A VISIT TO LEVERINGTON CHURCH

Mr. Nightingale the churchwarden welcomed about 40 members to the Swaine Chapel within Leverington Church so called because most of the elaborate memorials on the walls & floor belonged to generations of the wealthy Swaine family of Leverington.
He explained that the Danes raided the area in about 678AD & landed on the then seashore about 400 metres from the village & that the name Leverington derives from that event. The word ‘ing’ means a family, ‘ton’ means a settlement, & lever derives from ‘Leof Here’ meaning ‘happy landing party’.
In about 850 the settlement had become Christian & a small wooden church was built, this in time was destroyed & there are parts of the church in stone that date back to 1250. The present church dates from the 14th and 15th centuries.
We were told how in the past the chancel of the church was used by the church dignitaries & was screened from the nave by a three tiered rood screen, & the nave being used not only for church services but for meetings, buying & selling, with animals roaming around & as a social centre. We were all amazed to hear that the altar rail as we know it was not used as a place to take communion but placed there to keep the dogs away from the altar!
The informative talk continued with a tour of the church. We heard how the font, which is centuries old is in a sad state as the salts in the stone are extruding & urgent repair work by experts must be carried out before the font crumbles completely.
We saw a very uncommon wooden lectern, which in its time was thought to be too gaudy for the church when it was painted green so it was abandoned to the coal hole, & on renovation the original gilt decoration was uncovered
The Jesse Window was pointed out to us which shows the lineage of Christ.
We were then free to tour the church ourselves & look at the registers & the altar silver.
Guidebooks were available, as were refreshments. Members spent another hour taking photos & asking questions & others spent their time researching the registers.
[Barbara Holmes]