As part of the weekend of celebrations FHS mounted ‘A history of the Church’ exhibition which took place in the Heritage Room of the Community Centre. This recorded the historical timeline of the Church plus and other information and artifacts from the FHS Archive. Edwin Cuss supplied pictures of the 28 medieval glass windows in black and white taken by Henry Taunt in the late Nineteenth/early Twentieth century plus Church events that had taken place through out the years. See the Church Website.
A very interesting item was the ‘Fairford Booke’ lent by Gloucestershire Archives with permission of the Fairford Church Lands Charity.The book consists of copies of 17th Century legal documents relating to Fairford land transactions including church and charity lands (enfeoffments).The earliest document is dated 1601 and the book contains many references to Fairford people from 400 years ago including the Barkers, the Oldisworths, the Bettertons, and the Gearings. Several pieces of land are mentioned including Beane Lands and Swann Fields in Fairford and Butler’s Court in Lechlade.
Also on display were pictures of former vicars, one of whom, the Rev Loxley was portrayed in a particularly languid pose and many of the visitors thought that the present vicar ought to be similarly photograp
hed!