Church Crookham

There must be few churches - certainly I have never been to one until I visited Church Crookham a few weeks ago - that house a shrine to Blessed John Keble. He worshipped here in late years, and a cross marks the spot. Or near the spot, as the church was cleared of pews in recent years, and wherever the holy posterior may have rested is not entirely clear.

Keble can only have made it to Church Crookham now and again, because by the time the church was built in 1841 he was already Vicar of Hursley and he remained that until he died. There is every reason to think All Saints' was a horrid redbrick fabrication at first, but its first incumbent, Anthony Cottrell Lefroy, Gent., was clearly not content to rest with that and employed Henry Woodyer to extend the chancel in 1877. A sanctuary rail followed in 1891, reredos in 1910, and the north aisle was extended to form a Lady Chapel in 1924. The Lady Chapel houses something pretty unusual in Guildford Diocese, a tabernacle, and something absolutely unique anywhere - a glass Madonna, installed - when? A question that must be answered another time.

There are other pleasures at Church Crookham including painted angels, a Rood window rather than a Rood Screen (Swanvale Halt has the same), and sgraffito murals in the chancel made by Heywood Sumner, son of the founder of the Mothers Union but who I first encountered in my teens as an archaeological illustrator, his meticulous pictures of the barrows and henges of Cranborne Chase making them into Tolkeinesque landscapes. Henry Woodyer would definitely have approved of what has been done with his chancel.

And while I couldn't see any sign of the nave altar they must surely use, I do like the fact that the wooden floor laid down in the latest refurbishment has been made such good use of, decorated with an inlaid Trinitarian emblem where the altar stands. An admirable church, then - something originally bog-standard, and turned really good.