[The Rural Rides of the Bristol Churchgoer is still in print and available from Nonsuch Publishing, whose
website is at tempus-publishing.com - Ed]
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On 10 May, 1845, Joseph Leech the founder, owner and editor of The Bristol Times came to Wrington in the guise of The Bristol Churchgoer. The morning was hazy with the Mendip ridge hardly distinguishable... "..exactly the day for taking trout..". The Wrington peals were ringing and the Wrington tower, " tall, beautiful and symmetrical ... asserted the surpassing architectural taste and talent of other days. This is what makes English country scenery unlike any and all others. To those who have not (passed this church) I would say, fancy one of the finest country Churches, and with certainty one of the most exquisite and imposing towers you have ever seen.."

How did Simon Jenkins come to omit All Saints' from his England's Thousand Best
Churches ?

The Churchgoer noted the Gothic monument recently erected to commemorate John Locke's birthplace and spent half an hour in the churchyard, ignored by "... a few lazy Sunday loungers lolling over the wall ..."

He sought the grave of William Leeves (1748 - 1828), poet, composer and Rector of Wrington:

"..old parson Leeves, the composer of the beautiful ballad of Auld Robin Gray, which will live when all your Italian arias are in the Aegean." Well, he was wrong on that! He then recalled the catastrophe which occurred at the parsonage "when the late Parson Leeves' effects were "submitted to public competition", and buyers and bidders, auctioneer and all, suddenly disappeared through the floor."

In the absence of the Rector, the Reverend John Vane, the sermon was preached by Henry Thompson (1797 - 1878), who was curate from 1828 to 1853 and vicar of Chard thereafter. Here, the Churchgoer really lets rip. The sermon "..had all the characteristics of his style; it was distinct, clear, neat, and correct; you could not have picked a hole in it if, like a woodpecker, you went round and round it, trying it in every passage for a whole day; but it wanted muscle - it wanted originality - it wanted force; while it went on refining rather too much for a rural congregation." (!)

However, "...it was a better sermon than one hears from nineteen out of twenty of the ordinary race of country Curates, who spend five days of the week making their cider, the sixth in making a sermon, and the seventh in preaching it; but you will bear in mind that Mr Thompson is a writer of sermons of some reputation, for the London market .. and is not to be measured by the same standards that you would apply to a mere working parish minister, who lives in a square parsonage all the days of his life, and eats beans and bacon ... In fact, we look for something out of the common in such a man."

Oh dear!
John Gowar