Religion in Family History

Today I visited the Worksop Priory church.

The full name is the Priory Church of our Lady and St. Cuthbert in Worksop.

As large as this church building is, it was even larger in the past before the dissolution of monasteries in 1539.

The interior of the church building is really interesting. Here is a picture of the nave of the church. I will write some posts in the future about some of the features of the church.

Tonight I just want to share some basics and why this church building is important to me.

Here is a list of the Vicars and Priors of Worksop. The list of Vicars goes back to 1276 and the list of Priors to 1180.

Here is a closeup of the list showing Richard Barnard who became Vicar in 1601. Richard Barnard is my 11th great grandfather. For more about Richard Barnard you can visit my posts Christ’s College Cambridge and Scrooby.

I met up with one of the church members who knew a lot of the history of the priory. He showed me around and spoke about the history of some of the objects and architectural details. One of the last things he showed me was this wooden Jacobean communion table that would have been the one used by Richard Barnard when he was the Vicar at Worksop.

It was amazing to see and touch this item that was used by my 11th great grandfather.

Steven