My hope for these walks was that there would be as much fulfilment in the walking – both in terms of delighting in God's creation and meeting people along the way – as in the churches visited. This was certainly true of this delightful walk between villages inland from The Wash in West Norfolk.
I began at Sedgeford, too early for the church to be open. The footpath through Eaton Farm down to Snettisham was a delight. In the April sunshine hares bounded across the fields, pheasants darted in and out of hedgerows, and, up above, red kites circled searching their prey. Approaching Snettisham, The Wash came into view between the hedges, and, with the aid of binoculars, Boston Stump just visible beyond.
Snettisham Church
At St Mary, Snettisham, it’s easy to believe, as Simon Knott notes, that you’ve magically hopped over The Wash to Lincolnshire. This does not look like a Norfolk church. This is fourteenth century Decorated, and crowned with – a rare thing in these parts – a spire. At 175 feet, it is second only to Norwich Cathedral.
This church was cruciform, but only a small stump of chancel remains. Inside the effect is a church which feels like it should be longer. Indeed, the east end is disappointingly plain, and the best internal view – unusually – is to be had from the altar looking towards the magnificent west window. The brass eagle lectern is Tudor.
Interior looking west, Snettisham
In the south aisle is a rogues’ gallery of clergy starting from the 1810s. (Most churches have these, but locked away in a vestry.) I was struck by just how many rogues there were. It seems that vicars don’t stay here for very long. Even in the nineteenth century Snettisham got through its parsons. It can’t surely have been anything to do with the sumptuous (Old) Vicarage next door.
I walked south through Snettisham Park Farm, admiring their herds of red deer which last week, on a family outing, I had fed. I met, coming from the opposite direction, a charming couple, Sharon and Alex, who are Christadelphians. I don’t think I had met a Christadelphian before, and it was fascinating to find out more about their beliefs. Sharon’s father, searching for meaning in life, converted when a leaflet was pushed through his letterbox. A Christadelphian community meets weekly in King’s Lynn.
The key to St Michael, Ingoldisthorpe must be obtained from a cottage next to the school. Duly accomplished, I hadn’t expected the church door to be guarded by a mother duck and her seven or eight ducklings.
The first thing you notice in this building is what would have been a very fine Norman font. However, by the fifteenth century, square fonts were out of fashion, and octagonal fonts is what every church wanted. The solution here was to cut the corners off!
The font, Ingoldisthorpe
The stained glass windows in the chancel tell the sad story of a nineteenth century clergy family. One window is in memory of Frederick Charles Beckett and Katherine Louisa Beckett, brother and sister, who died aged 7 and 10 within two weeks of one another in 1862. ‘They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.’ The window opposite is in memory of Thomas James Beckett, ‘who in the 22 year of his age rendered up his soul to his God in the woods between Scotch Lake and Springfield in the province of New Brunswick, British America, in 1863.' What an enormous amount of grief to bear.
A sparrowhawk, frozen in midair, welcomed me to St Peter and St Paul, Shernborne. It’s easy in these quiet country lanes to forget how close one is to Sandringham. This is one of a number of local churches which was rebuilt by the then Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII.
The font, Sherborne
He used the diocesan architect, and the resulting interior is a little plain. But that doesn’t matter, because, unlike the medieval vandals up the road, they conserved what Mortlock calls ‘one of the finest Norman fonts in England’. (Although an Ingoldisthorpian gremlin has partnered a photograph of a different – octagonal! – font with the caption.) It is a thing of immense beauty, and incredible to think people have been baptised in it for almost a millennium. According to the (handwritten!) church guide there was a church on this site as early as the seventh century, founded by the Irish monk St Fursey. (This is more likely than Mortlock’s claim that it was St Felix.)
Here too is a sad reminder of nineteenth century infant mortality. Three small monuments in the north wall record the deaths of John Masters Kendall, who died in 1831 aged 10 weeks, Harriot Julia Kendall, who died in 1834 aged just 8 weeks, and William Turner Kendall, who died ‘in the 19th year of his age’ in 1841.
On the track leading back towards Sedgeford I met the utterly delightful Patience Tomlinson, binoculars in hand. She is an actor, and a Vicarage daughter. Her father served in a number of West Norfolk parishes, including Brancaster and Docking, and she clearly has a deep affection for Norfolk’s churches. I am already finding that one of the joys of walking prayerfully is that I am more willing to enter into meaningful conversation with people, rather than just a cursory ‘hello’ and comment about the weather.
Sedgeford
I could tell from the concentration of hares in the fields that I was nearing my starting point, and the church of St Mary, Sedgeford. Round towers are common in Norfolk, and normally I associate them with tiny churches. Not here. It’s only as one comes down into the churchyard that one realises what a handsomely proportioned building this is, with a fascinating hotchpotch of styles and eras. Here is another good and ancient font, thirteenth century square, with corners intact. There’s also the faintest of St Christopher depictions on the north wall, and a consecration cross close by.
The interior, Sedgeford
I spied on my OS map ‘Lady Well (Spring)’ just east of the church. Encouraged by the volunteer locking up I ventured up the path and sought directions from an overall-clad gentleman standing outside his house. I think the well must be on his property, so I was grateful to him for giving me permission to have a look. He told me that the spring and its lake have neolithic origins, which is very likely in an area of much archaeological significance, and its name must have come later when it was ‘claimed’ by the neighbouring church.
It’s a steep drop down the bank, but worth it to come to the source of the spring, miraculously appearing from a hole in the chalk. No wonder religions and belief systems have found springs to have healing powers. It seemed fitting to end my walk at a source, and I duly drank while praying a verse from Isaiah: ‘With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.’
Encouraged by Patience, I took a detour via one of her father’s churches, All Saints, Fring. I am glad I did, not least to stop and admire a stupendous peacock idling next to the road. Built in the early part of the fourteenth century, the skeleton of this church, unlike its neighbour in Sedgeford, has barely been touched since.
Fring
A vast St Christopher, and much more complete than Sedgeford, greets the visitor inside. Depictions of this patron saint of those who travel are often on the wall facing the main entrance, so that this is what weary pilgrims would see first. They often survived Cromwell’s henchmen, because the iconoclasts were, by definition, travellers. What woes might have befallen them had they lost holy Christopher’s intercession? As I continue on my journey, may St Christopher pray for this pilgrim. I think we’ll meet him again.
Walk: 8.5 miles https://explore.osmaps.com/route/21153891/around-the-river-ingol I did this anti-clockwise, but I think clockwise gives a better approach to three of the four churches. If descending (and ascending) the bank to the Lady Well spring, do it at the beginning of your walk, not at the end as I did!
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