Below is the quintessentially Cotswold church of the Holy Rood in Ampney Crucis, near to Cirencester. I now live in Cheltenham, and am constantly tormented by the fact that I cannot drive - I will have to take the plunge and learn. To live near such beauties of art and spirituality and not to be able to access them is a trial. Gloucestershire buses are infuriating, and the few services that there are seem to cease on Sundays. Still, I digress...This church is an utterly Cotswold church, with its delectable, slightly crumbling honey-coloured stone, and its perky battlemented little tower. I visited this church in February and the garden was full of snowdrops (my favourite flowers) and, as always, I was reminded of the England that I love - the England of Anglican spirituality and of reverence of history and nature. Maybe this aspect of England is all the more precious for its rarity.
	And below is the cross that gives Ampney Crucis its name, as 'Crucis' is Latin for 'of the cross'. Indeed the church's dedication is the Holy Rood, Rood being the Anglo-Saxon word for cross, as in the famous poem 'The Dream of The Rood'. Such crosses were very prevalent in churchyards in the Middle Ages, as in general individual tombstones were not made, and one cross featuring the Crucifixion on one side and the Virgin Mary on the other was considering to represent what every person laid to rest in the churchyard was hoping for. This particular cross is reckoned to be the best example in the whole country, and is a rare survival.
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