According to my schedule I was due to do a walk around King’s Lynn on Saturday. But I woke up with no desire to drive there and back. To make up for it, I decided to walk on Sunday afternoon instead, starting and ending at my base for much of these three months.
This was an unplanned walk. When I was preparing these routes, my criteria were that every walk should include at least three churches, and that at least one of them must be a church with special architectural, historical or spiritual importance. None of the churches accessible by footpath fell into the second criterion, hence not planning a walk here. So this was a good reminder that Norfolk churches don’t have to be remarkable to be… well, remarkable.
St Martin’s, Hindringham is covered in an earlier blog. Earlier in the day I had celebrated the Group Eucharist for Pentecost. It was very encouraging that there were people from at least four of the villages in the group. A bit of diversity is no bad thing on this of all feasts.
Hindringham is a linear village – really several small settlements joined by one road – and as I left the village I stopped to talk to Humphrey Boon painting the doorframe of his house. He is a well-known character here; kind and hugely entertaining. A few weeks ago, when I mentioned I was going to Terrington St Clement, he told me it is home to a hedgehog hospital. It turns out Humphrey is a hedgehog first-aider. When someone reports a hedgehog in distress, he comes and scoops it up, and drives it 35 miles away where it can receive medical attention.
Field Dalling
Leaving the village via Lower Green, I headed to St Andrew, Field Dalling. The font, surrounded by children’s toys, is similar in style to that at Hindringham. I wonder if the same stonemason is responsible for it. The shield showing the cross of St Andrew, to whom the church is dedicated, still has some of its medieval paint visible. Blue, of course. Or has a patriotic young Scotsman got carried away with the blue crayon?
Walking through farmland, I spotted a crow taking an interest in what looked like a large piece of flint on the track ahead of me. As I approached, the crow flew off. What I thought was stone was in fact a fledging tawny owl. The poor thing didn’t look very happy. Fledgling owls often appear to be abandoned, when, actually, a parent owl is close by looking out for them.
Nonetheless, in the heat of the day, I searched Google for an owl sanctuary. The nearest I could find was in Suffolk. I gave them a call, and, to my surprise on a Sunday afternoon, the phone was answered. ‘We’re a bit far away,’ he said, ‘but I can text you some numbers of rescue centres near you.’ As he spoke, the owl had a go at flying, but didn’t get very far.
The text message never arrived, and the owl hobbled into the hedgerow. It sounded as though I would have needed to transport her (or him?) myself, which, given I was now 5 miles from my car, wasn’t going to happen. So I carried on my way, at least in the knowledge that she’d got out of the sun. I wish she’d have been a hedgehog.
Sharrington Church
I crossed the A148, and followed the narrow lanes to All Saints, Sharrington. The tower of this church is peculiar. It looks as though its fourteenth century benefactor came to inspect it as it neared completion and wasn’t content with how tall it was. So, above the usual East Anglian bell opening, is another 10-20 feet of tower, and a second, smaller bell opening.
The slim interior – it would have aisles once – is beautifully kept, with nice bench ends and fabulous corbels supporting the roof. The ubiquitous Green Man, and other mythical faces, ogle the congregation below. The church celebrated its 700th anniversary last year, and there is a lovely note at the back of the church from the Rector, the Revd Ian Whittle. In it he says:
The constant is the parish church: very old, very venerable, available for all and used for what it was meant, divine worship, and baptisms, weddings and funerals… For all the years behind us and all the hope for the future, Thanks be to God.
My final stop was All Saints, Bale, which, although in a different deanery, is Hindringham’s closest neighbour. In all my peregrinations through North Norfolk, how have I not been here before?
Consecration cross in the vestry at Bale
This church has not one, but seven surviving consecration crosses. These crosses would have been anointed with oil by the bishop when this church was consecrated. They are in different states of preservation, but common to them all is a floral motif around the cross. Probably the best one, ironically, is in the vestry behind the organ.
The highlight here is the collage of medieval glass in a single window in the south aisle. According to Mortlock, the glass is mostly fifteenth century Norwich work, brought together in 1938. Most of a crucifixion sits side-by-side with a blue-robed abbess carrying a crozier. The Annunciation features, as it so often does in Mary's dowry. The lower part of this window, like Saxlingham Nethergate, is low enough that you can get right up to it.
This walk could easily be extended to include Saxlingham and Gunthorpe. But, as it was, this was already a ten mile walk on a day when I hadn’t expected to venture out. I’ll have to save the longer version for another time.
This walk celebrated the astonishing beauty of Norfolk’s churches. Every one of them is a treasure. As I walked between them on this Whitsun afternoon, they seemed to join in my prayer, ‘Come, Holy Spirit.’
Walk: 9.8 miles https://explore.osmaps.com/route/21626476/hindringham-4-villages
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