On English churches (part 7) - Old St Bartholomew’s - Sapey

Been a bit church heavy on the last few blogs, but not to worry, there is more old metal and concrete from WWII posts coming soon. Specifying this church as 'Old St Bartholomews' as there is a Victorian era St Bartholomew’s built up the road in around 1877 that would be classed as the 'current' parish St Barts. I'll get to why that is shortly; This site was mentioned in the doomsday book of 1086, so a church has sat here for a very long time although there doesn’t appear to be any sign of the pre conquest version. The current 'old' church is Norman, built probably at the end of the 11th century. Its a simple nave and chancel layout and 3 small Norman windows remain, one of which is pictured below. Small Norman window, next to larger more recent version Over the next few hundreds of years there were additions, the wooden porch is 14th century, as is a window in the south side of the chancel. There are also signs of interior wall paintings from the 17th century (look at those in a…