Photo Post - Torpenhow Church

a Norman gem in the middle of nowhere

Torpenhow is in Cumbria, which you reach by driving some distance along country lanes. There is a small village, spread along the road like many Anglo-Saxon settlements, and a farm which produces some excellent cheese. The area is predominantly dairy farming as it lies in fertile fields. The name of the place means “hill,hill,hill”, coming through three languages: tor-pen-how. So ancient British, Anglo Saxon and Viking communities influenced this place.

I visited this church a few years ago, and took pictures using an old phone which had its limitations. So apologies for quality of some. I also, unaccountably, neglected to take a picture of the whole of the outside of the church.

The west end has clearly been rebuilt - the buttresses suggest some kind of collapse at some point. The windows here are late, and the doorway underneath was probably made at the same time, probably post-Reformation. I detect some Roman stone in this wall and there may have been a tower with doorway here centuries ago.