Why 1000 years?

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In 1922, our forebears, the then parishioners of Whittlesford, celebrated the 900th anniversary of the date they took to be that of the consecration of our Parish Church – St Andrew’s Day 1022. In truth, this must be regarded as a notional date, though we know there are pre-Norman stones in the church tower and chancel. The need for those Whittlesford residents to remember and celebrate was perhaps more rooted in their contemporary local and world history – as they emerged from the First World War and the Spanish ‘flu pandemic, and completed a programme of major restoration of the church building.

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Now, in 2022, we take our cue from 100 years ago, and plan a year of millennium celebrations, not only of our church’s existence, but of our whole village community too. Like our forerunners, we are emerging (we hope) from a hard time, in our case the COVID-19 pandemic. We have also seen a further period of restoration of the church, which began with the opening of the Church Room in 2007 and continues to the current ‘Raise the Roof’ campaign.

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The celebrations kicked off on New Year’s Day, when a flag bearing the Whittlesford Millennium logo was raised on the Lawn in the presence of more than 100 villagers. In May, there will be a “History Week”, marking key events in the history of our church and community. One project for that week is the construction of a time line charting the last 1000 years of local history against national and world events. Interestingly, a first draft of this time line shows that after the Black Death of 1348/9 the village and church apparently responded by building the church porch (donated c. 1350 by Henry Ciprian). The same benefactor provided for mass to be sung at the Virgin Mary’s altar (1351). In 1352, the High Altar was re-consecrated – the whole sequence of events seeming a distant, fourteenth-century echo of what took place in 1922, and what is happening now…

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Later in the year, there will be a Summer Party on the Lawn, mirroring the tea party held in 1922, and we hope to consecrate a new stained-glass window in the church on the Sunday before St Andrew’s Day 2022, with 1000 other activities along the way – please join us!

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Lionel Ginsberg and Ant West

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