Church
The ancient parish church is dedicated to St Mary Magdalene, and has a restored shingle covered spire.
Parts of the parish straddle the Kent Water which forms the border with East Sussex and Surrey where the three counties meet.
It is centred around a 13th-century church of St Mary Magdalene with its slender, wooden shingled spire, bomb-damaged during World War II and since re-shingled. The spire is barely perceptibly out of perpendicular, which gave rise to a rhyme:
Cowden church, crooked steeple, Lying priest, deceitful people.The church is built of sandstone, its tower and steeple timber-framed inside. The old bells were recast and rehung in 1911 to commemorate the reign of Edward VII and a sixth bell was added at the Coronation of George V.
A stained glass windows given to the church in 1947 celebrates 'the remarkable preservation of this village during the years 1939-45' and features figures of St Bridget (representing the women of the parish), St Nicholas (for the sailors), St George (the soldiers and airmen) and St Mary Magdalene, all the company of Sir Walstan (the farmer bishop of Worcester Wulfstan 1062-95 representing the local farmers). Below them are 20th-century figures: a sailor, soldier, airman, a nurse and others making up a representative group of World War II characters, all turned towards a Christ-figure whose protection they seek.
Read more about this topic: Cowden
Famous quotes containing the word church:
“Among twelve apostles there must always be one who is as hard as stone, so that the new church may be built upon him.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The Anglican Church is marked by the grace and good sense of its forms, by the manly grace of its clergy. The gospel it preaches is, “By taste are ye saved.” ... It is not in ordinary a persecuting church; it is not inquisitorial, not even inquisitive, is perfectly well bred and can shut its eyes on all proper occasions. If you let it alone, it will let you alone. But its instinct is hostile to all change in politics, literature, or social arts.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If church prelates, past or present, had even an inkling of physiology they’d realise that what they term this inner ugliness creates and nourishes the hearing ear, the seeing eye, the active mind, and energetic body of man and woman, in the same way that dirt and dung at the roots give the plant its delicate leaves and the full-blown rose.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)