Covenham St Bartholomew
Covenham St Bartholomew, Lincolnshire
This cruciform 14th century church with its wooden, slate dressed tower and a Georgian lead roof was sadly made redundant in 1980.
The Convenhams is really one village that is split into two, St Bartholomew with its church at one end and St Mary with its church at the other.
The reason is not clear why there are two churches for the village. But it is believed that St Bartholomew's was the church of a small priory, where the monks and their servants would say the daily services. St Mary's was the church for the people of the parish. The Domesday Book records a church in the parish which was most probably St Mary's, being the older of the two.
The priory was established in 1082 by William de Karilepo, the Norman Bishop of Durham. It disappeared during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536, but the church survived. The two parishes of St Bartholomew's and St Mary's remained separate until 1904, on the death of John England Rudd who had been rector of St Mary's for nearly 56 years. He is buried in the churchyard.
The church contains an Easter Sepulchre containing a copy of the Skypwyth brass. The original can be seen in the now redundant church of St Bartholomew. Other points of interest include a font with shields and instruments of the Passion around the sides, a leper's squint and a devil's doorway (now blocked).
And it is worth looking at the nave with its stone brackets which support the barrel roof. Several brackets are carved with corbels, some decorated with grotesque figures. There is also a fine scratch dial to be found on the outer wall.