ST RADEGUND, MAPLEBECK
Maplebeck’s church is one of only five parish churches in the country dedicated to St Radegund, a 6th Century Thuringian princess who was reluctantly married off to the Frankish King, Clothaire I. After the king murdered her brother, she fled to take sanctuary at the church of Noyou and became a nun. She founded the Convent of Our Lady of Poitiers. She died in 587 and was canonised in the 9th century.
There is some mystery surrounding the dedication as the church appears in records as St John up until 1895. It is possible that the church was rededicated at the time of the extensive restoration in 1898 but in the local newspaper’s report of the event no mention was made of a rededication.
The church was originally a chapel belonging to the Knights Hospitaller, associated with the Hospitallers’ camera at nearby Winkburn.
Dating largely from the 13th century, the church, with its octagonal broach spire and terracotta tile roof, sits on raised ground in a churchyard with an ancient yew tree, thought to be the oldest in the county.
This small, simple and much loved village Church has no great tombs or fanciful carvings to decorate the interior. It is set at the heart of the village in it's own ancient churchyard above the village green. Most of the inscriptions on the tombstones mark the graves of the farmers and farm labourers who have lived and worked for generations in this agrarian hamlet, with its five farms and associated cottages in an unspoiled area of Nottinghamshire.
Maplebeck is also one of the 53 (and 4 in Nottinghamshire) Thankful Villages in England and Wales - those rare places that were spared fatalities in the Great War of 1914 - 1918.
There is a link to the history of the village, and the Earls of Clare here.
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