Our Churches

The four churches that make up the Loddon Reach Benefice team are St Mary the Virgin in Beech Hill, St Mary in Shinfield, St Michael & All Angels in Spencers Wood and All Saints in Swallowfield.

All four church buildings have their own unique history and character, Shinfield church originating in 1069, Swallowfield going back some 700 years, with Beech Hill and Spencers Wood being more contemporary by comparison, built in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively.

Regardless of history and architecture, each congregation offers a warmth of welcome that reflects their own distinctive personality, as they share the love of God in their parish communities. In our common humanity, and our understanding of how to approach God through worship, we’re all delightfully different. Indeed, it would be rather odd and not a little boring, if we were all the same. Therefore, one of the beauties and benefits of the benefice is that we offer a variety of services for new-comers to choose from. Recent new arrivals have done the circuit of our churches before settling down in the church that most closely corresponds to their spirituality. If you’re new to the area why not employ the same strategy?

Just as you will have explored different possibilities before deciding on your new home, it makes some sense to have a look around the local churches before deciding on your new spiritual home. And if you’ve lived here for some time, and are having thoughts about connecting or re-connecting with church, the same approach might be helpful to you, too.

Having established that each church is quite different from the others in style of both architecture and worship, as members of a united benefice, they form an integrated fellowship through a continually growth in understanding of mutual support:

Shared services on fifth Sundays and other occasions
Benefice-wide nurture courses
a combined choir for some services
Benefice bell-ringing
Mothers' Union
Pilgrimages
Social events
Loddon Reach Magazine (click here for further information)
and in lots of other ways too numerous to mention

For more information on the styles of services on offer, click here.

Charities

All our churches support various local, national and international charities. These are all chosen by the church congregations. Please see the individual church pages for more information.