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St Mary the Virgin, Kinwarton
Services:
Evensong at 6.00pm on 2nd Sundays
Parish Praise at 9.30am on 3rd Sundays
Holy Communion at 9.30am on 4th Sundays
Please check by clicking on This Week for details.
The original village was only one and a quarter miles north east of Alcester, in the valley of the river Alne which forms its boundary on the south and east. Modern housing estates on the edge of Alcester cover the West of the parish. The 13th century grade II* church is very small, set amongst fields next to the Old Rectory (1788) and Glebe Farm which has seventeenth century timber framing. Nearby is the fourteenth century circular dovecote with its five hundred nesting boxes, cared for by The National Trust. Great Alne was originally a Chapelry of Kinwarton.
To find Kinwarton Church proceed from Alcester towards Great Alne on the B4089. Kinwarton is signposted to the right beyond the top of Captain's Hill and past the school coach park. Follow the narrow road down, bearing left at the junction. The church is at the end on the right.
Check location at A Church Near You website
The church seats about 60 people. Records show that it was originally built 1291, consecrated in 1316, but extensively rebuilt in 1850 by Rev. Richard Seymour. From the wooden porch there are three steps down into the nave. The font bowl is 14th century with a later 16th century wooden cover. Most of the windows are Victorian placed in earlier frames but two are of particular interest, the oak framed window by the pulpit, and the quatrefoil chancel window showing the Virgin Mary and Child, dated 1336. Memorials include a medieval alabaster tablet given in memory of Rev Rufford, a window for Ensign Seymour and a plaque for a second world war bomber pilot and crew. The single bell in regular use was cast in 1716 at Bromsgrove. The furniture and screen are Victorian.
Apart from the modern ones, the church registers are kept at Warwick Record Office. It is interesting to note that in the first half of the 18th century large numbers of weddings took place here, before the passing of the Hardwick Act.