Redundancy

The rectory of Little Packington was formally combined with the vicarage of Great Packington in 1860, although they had been held in common since 1745. The declining population of Packington provided an ever smaller congregation. Even so a choir was maintained, and former choirboy Norman Dyer recalls turning out early on winter mornings to stoke the boiler. He also decorated the eye sockets of the skull on the Shakespeare memorial with berries at Christmas time, to the annoyance of the rector.

The south side of the church, overgrown by brambles

After the second world war, winter services were normally at Great Packington, and the last service at Saint Bartholomews was on Palm Sunday, 3 April 1966. The church was kept closed thereafter 'for repairs', and one visitor recalls prayer books laid out and altar cloths in place under a thick covering of dust. In the late 1970s, after a series of break-ins accompanied by theft, vandalism and small fires, all wooden furniture was removed, and the church boarded up.

With these threats to the fabric and also decay from dry rot, the issue of redundancy became ever more urgent. Various uses were proposed for the building, from religious retreat house to electricity generating station.

But finally: "Whereas the church of St Bartholomew, Little Packington, in the diocese of Coventry, and the land annexed or belonging thereto, are included in a pastoral scheme under Section 47(1) of the Pastoral Measure 1983 appropriating them to residential use and for purposes ancillary thereto, and empowering the Church Commissioners to sell them for such uses;

"Now therefore, the Secretary of State, in pursuance of the power conferred on him by Section 65(3) of the Pastoral Measure 1983, by this Order dispenses with the requirements of section 65(1) (a) of, and Schedule 6 to, the said Measure in relation to the use of the church and churchyard for residential use and for purposes ancillary thereto and to their sale for the purpose of such uses." P R C Storr, Head of E Division Home Office, 14 June 1991 BUR/91 49/4/16

Items of the church fabric rescued, and currently in store

Altar rails, pews, font cover - in store

Gravestone overgrown by brambles