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last updated on 14/07/2008 09:06:20
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me -
just as the Father knows me and I know the Father - and I lay down my life for the sheep. John 10:14-15
St Mary, Shinfield. For a map of the location from www.streetmap.co.uk click here (opens in a new window)
History
The next 1000 years
Improvements and rebuilding over the next 150 years provided a nave with a King Post roof which we would recognise today. Because the church is a working building and not a museum it has changed with time. The South Aisle and Martyn Chapel were added in the early and late C16th respectively, the Tower in the C17th and the modifications to the Chancel and Sanctuary by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the mid C19th.
During the C20th electricity and heating made life more pleasant for parishioners and, some time following the 900th anniversary and as a result of a stewardship campaign, a new bell frame was positioned in the tower, so that regular ringing for services could once again take place.
At the opening of the present century and to celebrate the new Millennium a stained glass window depicting the history of our church was installed in the East end of the South Aisle. The area around St Mary’s is, once again, undergoing change and reordering is about to take place again in the South aisle. However, although the people and form of services continue to change and evolve to meet new needs, St Mary’s remains a constant place at which the people of Shinfield are welcome to meet in fellowship and worship God.
In 2005 Shinfield became part of a United Benefice known as Loddon Reach and includes the parishes of Spencers Wood and Grazeley, Beech Hill and Swallowfield and the church of St John the Evangelist, Farley Hill.
Click here to read more about the interior and points of interest at St Mary's church.
Shinfield was originally a Saxon settlement and is it possible that a simple church existed where St. Mary’s now stands. Roman remains have been found in the area despite being not particularly near a Roman road or the Roman town of Calleva.
The parish of Shinfield was originally much larger than it is now, its boundaries being the Loddon river, Reading, Grazeley and Spencers Wood. The original parish of Shinfield covered 4126 acres and included the
ecclesiastical parishes of Swallowfield, Grazeley and Spencers Wood until they were formed into separate parishes in 1847, 1854 and 1913 respectively.
More emphasis was placed on the importance of Swallowfield by the nobility in the C14th – C16th since it offered hunting and stabling of horses, and was favoured by Royalty. In fact, apart from the only apparent advantage, that of the fisheries, Shinfield can be thought to be the poor relation, though the villages were very similar in size according to their Domesday reckoning. The very name Shinfield might have come from Sinningfield, since the people of Swallowfield were afraid to venture near for fear of the ‘robbers in summer and the floods in winter’. This might have been the reason for building a separate church at Swallowfield. On the other hand, the name might have come from ‘Shining fields’ from the sun being reflected from those very floods.
Whatever the advantages of Swallowfield, William Fitz Osbern, Lord of Breteuil, Seneschal of Normandy and Earl of Hereford, not to say favourite of William I, chose to build his church in the centre of the Shinfield settlement in about 1069.
How much of the original structure remains is uncertain but the orientation of the nave and, possibly parts of the walls, are from that time.