St. Mary’s, Oldberrow

St. Mary’s, Oldberrow

On my way to Derbyshire I took the opportunity to visit one or two churches. This is one I had been looking forward to visiting. It is a part of The Small Pilgrim Places Network ( see http://www.smallpilgrimplaces.org/). It is ideal for this. Here we have a simple, homely and prayerful place, a real ‘wayside shrine’ if you like. It was also promoted by Divine Inspiration and some of the booklets from this ‘A Pocketful of Peace’ can still be found. The funding for this project has now finished unfortunately. St. Mary’s was promoted as a part of this.

Outside some home made signs welcome the curious, the needy and the pilgrim. Those who step inside will not be disappointed. It is all very simple and none the worse for that. There was information on EXMOD Ltd who seek to help homeless ex service people (http://exmodltd.org/gpage2.html) and a small display on WW1. Some Sgm Life Words St. John’s gospels to commemorate this and a leaflet about the Small Pilgrim Places. A Book of Common Prayer was left open.

It is hard to do justice to a special place like this with just a few pictures and some words. It is a place to experience and to find peace. Some have done this as the picture of a page from the visitors book shows (9 in July) –

A special place well worth a visit. I rate it as good as far as this study goes. It would be good if there was somewhere to leave prayer requests other than the visitors book. The fact that people are doing that does show a need exists for the holiness that St. Mary’s is ideally placed to provide.