The main historical narrative is concerned with the events securing land and the building of St Marks West Parley and it is not intended that excursions should be made into fascinating side tracks. They will be explored and recorded when the main work is completed. This page has been created to give a glimpse of the background to the circumstances at the time.
In the main narrative much is made of the delay in getting the new church built. In some respects this is fair comment, especially viewed from the perspective of 2007. In other ways it is not fair, as in 1953/4 developments were taking place in the surrounding area which were indicative on a need for a church in the Trickets Cross development. This development itself was made possible by the sale of Church Glebe land, which will be covered in depth when the main narrative is finished.
What is certain is that the P C C had lost track of the detailed ownership of the land, being only vaguely aware of its purpose. The increasing housing development of the early 1950's re-awakened the P C C to the desirability of building a church somewhere. There are a number of documents drawn up by various P C C members going over records trying to set out the correct position regarding the land and raising questions as to what course of action should be taken regarding the siting of a new church. HQ in Salisbury were also aware of the need for new churches in the Diocese and corresponded with All Saints/West Parley. It is obvious from the correspondence the Diocesan Authorities did not know what was happening or the intentions of the P C C.
For those of you who wish to have a look at these documents this page has been created. No transcript is supplied as they can be easily read and by clicking on a link you will get the whole document. The largest image is 1MB. Click on your browsers back button to return to this page after viewing the image.
A resume of the position by Mr Canning (Churchwarden) - Page 1
A resume of the position by Mr Canning (Churchwarden) - Page 2
Letter to Rector from Diocesan Pastoral Committee dated 29 September 1954
Reply to Pastoral Committee letter, presumeably by the Rector or P C C Secretary
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