A few miles to the North of Lechlade sits the conjoined Gloucestershire villages of Eastleach Martin and Eastleach Turville. Both villages have their own fine churches, separated by the River Leach and scarcely more than a good cricketing 'six' apart. Together the villages, beloved by Betjeman, epitomise the English Cotswolds. Hard then to imagine that once these villages were in the centre of unrest, for in the 1830's the 'Swing' riots held sway, ricks were burned and machinery broken. The agricultural poor, robbed of access to land by enclosure and then unable to gain work through the casualisation of labour expressed their anger, several local men ending their lives far away as transported convicts.
The Church of St Michael and St Martin in Eastleach Martin is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust and whilst technically redundant the visitor will see that it is still a well loved and active member of the local community. Built in the early part of the 12'th century and 'gifted' to Great Malvern Priory in 1120, this church has stood as observer to the changing fortunes of rural England for near on 900 years.
A limestone structure with a stone roof the nave survives from that early church, the chancel was added in the 13'th and is entered through a plain chancel arch. Roughly contemporary with the chancel is the North transept. In the windows (which have largely been remade and contain some fine stonework) can be found traces of medieval glass. To the west is a small hip roofed tower accessed by a 15'th century arch. Internally a simple building with low pews, a fine lectern made from Elizabethan table legs and bedpost, Jacobean panelling in the pulpit.
Sited in it's riverside location, this church can not help but entrance at any season of the year. Photographed in December 2011 for theChurchPhotographer by Nick Temple-Fry. This church is normally open.
