Boot Fair and Bredgar Church

Keith at Boot Fair

For those who do not live in the UK a Boot Fair is a market where you bring all your unwanted stuff to sell Some times you can get a real bargain but a lot of the time it is a load of old rubbish. What’s the saying “Some ones rubbish is another person treasure”. Keith Costa our 4^th Dan Judo Coach is also our main fundraiser for the Young Judo Club and Warriors Grappling Academy and he sets up a stall just for this purpose. Without people like Keith Amateur clubs would not survive.

It has been many years since I attended an event like this and have to admit I was shocked. It was like a round up pen for the Jeremy Kyle Show. No I do not mean every one especially as  I was there,  but some of these people as soon as the sun comes out the ridiculous clothing comes plus the amount of fat women and men with huge beer bellies was unbelievable. What was worrying was the great majority were under 35 years, you would have thought the amount of money spent trying to educated people to live a healthy life style, these people would listened. Can you imagine the Health care cost in 15 to 20 years time just to cater for these people let alone the Millions of foreigners sponging of our benefit system?

 Bredgar Church 

I taken some more shots of another church it seem quite a lot of you enjoyed the last blog. One reader commented, “Have I suddenly found God? “ Well no I have always believed but in England  most villages and hamlets would  have the Church and the Pub as the lifeblood of the area. So if you are interested in the history of the area visit a pub or a church. I have done my research in Pubs for 45 years so I thought I would now try the Churches exchanging one spirit for another

Valerie is standing in the Archway which was recently refurbished in its original fashion

The parish of St. John the Baptist, Bredgar, is part of the benefice of Tunstall with Bredgar.

The Benefice consists of seven parishes - Tunstall, Bredgar, Bicknor, Frinsted, Milstead, Rodmersham and Wormshill.

Bredgar church has been in existence on this site for many hundreds of years - the west door is Norman, and some of the stones in the base of the tower are believed to be part of an earlier Saxon church.

The modern church is Grade I listed, and appears very light inside due to the large windows. There is a small amount of stained glass, that in the north and east windows of the chancel being the fragments of windows that were sucked out when a flying bomb landed locally during the Second World War.

There is a wealth of memorials within the building, two hatchments and a Royal Coat of Arms (dated to 1663).

There are six bells in the tower, which were re-hung with new bearings and frame in 1967. The tenor bell weighs 9 1/2 cwt.

The church clock was installed in 1902 to commemorate the coronation of Edward VII, and replaced an earlier clock of 1722 that had a square face and only one hand.