Please explore 'The Land', this website, and...

PARISH PUMP

The website and magazine for 'The Land of The Twelve Churches' across our fifteen villages of Alvescot, Black Bourton, Bradwell Village, Broadwell, Broughton Poggs, Filkins, Grafton, Holwell, Kelmscott, Kencot, Langford, Little Faringdon, Radcot, Shilton, and Westwell...

All in the West Oxfordshire Cotswolds

Traveller, Visitor, Reader, Pilgrim... You are welcome.

PARISH PUMP magazine is published every two months, and is available to distribute  through every letterbox in our 15 villages.

(If you do not get one, please email )

Parish Pump is also available to view on this page, and is best read on a PC or laptop (the rest of the site is fine on mobiles.)

We welcome all and any ideas and comment on any subject

If you wish to send a message to PARISH PUMP, please see the 'Contact' page from the menu

To read PARISH PUMP magazine online (latest & back issues), or to see all the other website news, views, poetry & more...

... Please use the menu at the top of the page.

​

Everything works on all devices, except reading the magazine is best on a PC or tablet

So many readers have asked 'where has the Church gone?' that it seems sensible to write something here on the website rather than take up space in the magazine. You will find it at the foot of the 'About' page from the menu above, or HERE

Please explore the PARISH PUMP website using the regular menu at the top... Not only can you read the latest issue of the magazine, but there is also lots of latest (and older!) News and Views to explore. And, in addition, here below are some 'specials'...

   ... But before you continue, please consider how happy you could make your roses (and all of your precious plants) with a few good dollops of Farmer George's horse-doings...

   Give George Ponsonby a ring, and he'll  be straight over to make your garden manuriously happy!

​

   Please see our other lovely Parish Pump advertisers HERE

And now on with the show...

Magnificent Scarecrows in Filkins

Easter 2021

(And not a crow in sight, so they must work!)

SPECIALS...

The Filkins Tornado. For those who weren't here... Yes we really did have a tornado! 17 years ago in March 2004. It was an extraordinary event, written up with great verve by some young storm-chasers. Here are their 16 pages of explanation and photographs (with Filkins itself starting on page 8.)

HERE

Around the churchyard. More people visit churchyards looking for ancestors, but memorials moulder, sometimes dangerously, leaving churchwardens and PCCs with various management concerns. Here is a report about one local churchyard, with suggestions for a way forward.

HERE

A long time ago? Maybe not! Julian Choyce, of Filkins, looks back 35 years to meeting Ann on VSO in Zimbabwe, and reflects on what they learned then that has a relevance in lockdown today.

HERE

On top of the world! Or at any rate on top of the scaffolding, while the bellcote at St Peter's Church, Filkins was being restored a few years ago. Have a look at this great 360 panorama film of the village... As you've never seen it before!  Plus a second filmlet of the new bellcote stonework.

HERE

Who's for Tennis? Colston Tennis Club is a small, friendly club right here in The Land of The Twelve Churches. Nick Goodenough, of Broadwell, says: "Post-corona, why not come down for a game?'  

HERE

One year, twelve pictures... James Lindsay of Woodside House, Shilton took a photograph of Astall Barrow every month for a year. A wonderful record of 'that mound by the A40 you always meant to explore.'  

Now you can! See James' pictures   HERE

The sermon given by Colin Fletcher, the Bishop of Dorchester, at the service on Wednesday 6th October 2004 when Harry MacInnes was inducted as Rector of the Shill Valley & Broadshire Benefice. The sermon is published here in commemoration of the Bishop's retirement during October 2020. (First published in Parish Pump November 2004)   HERE

'Around Our Land'. Tom Barry and others share their views of The Land of the Twelve Churches in this Time of Corona. HERE

(Do join in: please email your photographs for inclusion)

'It's a Knock-Out' & 'The Pantomime Horse Races' Here's three films (courtesy of Ruth Henderson) of great afternoons in Filkins 30 years ago... 

HERE

When worlds collide: watch the foxes, and badgers, and hares cavorting in Chris Hank's garden

HERE

The Flood of July 2007: remember that very wet weekend? Watch this film, and shudder!

HERE

Lockdown Lens: nearly 400 photographs in and around our Land of The Twelve Churches from Giles Edwards

HERE

'Harry (and Margot)' in Lockdown: online content can get lost very quickly, so here gathered together for second viewing, or for those who missed them first time round, are all 50 of the YouTube films made by Harry and Margot from mid-March 2020 onwards

HERE

Filkins and Broughton Poggs churches are open every day.

How did they do it? Visitor information and guidelines

HERE

Update! A new PCC has  since closed them again on most days (details: HERE)

Is God Real? If so, how real? If not, so what?

A debate from recent issues of PARISH PUMP

HERE

Must Rhodes Fall? Should Rhodes Fall?

Our very own Donal Lowry takes a cogent view

HERE

"The past was not a rehearsal for the present."   

Hilary Mantel