Going to a Village Church

In her book, 'Lark Rise to Candleford' Flora Thompson describes what it was like to go to the church in her village:

"Every Sunday, morning and afternoon, the two cracked, flattened bells at the church in the mother village called the faithful to worship. Ding-dong, Ding-dong, Ding-dong, they went and, when they heard them, the hamlet churchgoers hurried across fields and over stiles.

With the Fordlow cottagers, the Squire's and farmer's families and maids, the Rectory people and the hamlet contingent, the congregation averaged about thirty. Even with this small number, the church was fairly well filled, for it was a tiny place.

'The Village Church Choir' in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Squire's and clergyman's families had pews in the chancel, with backs to the wall on either side and between them stood two long benches for the school children, well under the eyes of authority. Below the steps down into the nave stood the harmonium, played by the clergyman's daughter and round it was ranged the choir of small schoolgirls. Then came the rank and file of the congregation, nicely graded, with the farmer's family in the front row, then the Squire's gardener and coachman, the schoolmistress, the maidservants, and the cottagers, with the Parish Clerk at the back to keep order."

(Taken from 'Lark Rise to Candleford' by Flora Thompson, chapter 14, 'To Church on Sunday'. Used by permission of Oxford University Press)