Visiting Cowley Village, with its large manor and the small pretty church has turned out to be a rather startling revelation to me. At the risk of making it all a little too personal, and certainly more personal than normal, I’ll tell you the story as it happened.

Evans, when visiting this place on his travels in 1905 related a tale about the church which I will now read to you.

The small Norman church to the East of the large modern manor house with its terraced gardens overlooking an ornamental lake, conforms to the Cotswold type. The east end is lighted by two small windows in the gable, one above the other and the wall below is blank. The perpendicular tower and porch appear to be the only later additions.

It was only years later, when I came to the church and saw the name on the memorial stones in the floor of the church that it all came back to me. My Mother’s maiden name was Brett, and the graves in the floor of the church are those of members of the Brett family.

I went home and looked up the excellent history of the Bretts, written by my cousin Christopher Brett, the fifth Viscount Esher, and this is the passage I found.

Henry lived the peaceful life of a country gentleman for many years until he died in 1674 at the age of 87. He and his wife Margaret, who died many years before him, were both buried in the church at Cowley inside which their memorials can still be seen. He was succeeded by his grandson, another Henry Brett, who was only 17 at the time.