St. Nicholas Church - Leeds |
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February Message from the Clergy Team As I write, Christmas has been and gone – I hope you all had a joyful, peaceful time. It was wonderful to see our churches full at most of the special services we provided and particularly on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We now have the season of Lent ahead of us and this of course starts with Ash Wednesday on 22nd February and there will be a service in Hollingbourne church at 10.00 am. Lent always brings a slight glimmer of hope on the horizon – the days start to get a little longer and the nights a little shorter. It is a season to prepare ourselves for the most important season of the Christian calendar – Easter. Lent for some is still a season to be rather quiet and reflective and traditionally this has meant that we are the exact opposite of what Easter is. I always tell the children in our schools that this doesn’t mean we have to go around during Lent with a ‘glum’ face – but we do have to remember and ‘re-tell’ the narrative of Christ’s Passion. But we can do this in a positive way and look at our own lives and revisit what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and how we put that into our daily lives. I hope that many of you will be able to join our Benefice Away Day on Saturday 11th February at Leeds Castle. Robin wrote about this last month and we are very pleased to welcome Ted Harrison (professional broadcaster and journalist) as our speaker. If you haven’t yet told me you are coming to our Away Day or would like further details – please phone me. I hope that we are able to use Lent as a time to explore our Christian faith at a deeper level and that this will enable us to look forward to a joyful celebration of the Resurrection at Easter. Nigel Back to Top |
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A Brief History of the Church - The Church of Saint Nicholas at Leeds was already well-established in Anglo-Saxon times, the current nave being just a little larger than the entire Saxon church. When the Normans arrived they made major changes, including the massive twelfth century tower, one of the county's best half-dozen examples. The Normans' Doomsday Survey of 1086 recorded nearby one of only three vineyards then in the whole of Kent. In 1492 John Brandon bequeathed money for reparation of the church steeple and 260 years later Edward Harrison the Curate wrote peevishly that -the steeple was till'd, the church adorned, the chancel enriched and the curate impoverish't. Inside the tower the ringing chamber has seen regular strenuous activity for centuries. The ten bells are housed in an ancient oak frame, one of the earliest surviving ten-bell frames in the UK. The youngest six bells are 256 years old; three are dated 1751; the biggest and oldest, the tenor, was made in 1617 by Joseph Hatch, a local bellfounder of great fame. The tower houses a 277 year-old clock, also made locally. The church organ is a young instrument by comparison, built and installed in 1833 and paid for by public subscription at £399. The nave's crown-post roof dates from the fifteenth century; let into the nave's floor are two brasses, one commemorating William Merden who died in 1509, the other Katherine Lambe who died in 1514. The chandelier was donated by John Saxby, who died in 1778. Saint Nicholas boasts a most impressive rood screen. This is a finely carved wooden wall, separating nave from chancel and extending across the entire width of the church. It contains eleven bays and three entranceways. Some of the church's silver plate is on display in the chapel at Leeds Castle, one flagon weighing 1340 grams and dated 1750. The ancient registers and other records can be seen at the Centre for Kentish Studies in Maidstone. The churchyard is extensive, running to four acres. Its natural meadow grasses are attractive at any time but excel in spring when naturalised bulbs of snowdrop and narcissus produce spectacular, successive swathes of colour. Back to TopCafé In The Porch - FOUR YEARS OLD! This month we reach the fourth birthday anniversary of CAFÉ IN THE PORCH. Our Café is open from 2.30 to 4.00pm on Thursdays during school terms. Find us at the west end of Saint Nicholas’ Church, Leeds - in the porch. Free car park outside the door. Why not join the dozens of local people who make Café in the Porch a regular talking shop and a haven for children and adults before the evening chores begin? Café in the Porch is run by the Parochial Church Council. Back to Top |
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