Heritage

There has been a place of worship in Eardisland since before Saxon times. The first church would have been a wooden structure, long since gone. The current church was probably established between 1067 and 1071 and it was held by Lyre Abbey in Normandy from 1072 when records appear. This meant that the villagers paid tithes to Normandy following the Norman invasion, for over 200 hundred years!

The Bell Tower is an important feature because it houses eight of the best bells in Herefordshire. These were refurbished in 1953, and the magnificent glass doors were added in 2000, enabling the space to be private enough for meetings as well as bell ringing. In 2019 an audio-visual display was commissioned using funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

There are a number of interesting architectural details and points of interest, which include wonderful stained and painted glass windows, a chancel screen dating from the fourteenth century, a tie beam from the fifteenth century, ancient tombs and modern memorials relating to members of the Clowes family of Burton Court and their sacrifices in the First World War.

The late and fondly remembered George Alderson (1942 – 2020) carried out detailed historical research into many areas of the parish. As part of the Eardisland History & Heritage Group many papers were produced based on meticulously referenced evidence. The papers provide a fascinating insight into many aspects of the church.