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Oxford Psalmody
(previously Oxford Occasionals
2000-2012)
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Leaders:
Edwin Macadam and Sheila Girling Macadam |
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2017
Church Visitation
(the 18th)
will take place on
Saturday 2nd September 2017
in the area around
Marsh Gibbon, Bucks.
commencing at
10.00 am at
Quainton, Bucks.
Itinerary
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A general warning
about the state of the roads hereabouts - many
of the smaller country roads in the area to be
visited are badly affected by frost and water
damage, with large potholes, and areas of
damaged surfaces.
There are
two schools of thought as to how to tackle these
problems, either to drive slowly and try to
avoid the holes, or to drive
fast over them so that there is less lurching
about. Unfortunately
many drivers seem to adopt the latter approach,
to the detriment of approaching vehicles. You
have been warned !!!! |
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10.00 – 11.00
Quainton, Bucks
The Church of
The Holy Cross and the Blessed Virgin
Mary
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Explorer
Maps 181 & 192 : OS Ref 750202
Post Code :
Quainton is a village about 3 miles north
of Waddington which itself is on the A41 between
Bicester and Aylesbury. The side roads north of
Waddington lead into Quainton over the old
railway where the
Buckinghamshire Railway Centre
operates. (Although steaming this day, the
centre opens at 10,30 am - sorry!) Follow
the brown railway signs !
Having reached the main road through the village, turn right, then first
left up the hill towards the base of the old
windmill. Bear right at the next fork, then
right again on the level,. The church is at the
end of the road where is turns left around the
churchyard. There is room for parking
hereabouts, either opposite the old almshouses
you have just passed, or around the next corner
on the roadside verge - best on the left as you
point downhill.
There is a WC
in the church.
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11.30– 12.20
Wotton
Underwood,
Bucks.
The Church of
All Saints
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Explorer
Map 181 & 192 :
OS Ref 688159
Leave
Quainton Church by passing the church on the
right, down the short hill and turn right. Turn
right again on road which takes you through
Quainton in a westerly direction. In centre of
village, turn Left into Station Road, go past
the Railway Centre, over the next crossroads,
and turn Right on the A41.
After 1.2 miles,
go straight on at roundabout (effectively the
1st turn left), after another 1.2 miles take
first turn left at roundabout into Kingswood
Lane.
After 2.3 miles
down Kingswood Lane, turn Left at crossroads and
after another 0.6 miles turn Left again at a T
junction beside a railway bridge. After about
300 yards pass Lawn Farm and almost immediately
turn Left away from the Lodge gate.
This small road leads into the hamlet of Wotton Underwood, and the
church, after another Left and Right bend, is
under the trees on the right of the road – it’s
a dead end – apart from private tracks. |
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12.40 – 2.15
Lunch
at the
The Plough,
Marsh Gibbon, Bucks.
***
Download the Word file:
PLOUGH
MENU
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Explorer
Map 192 :
OS Ref 646231
Post Code :
LUNCH will be
partaken at the
Plough, Marsh Gibbon
Leave Wotton Underwood church, and retrace your journey back to the
A41, whereupon turn Left onto the A41.
Continue along A41 for 4.1 miles (a Roman road,
Akeman Street) and turn Right in front of the
Railway over-bridge, and then immediately right
again, not into the small trading estate, but
along another straight road leading directly to
Marsh Gibbon in about 2 miles.
Bear right
into village, do not turn left at next junction,
but turn Left at the second junction. This road
bears right, and leads to its junction with
Station Road. The Plough is here, on the right,
with the car park immediately before it, also on
the right.
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2.15
– 3.15
Twyford,
Bucks.
The Church of
The Assumption
of the Blessed
Virgin Mary
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Explorer
Map 192 :
OS Ref 665267
On leaving the
Plough car park (we are NOT singing at Marsh
Gibbon) turn right and immediately Left into
Station Street. Pass Marsh Gibbon church on your
left. This road takes you past the old station,
past the turning on the left into the village of
Poundon, and into the southern end of Twyford
Continue up the main street, do not turn right
to Steeple Claydon, and continue to end of main
street, where the church is on the right.
Parking on road, but a bit tight for space!
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3.30 – 4.30
Gawcott,
Bucks.
Holy Trinity Church
The foundations for Holy
Trinity Church were first laid in 1802, with the
chapel and burial ground being consecrated in
1806. The Reverend Thomas Scott was the first
vicar and was the father of George Gilbert
Scott, the renownedarchitect.
Unfortunately, the original church became
unsound following a long spell of dry weather in
the early 1800s and had to be demolished, being
replaced with the current building in 1827. |
Explorer
Map 192 :
OS Ref 681318
On leaving the church at
Twineham, retrace your steps down the High
Street, turn Left towards Steeple Claydon. Take
the first turn Left over an old railway line,
then Left again at crossroads on road probably
signposted to Buckingham, Gawcott and Preston
Bissett.
After a sharp roght
turn, do NOT take teft fork to Preston Bissett
or Chetwode, nor the next two turns to
Hillesden. The next village is Gawcott.
Continue into centre
of village. Do NOT take Buckingham Road or
Radclive Road, both on the right. Turn Left into
Main Street. Half way down the main street, you
will find the church.
Parking is possible
here, but if not, retrace your steps back up
past the church, round the corner to Church
Street, which runs parallel to Main Street,
behind the church, where it is possible to park
either in that street or the carpark used by the
Primary School.
The little building
just up the hill from the church door is a
unisex wc!
Gawcott’s best known son
is George Gilbert Scott. Born in the Village in
1811, he became a world famous architect,
building and restoring over 1,000 churches and
cathedrals and designing many well-known
structures including the Albert Memorial and St.
Pancras Station Hotel. George’s grandson, Giles
Gilbert Scott, designed the iconic red BT
telephone box and is famous for the design of
the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool as well as
many other buildings around the country ... And,
yes, there was a gallery! |
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4.30
Tea
in
Gawcott Church
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Tea is in the Church, kindly
provided by the Women's Institute in Gawcott.
The cost of tea, music, etc is
£5, please, to be added to the cheque for lunch
at the Plough.
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NOTES
Action NOW, please.
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Please bring your copies of The Sacred Harp
and Praise & Glory,
if you have
them. |
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There
is a west galery music booklet this year.
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Singing will be from all three sources.
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Small
numbers of an Extract form the SH will be available on
the
day, and there will be limited numbers
of P&G available.
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We
will probably sing one or two old
favourites -
Gibraltar, Birmingham, Shropshire, etc,
so if you need
and have the music, please bring copies.
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TEA at Gawcott Church is to
provided by the Gawcott WI.
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LUNCH at the Plough, Marsh Gibbon
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Please confirm
to us what you would like to eat,
and
who wants to eat it, and
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SEND us a cheque
(made payable to
S & E Macadam)
for the cost beforehand, and
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Please add to
this cheque the sum of £5 to
cover the cost of the music booklet,
tea, and other costs.
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Please do not give us cash or cheques on
the day!!!
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Lunch orders (and who ordered what!)
+ cheques
should arrive no later than
a.m.
on Tuesday
29 August,
and preferably well before, please!
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Please will
you also be prepared to make a
donation of at
least £1 per person to each of the
various churches
that we visit.
Thank you!
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See below for contact address, etc,
for Oxford Psalmody.
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Listen to the following mp3 files, recorded by Gary Sherman:
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Africa - Sacred Harp
music from St Michael's, Northgate, Oxford
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Babylon Streams - Trinity
College Chapel |
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Cookes Canon - University College
Chapel |
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Psalm 69 in a setting by Jarvis -
St Michael's, Northgate |
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The 'Worms' Anthem by William
Knapp - Trinity College Chapel |
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Shropshire Funeral Hymn -
University Church of St Mary the Virgin |
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mp3
mp3
mp3
mp3
mp3
mp3 |
Visit
http://www.archive.org/details/WestGalleryMusic-OxfordOccasionals
for further recordings of the
2008 tour of Oxford churches and college chapels, and from where you
can download a number of free media files. You also have the chance
to comment on them!! |
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Since
September 2000, a group of singers and instrumentalists from many different
parts of England have spent a day each year, touring churches and chapels in
different parts of the County and Diocese of Oxford, to recreate the psalmody and
hymnody of more than 150 years ago.
 Oxford
Psalmody is a gathering of members of the
West Gallery Music Association, formed
in 1990 to revive the music of the rural parish churches, so much beloved
of Thomas Hardy and exemplified in his novels and poetry.
Hardy wrote
of times past, the days when his father and grandfather were members of the
local church ‘band’, playing to accompany the quire in the specially
constructed ‘west gallery’ in
Stinsford Church.
The psalm tunes used during, before and after services in country churches,
were often by local, untutored composers, frequently bearing the
names of local streets, villages or landmarks. This raw and exciting
music was much beloved, and jealously guarded, by its custodians in the west
gallery; records exist of quires refusing the vicar’s instruction to sing a
particular tune to the psalm of the day, preferring to use another more to
their liking. With the passing of the years, all too frequently what
was initially a tussle for control of the conduct of services became an
issue of conflict with the clergy and the squire as patron.
 The
emergence of Tractarianism and the
Oxford Movement, together with the
introduction of Hymns Ancient & Modern in 1861,
saw the
wresting back of control by the church establishment, with the introduction
of surpliced choirs, often with small boys taking the tune, previously the
sinecure of adult, male, tenors. The installation of keyboard
instruments, such as harmoniums, barrel or finger organs spelt the end of
the accompanying band of cellos, clarinets,
violins, flutes, bassoons and the (more than) occasional serpent.
These instrumentalists, and their singing companions, first found their way
to the Independent chapels, where they continued to sing and play the old
tunes they loved, but by the beginning of the twentieth century, in all but
a few outposts, the old way of church psalmody was lost and virtually
forgotten in England.
 Such a fate
did not attend the descendants of those settlers who took English country
psalmody to America. In New England, from as early as the middle of the
eighteenth century, English psalm tune books were being sold in Boston
within months of their publication in England. This music inspired
native-born composers, just as untutored as their compatriots on the other
side of the Atlantic, and by 1770 a leather tanner,
William Billings
of Boston, had produced the first compilation of psalm tunes by a colonist.
There was a flowering of ethnic composition immediately before and after the
War of Independence, and the fervour for native psalmody spread throughout
the Eastern United States, finding its firmest and what has become a
permanent
foothold to this day, in the southern states, particularly Alabama and
Georgia. Here the music notation has evolved with shaped note heads as
a singing aid, rather than the ordinary round note heads and thus the term
‘shapenote music’ is often used to describe American psalmody.
Oxford Psalmody sing from both the English
and the American traditions. Our native tunes are usually accompanied, as
they were intended to be, but the psalm tunes of our American cousins are
sung a capella. These tunes are vibrant and exciting, and are a great joy to
sing and play. The group have as their watchword the instruction of a
Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford - John Wesley - to “sing lustily and with good
courage”.
Pictures are taken from the West Gallery
Music Association publication Good Singing Still by
Rollo G Woods, Totton, Hants 1995 ISBN: 1 899947 00 0.
Some of
them have previously appeared in an edition of a novel by Washington Irvine.
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Psalmody and Oxford Sacred Harp Singers met
regularly to sing Sacred Harp music on the "Teenth" Thursday
of every month between January 1999 and December 2015 in
Oxford. They
continue to sing together on the annual Oxford Church
Visitation tour at the beginning of September, and at the
annual Oxford Sacred Harp singing day at Botley, Oxford, at
the end of June.
When the occasion arises they are happy to host visiting
Sacred Harp singers from abroad; please let us know when you
are likely to be in the area!
30 Eynsham Road, Botley, Oxford. OX2 9BP
Tel: +44 (0)1865 865773
Emails: (replace - at - with
@)
| shelwin8 - at - tiscali.co.uk |
| edwinmacadam - at - gmail.com |
Google Map to get there.
See our
separate website
for the Oxford Sacred Harp Singers.
See also Immanuel's Ground,
the west gallery quire based in Warwick which we run, and
which supports Oxford Psalmody.
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