Hawes Church

The Church of St Margaret of Antioch always sounds a little too eastern and exotic for the Wensleydale village of Hawes. Nevertheless, it is an imposing building but otherwise rather unremarkable; another Victorian rebuild with the usual fixtures and fittings. Yet I was delighted to see a banner celebrating the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale’s English Bible translation, identical to the one which Roger Carswell has been pleased to employ at Martin Top and Hetton. Here is a church which, unlike so many others, publicly affirms the debt we English-speaking Christians owe to that modest and godly Christian martyr. Before Tyndale, we had English primers, missals, devotionals, textbooks and prayerbooks, but not the scriptures.

Although St Margaret’s Church replaced in 1851 a smaller but older building dating to 1480 which would have been considerably more interesting, I have no doubt that the current one is much lighter and comfortable than its predecessor. I would sooner hear the riches of God’s word from a dull chapel or unremarkable church than some Bibleless drivel or questionable personal revelation from a building more interesting.

Post Tenebras Lux; After Darkness, Light