I decided to pair my two walks near the Norfolk Broads over two days, and stay overnight in Horning.
Driving from Panxworth I detoured to Woodbastwick, mainly, if I am honest, because it is home to Woodforde’s Brewery. Given that Wherry, its signature beer, is so popular, it’s an unassuming plant literally in the back garden of the Fur and Feathers public house.
There is a little brewery shop at the end of the pub, and you can book brewery tours for £20. That’s one added to the bucket list. The long bar in the pub itself is glorious. Instead of the traditional taps on the bar, there are eight or so barrels set into the wall behind the bar. The whole suite of Woodforde’s beers is here, having travelled zero beer miles. So it's good for the environment too.
I did visit the church, naturally. As I walked up the churchyard path, a white cat appeared from the porch. He was followed by two smiling schoolgirls, no older than ten or eleven, with their scooters. ‘This is Winston,’ they chimed, smiling at the church cat. ‘Winston?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ they replied, ‘Winston Church-ill, of course!’ Clearly the D-Day anniversary wasn’t lost on them.
It was refreshing to find children making use of an open church. They clearly felt at ease here, and so they should. They reminded me of a boy, about the same age, in my parish in Finsbury Park, who would often come into church while I was saying Evening Prayer. His life wasn't straightforward, and I think he found comfort and security in an open building and the rhythm of daily prayer. After a while I suggested he start serving on a Sunday morning, and within a year he was confirmed.
St Fabian and St Sebastian, Woodbastwick is the only church in the country which enjoys the patronage of both these saint martyrs. Sir Gilbert Scott pretty much rebuilt it in the 1880s, and it’s rather gloomy inside, but in a pleasing sort of way. There are lots of memorials to the Cator family, who lived (live?) in the big hall, and I think paid for the restoration. However, the tablet which caught my eye was in the north-east corner of the nave, above the steps to the rood loft. Elizabeth Margaret Bowes Lyon was ‘warm-hearted, courageous and humble of spirit’. I hope she was patient too, given the similarity of her name to her more eminent sister-in-law, Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon.
One of the prayers I am praying in churches asks God to ‘protect and guide the children’, so it was good to have actually seen some in a church, and have specific children to pray for. As I left, they were still playing in the churchyard, and indeed went back into the church once I'd gone. Their parents had probably warned them to keep away from strangers – quite rightly – but their ability to find joy without a screen in front of them cheered me.
On I went to Horning. There are three pubs in this village on the banks of the Bure, but none of them stocks Woodforde’s. Apparently it’s too expensive for them, so they make do with the ubiquitous Adnam’s Ghostship and Taylor’s Landlord. I hadn’t come to the Broads to drink furriner’s beer, so I dined in Bure River Cottage Restaurant, an exceptional seafood restaurant, where the chalked menu is brought to your table on an easel. The pan-fried cod fillet served with a Cromer crab bisque and samphire was to die for, as was the salted caramel chocolate pot with salted caramel ice cream.
I stayed in The Moorhen Bed and Breakfast, run by Neil and Josie. They moved here from their native Edinburgh 11 years ago. This is a proper B&B, with views of the river and passing boats. Everything’s generous: their welcome, the size of the bedroom and bathroom, and the super full Norfolk breakfast.
I got chatting to the other guests, a couple from South Yorkshire, over breakfast. He’s the Vice Chair of their PCC. It’s not just Norfolk where people want priests. It sounds as though this parish has been through a rough time of it, which has necessitated a Bishop’s visitation. They were very keen to tell me about all the good things going on as well, and even procured a copy of their parish magazine for me to take away with me.
Neil and Josie suggested I look in on St Benedict, Horning on my way to Walk 27. This parish includes St Benet’s Abbey, further along the Bure, which, although ruined, was never officially dissolved by Henry VIII. Consequently, the Bishop of Norwich remains the Abbot, and the Rector of Horning is the Prior. There is an annual service in the ruins, to which the Bishop and the Rector – sorry, the Abbot and the Prior – arrive by wherry. In fact, the church has its own mooring at the bottom the churchyard.
I mentioned in yesterday’s post Bishop Peter’s Pilgrimage, the diary of Peter Nott’s pilgrimage around his Diocese to celebrate its 900th anniversary. It was the current Bishop of Norwich who suggested I read it before I began this sabbatical. It is a fascinating insight into the life of the Diocese in the mid-1990s. Bishop Peter encounters many of the problems and challenges that I suspect his successors have faced subsequently, although they are doubtless more acute twenty years hence.
I never crossed paths with Bishop Peter, but I do have memories of his immediate predecessor, Maurice Wood. He was Bishop of Norwich from 1971 to 1985, and is the bishop who is delightfully showing off his palace to members of the Mothers’ Union in A Passion For Churches. He spent at least his early retirement in Reading, where I was born, and my mother and I would sometimes bump into him in Waitrose.
He was an conservative evangelical, but in that old-fashioned Anglican way, which is almost entirely lost now. A priest friend of mine who, before ordination, was a churchwarden in King’s Lynn, told me that he wouldn’t wear a mitre, but, as a compromise in high church parishes, would permit one to be carried on a cushion in front of him in procession.
On one occasion in Tilehurst Waitrose, when I was aged seven or eight, I was wearing my Norwich City shirt. (I realise this is at least the second story which has begun thus.) Entirely fulfilling his evangelical credentials, he reached into his pocket and handed me a book of tracts he had written, adding to the front age with his pen, ‘Up the Canaries!’
The current priest serving this fice or six parish benefice is relatively new, and there is a notice in the porch Horning declaring that he is saying Morning Prayer in each church over the course of every week. Part of me wants to commend him for such an excellent initiative, except that it seems to me such a perfectly obvious thing for a country parson to do that the other part of me is flabbergasted that I haven’t seen this anywhere else on my travels. It means that the priest has a discipline of visiting each of his parishes at least once a week, and that every church is prayed in regularly. Perhaps I am being naïve, or ignorant. I do hope people join him, especially here, where Benedict and his rule are such an important part of the parish’s history and culture.
I pootled off in the car towards Walk 27’s starting-point, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about that.