St Mary's Tilty

Earlier this year I posted an Entry about Chickney church . At the time I mentioned that although close to me I had never heard of it until I started my church crawl of Simon Jenkins book. Chickney is part of a group of five parish churches 3 of which are in Jenkins book.

Tilty like Chickney is small  there can only be a handful of houses in the parish. Tilty's fame is from Tilty Abbey it was founded in 1153. You can see a reconstruction at the Seax archaeology site. 

The abbey was reserved for the monks so a chapel without the gate was built for villagers.

You can see a plan of the site in the first photo and the remains of the abbey in the second.

The abbey church was 170ft long and the church was begun in 1188 by Abbot Simon.

As you can see little remains, apparently Tilty abbey was a sister church of Tintern abbey.

Tilty church being used by the village survived. It's an odd mix a medieval chancel with a Georgian nave tacked on.

it has many fine medieval features

The fine east window,

The very fine tracery.

That window.

Tilty is one of those small delights our country has to offer!