A flower festival celebrating the glory of nature and one of Lewtrenchard’s most famous sons blossomed at St Peter’s Church at the weekend.

In the centenary of the death of the famed author the Rev Sabine Baring-Gould, village squire and parson for 40 years in the village, Lewtrenchard Women’s Institute staged a flower festival in the church, coinciding with the harvest festival.

Lewtrenchard WI was started by Sabine’s daughter-in-law Marion when she was living at Lewtrenchard Manor in the years before it became a hotel. The themes of the festival were the WI Campaigns of 2024, sustainability, women’s rights and stopping modern slavery. 

Other local events linked to the Baring-Gould Centenary are taking place across West Devon with details on the SBGcentenary.co.uk website.

The Rev Baring-Gould was the eldest son of the squire of Lewtrenchard and he also became a teacher. He is most famous for writing Onward Christian Soldiers as a marching hymn for his Sunday school pupils in the industrial town of Horbury, Yorkshire, where he worked.

His wife Grace was a girl in his Sunday school, almost half his age. It is believed that he taught this young mill girl how to behave as a genteel lady and their story may have inspired George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalian. Sabine became estranged from his family but shortly before his father died he was reconciled with his family.

Sabine wrote over 1,000 publications on travel, archeology, religion, the supernatural and collected 100s of local folk songs and tunes.