Axe falls on St Andrews services
The Newbury Weekly News reported in November last year that St Andrew’s Church in Bradfield, could be sold to Bradfield College to help fund a modern building on the site of St Peter’s Church in the centre of the village.
The priest in charge of the parishes of Bradfield, Bucklebury and Stanford Dingley, the Rev Julian Gadsby, said that discussions over a transfer of worship, which the parish was not involved in, were still ongoing between the Diocese of Oxford and Bradfield College.
Mr Gadsby said: “The church will not be closed because there is a legal process for that but we will not be holding services after November 30.
“We have two church buildings that are not fit for purpose. One of the issues relating to St Andrew’s is its location. The parish has changed a lot since these churches were built and we need to look at where we are now and not 150 years ago.”
Mr Gadsby told the NWN last year that the Grade-II listed St Andrew’s was too large for the needs of the parish and was becoming increasingly expensive to maintain and heat.
When asked whether the heating was a reason to hold the last service in November, Mr Gadsby said that November 30 was St Andrew’s Day so it seemed a fitting time to hold the service of celebration then.
Residents had also raised concerns over a possible deconsecration of the churchyard.
But Mr Gadsby said that as far as he was concerned nothing has changed over the churchyard and it would remain open for people to attend graves and for burials until it was full.
St Andrew’s dates back to the 14th century but was remodelled in French Gothic style by George Gilbert Scott in the 1840s.
The work was paid for by the Rev Thomas Stevens who founded Bradfield College in 1850 to provide choristers for his new church.