The old church at Wentworth village, South Yorkshire.
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One of my favourite churches
NOTTINGHAM ROAD, SOUTH AFRICA - The St John’s Gowrie Presbyterian Church, built 1885, in Nottingham Road, in the Kwazulu-Natal Midland
You cannot miss this imposing Dutch Reformed Church in Graff-Reinet.
Also known as the Grotekerk, the Dutch Reformed Church holds the most imposing position in town, right in the middle of the town’s ‘square’ (which isn’t a square, but a traffic circle) on the northern end of Church Street.
When it comes to churches functioning as epicentres of a town, Graaff-Reinet’s handsome church, its ground plan in the shape of a cross, easily holds the title. The church is impressive for a small town in the middle of the Karoo.
Interestingly, this gorgeous Victorian Gothic revival church, loosely based on the Salisbury Cathedral in England, is not the town’s first church on Church Street, but its fourth (and the third on this very site).
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Here’s the ruined church at Heptonstall which, unusually, had two naves and its later replacement which is still in use. It even has its own cat which came to welcome us when we visited! The graveyard extends up to the side of a neighbouring house, but I didn’t get a picture of that.
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I like the old one better than the new one, JBR.
I like the cat best of all.
Yes, me too. It has a certain atmosphere. Haunted, of course.
Yes. It is very similar to ours. When we first saw it, we thought, “Yes, this must be a doppelganger.”
The cat shouldn’t even be here. 
This thread is about churches and graveyards. 
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It’s perfectly acceptable because the cat is lying on one of the flagstones in the nave. Ergo, it is part of the church.
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Well how could it not be? 
Of course. Think about all the people who have died there, and no doubt many who have been murdered too. Then there are the Wiccan ‘festivals’ that must certainly have taken place in such places, at dead of night of course, and quite possibly involving human sacrifices.
The place must be absolutely heaving with restless spirits come nightfall. 
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The Cemeteries here in France are generally not attached to Churches.
people used them at one time for social occasions…
copied and pasted.
cemeteries were the only parks and were used as such. Fairs, markets, dances, parties, all were held in cemeteries. During invasions, people ran there for refuge. The Church did not like this and built walls around the cemeteries to prevent the parties, at least. The consorting in close proximity to corpses could not have been good for the health of the living.
Among the consequent improvements was a law issued by the king in 1776, la Déclaration du Roi, concernant les inhumations, requiring inner city cemeteries to be closed and the practice of burying the dead within churches to cease. Land outside of the city walls was to be purchased for new cemeteries and the corpses in old cemeteries were to be dug up and transferred. Hundreds of French cities complied. Needless to say, not all of the reburying was done with diligence. In Paris, the contents of the cemetery of the parish of Sainte-Opportune, known as the Cemetery of Holy Innocents, became the nameless bones of the Catacombs
I did an item on this the other day…Catacombs…
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Oh, I’d strongly recommend that visitors leave before nightfall.
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Pagans and Witches/Wise Women maybe, Fruitcake. Wicca was invented in the 1940/50s by Gerald Gardiner.
Not until after 1940/50s JBR
You are quite correct. Wicca is a modern assimilation of old myths and beliefs, a code of conduct if you like. Unfortunately I can’t go back and edit my post now to remove that word.
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Unfortunately no. I just remember seeing an article at the church showing two bellringers, one at ground level and one on a huge dais. The upper chap pulled on the sally (the big furry caterpillar) on the handstroke to rotate the bell through almost 360 degrees, then they would let go. The second ringer then halted the bell at the top then pulled the tail end on the backstroke to rotate the bell back the other way.
… and so on.
It was explained that the bell, and therefore the bell wheel were so big that the rope was excessively long, increasing the danger of the ringers being snagged and dragged by the rope.
It was also explained that it took hours for the two ringers to get the bell from the safe (hanging down) position to the upside down position that there was a special licence in place for the bell to be left upside down when not in use. There may have been some sort of physical locking system in the tower to hold the bell in place, as well as the rope being tied off.
This may have been church law as opposed to civil or criminal law.
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From the end of my Garden the Church Tower is in clear view, with normally just some dull lights on over night, that light up the church and grounds.
The Bell Tower can glow nicely…
…When the Sun Rises on certain days it shines through the bell tower and also glows like this…
Suddenly early one morning there seem to be a disco going on…coloured lights flashing around the sky and then all over the church and grounds…music even music was playing.
… It happened for several weeks, finally it ceased as quickly as it came about…
It was the past people of Montalembert our Commune.
Their Spirits of course…make mine a G & T…please… 
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