WELCOME
TO
ST MARTIN
St Martin at Barcheston
This small parish, within open countryside, is geographically split between the handful of dwellings adjacent to the church, a number of outlying farms and the small village of Willington about a mile from the church where the majority of the parish live. Here there are two working farms and a number of small businesses, but there are no shops or other community buildings.
The earliest English tapestries are understood to have been woven in Barcheston under the patronage of the Sheldon family in the late 16th/17th centuries. There is a memorial in the church to Richard Hykes, the master weaver, who died in 1621.
The village is mentioned in the Doomsday Book and the old medieval village in the vicinity of the church was depopulated and the land enclosed in the early 16th century by William Willington, whose alabaster table tomb is in the church.
Known to many locally for its unusual leaning tower, the church plays host each summer
to a concert of young musicians as part of Shipston-
