Oare - Holy Trinity

"The Ugliest Church in Wiltshire"

Or so said Pevsner in his role as cataloguer of English architecture. What the locals said of Pevsner is unrecorded, but perhaps time has eased all opinions. Certainly it would seem an unwarranted slur on this attractive structure.

 

 
 
 Built in 1858 as a chapel of ease, the church of the Holy Trinity eschews the normal 'early english' form of so many victorian builds. Instead it employs brick in the then contemporary vernacular to create a warm structure with simple well proportioned lines. The church is on the old site of a timber yard and sits nestled by mature trees. The graveyard is managed as a wildlife sanctuary.

Before 1858 the village had no church and villagers would have had to walk to Wilcot for services.

Nowadays Oare (probably derived from the saxon for prominent hill) is a picture of rural tranquillity, but it wasn't always so. In 1830 it was at the centre of the 'Swing' burnings when local labourers, driven by poverty, burnt out the crops on farms. Enclosure had deprived the working man of access to the land, and farmers had increasingly casualised labour leading to seasonal working at starvation rates. Such discontent was associated (at least in the minds of the authorities) with the non-conformist church and Oare had a well established Methodist community.

 

This church is usually open and ,with the warmth of its brick lined interior, repays the visitor with an open mind.