Throughout the ages it has survived and flourished though patronage of one sort or another.

The 13th Century work which has survived with very little change in the chancel and the tower was carried out by exceptionally gifted masons.

This work was paid for not by the congregation, but under the patronage of the monks of Eynsham Abbey.

By 1879 when the Victorian restoration took place, tithes (the taxes that were paid to the Church) had been commuted, and the Church had sold off most of its land.

The Victorian work was made possible by having a wealthy Rector, who used his own funds, and the patronage of the Wyck Hill Estate, who owned all the houses and farms that cluster round the centre of the village.

Now there is no wealthy rector – in fact no resident vicar at all.

There is no Wyck Hill Estate, and the Church Commissioners who benefited from the sale of church land in the 19th Century are now impoverished and provide no funding for parish churches.

So in the 21st Century we have to invent a new form of patronage by the whole community to ensure the survival of this beautiful building.

The Friends of St Laurence's has been created with the objective of raising funds to ensure that, whatever happens, the building and the churchyard are properly maintained.

The new patronage is up to all of us, of whatever faith or none, who love the village and its finest building.