St John's Church, Woodland

For what has been described as only ‘a charming, quiet little Victorian country church’, St John the Evangelist is an establishment with which I fell in love. This was helped by its charming location: Woodland, which is a place name rather than a description of its terrain, though trees were certainly present. The insides displayed prominent roof beams paying tribute to its name along with the pleasant, wooden pulpit. Unusually, it has an apse (a rounded chancel, common on the Continent), which added a sparkle of sophistication to its rustic charm. The local wildlife enjoy its existence, too:

‘Woodland is a very quiet backwater, we find slow worms in the churchyard, swallows nest in the porch and occasionally a barn owl roosts in there too, there are also a myriad of moths and butterflies around, you never quite know what you're going to find.’

There was, naturally, something rather Edenic about the whole place. Even apart from the name and the preponderance of woodwork, the peacefulness and tranquillity found at this place wherein people meet their Creator was rather special. I am not usually given to emotional sentiment or mystical experiences, but this is somewhere I could have spent a day, meditating on the Garden we lost, and the Garden City Christ is making for all who come to Him. He died upon rough timber that we might reclaim our beautiful, woodland paradise.

Let him that hath an ear hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches: To him that overcometh, will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God. Revelation 2:7

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