The Consistory Court of Oxford diocese has granted All Saints’, Dunsden, a faculty to install a new window to commemorate the First Word War poet Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), who had had connections with the church and the village.
All Saints’ is an attractive but unlisted village church, and the unopposed online faculty application was made by the Rector and the churchwarden. Owen lived in the village from 1911 to 1913, having come to Dunsden to act as lay assistant to the Vicar of All Saints’ at that time, the Revd Hubert Wigan. Both Owen’s parents and his sister are buried in the churchyard.
The proposed location for the new window is an existing single lancet window in the nave, facing south and next but one to the chancel. It is near to a memorial plaque that was dedicated to Owen in 1978 by the then Bishop of Oxford in the presence of the then Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes. The existing window is to be dismantled and removed, and the glass retained for future use.
Wilfred Owen commemorative window to be installed in Oxford church https://t.co/0yF3rGF4TP
— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) July 14, 2023