Flawford

Lowe (1874) notes that the church at Flawford "was built in Saxon times […] and the Saxon architecture of the fabric fully substantiated its claim to such antiquity […] Soon after the Norman invasion, this church became a part of the possessions of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem […] Flawford church, although in the parish of Ruddington, was actually the mother-church". Lowe (ibid.) writes that "the edifice appears to have been disused , except for interments , since about the year 1720 […] soon fell into a state of hopeless dilapidation, and […] on Saturday June the 12th, 1773, a party of colliers from Lord Middleton's estate, armed with a faculty obtained from the Archbishop of York, proceeded to undermine the walls of the nave, side aisle, and steeple, which fell during the succeeding night." Lowe (ibid.) writes about the villagers carting church stones over to the nearby river to be used for the building of a bridge "which would be very useful in wet seasons. Such was the fate of one of the few examples of Saxon architecture to be found in the Midland Counties. Not even the monuments were spared; and with the exception of the font and the bells, which were removed to the church of Ruddington, every vestige of this venerable fabric was wantonly and sacrilegiously destroyed." The Flawford Excavation site website [http://flawford.org.uk/index.htm] [accessed 9 December 2009] informs of a now disappeared early church on this location: "A small Saxon church probably early 9th century existed here. It evolved in ten phases to a large medieval church"; according to this source, the first five phases of this church would have brought it to the 12th century; phase 6 would reach the mid-13th century, and the source informs of documentary evidence that would place in the later 13th century; phase 9 would have reach the mid-16th century. In their entry for Ruddington St. Peter's Pevsner & Williamson (1979) note: "Medieval font possibly from Flawford." Shrimpton (181) [http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NOTTSGEN/2003-06/1054638052] [accessed 9 December 2009], however, claims that there was a font in Ruddington church/chapel by the end of the 15th century [cf. Index entry for Ruddington]