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This photo of St Michael & All Angels Church, Alsop-en-le-Dale is hanging inside the Church and was sent to us by The Revd. Christopher Harrison. This Norman Church still retains it’s original Norman nave, doorway and font.

What does the number 1695 on the photo refer to?
Does it refer to when Alsop became an independent parish?

When was this photo taken?
The tower was built in 1882-83 by F J Robinson to imitate the Norman style, so we know the photo pre-dates this.

Do you know who the lady in the photograph is?

Alsop Church today – taken by Mike Radcliffe

Just had a super morning helping to clear up the Churchyard. There were about 10 of us getting stuck in, the yew has been well pruned & now the cross has been revealed, providing a lovely vista from the path.

Gravestones have been stripped of unwanted ivy, saplings removed, roses pruned and just a good general tidyup. We were blessed with a lovely morning and we had almost 3 hours before the rain started. It was a very sociable event, lots of gossiping (whilst we worked of course) and a welcome hot drink part way through, brought to us by ‘Big Ben’ on crutches!

Thank you to Emily and Little Ben for their help and handing out the delicious cakes. See what you have missed out on by not being there. Have no fear, it is not finished yet, so if anyone has any ideas about how we can progress comments on this blog are welcome.

Thank you to everyone that helped and to Peter Trewhitt for the photos.

To see more photos click here: Continue Reading »

Tomorrow, Saturday we are doing a  cleanup of the Churchyard, if the weather is awful then we will be concentrating on other jobs that need doing inside, so there is no excuse not to be there!  We have a lovely Church which is always open to the public and this is pretty amazing when so many other churches lock their doors.   Spare an hour or two and join us tomorrow, it is for the benefit of not just the Church, but the village as well.

 Cleanup – Saturday 29th March – from 10am.

Our thanks to Christopher Harrison for sending us this article.

If anyone was awake at 7.00 am on Easter morning and wondered why the church bell was ringing, this was Parwich’s contribution to the ancient tradition of celebrating Easter with a dawn service (well, just after dawn). There is something very primal about lighting the Paschal candle from a fire in the churchyard and following the lit candle into a dark church, while the acclamation ‘Christ, our Light’ is intoned three times.

The snow and wind did not make matters particularly straightforward, however, and in fact the candle had to be lit in the church porch. But the fact that several people did make it to the service in spite of the weather – from as far afield as Brassington and Mappleton – was an indication of our determination not to let anything stand in the way of our celebration of the climax of the Christian year.

Jonathan Marshall’s plainsong rendering of the ‘exultet’ gave us a glimpse of the timelessness of this Easter ritual, and this lifted hearts and minds in their contemplation of the awesome mystery of Christ’s resurrection. After four scripture readings, interspersed with hymns, by candlelight, the lights were turned on at the moment of acclamation ‘Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, Alleluia!’ The first communion of Easter followed shortly afterwards.

All were then treated to breakfast – even including fresh coffee from Jonathan’s state of the art machine. It almost felt disappointing that the snow had begun to melt by the time we went home after the service!

Christopher Harrison

Photo by Peter Trewhitt

It was a lovely service in Church this morning, beautifully led by Andrew. It was super seeing him bounding up the aisle with a sword, he made me feel positively exhausted (all to illustrate that Jesus is alive). There were lots of villagers and visitors to the service & lovely to see so many children there. The Wright children contributed some lovely readings. Afterwards whilst the adults were enjoying coffee & biscuits the children were able to hunt for Easter Eggs. The church looks lovely, everywhere you looked there was an abundance of daffodils all arranged by volunteers yesterday. Thank you.