The churches on this part of the Norfolk coast are sturdy old things; a line of sentinels stubbornly facing into the North Sea winds. They, like the villages they serve, are not as refined as Blakeney or Cley further along the coast, but, in a way, that makes them more real and more attractive.
Walcott
All Saints, Walcott sits slightly inland from its village of chalets overlooking the sea. Imposing from outside, it’s wonderfully welcoming inside. It feels well worshipped in. An up-to-date benefice newsletter was displayed on the noticeboard. The priest here is a fellow-walker, judging from her thoughtful letter. A small part of me wishes I’d contacted the clergy of the parishes I’m visiting to invite them to join me for parts of my walk.
The rood screen has a had a beam added across its full length – in the early nineteenth century, I would guess – with the first verse of Psalm 46 stencilled in full view of the congregation. ‘God is our refuge and strength.’ I wonder how many people from fishing families have sat in these pews, worrying about seafaring sons and husbands, and found consolation from those words. I have no doubt that was the intention of the person who caused its creation, who assumed a good enough knowledge of the psalms that the congregants would continue to pray:
Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be moved :
and though the hills be carried into the midst of the sea;
Though the waters thereof rage and swell :
and though the mountains shake at the tempest of the same.
Interior, Walcott
Orders of service at the back of church revealed that their most recent successors were a happy couple and their guests at a wedding on Saturday. Church weddings are few and far between in my suburban context. I’m glad they happen here.
I traversed inland through fields full of a healthy-looking potatoes to St Mary, East Ruston, a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It sits almost flush with B1159. Its only neighbour is the Old Vicarage, which attracts visitors to its gardens.
East Ruston's font
In a county of excellent fonts and rood screens, East Ruston stands out. The font is either immaculately well-preserved, or enhanced by the Victorians. The evangelists on its panels alternate with fantastical carved heads. The most notable of these, facing east, shows a man who appears to be caught in the severest of North Sea gales. The rood screen was expertly restored in 1990 by Pauline Plummer of A Passion for Churches fame. Its unique feature is a pair of carved posts surmounted, at head height, by gilded lions, either side of the entrance through the screen.
Detail of the screen, East Ruston
While I would much rather a church was in active use, there is something very prayerful about a building stripped of non-essential furniture and clutter. The lack of soft furnishings allows for a much-improved acoustic. So, having the building to myself, I spent a good 15 minutes praying in plainsong. I suspect St Gregory, peering at me from the screen, heartily approved. I hope other people find churches like this similarly prayer-inducing. If so, then they are not really redundant after all.
All Saints, Lessingham is one of those churches you might not know existed unless you were looking for it. A rustic wooden sign, with an arrow pointing down the track, helps: ‘Our church is open. Please visit.’ I chomped on my sandwiches in the porch, under a large banner embroidered with the word ‘Welcome’, admiring the wildlife haven in the churchyard, and looking forward to lifting the latch on the door. I know it sounds silly, but I’m trying to eat my lunch before I look round a church, so that the food has a chance to settle before I start walking properly again.
Lessingham
Alas, despite sign and banner, the church was locked. I wandered round the exterior of the thatched nave. The chancel is ruined, which is not all that unusual in Norfolk. What is unusual, however, is how recently it became so. If you make your way through the grass and nettles at the east end of the church, you will notice how very modern the bricked-up chancel arch is. The chancel was damaged during a storm in 1961, and the decision was made to allow it to go to ruin. If it wasn’t for that red-brick wall, you would assume it had been like this for centuries.
It’s worth reading Simon Knott’s description of the rood screen which was here until that storm. (Indeed, all his write-ups of Norfolk churches are worth reading.) It’s in storage in an architectural archive in Gressenhall. I wonder under what circumstances it might be able to find a new home?
Hempstead
The rood screen at St Andrew, Hempstead is worth seeing, if only for its cast of obscure saints. Juliana, Theobald, John of Bridlington and Dionysius join ranks with the more commonplace George, Lawrence and Stephen. Such is the variety of the heavenly city! Very sadly, St Eligius was hacked off and stolen in the 1980s. Unlike East Ruston, the remaining panels are battered, broken and split, and the tracery above them looks like it might collapse at the merest breath of wind.
There is no electricity here. Chains which would have held gas lights now, ingeniously, have battery-operated camping lights attached to them. A large Calor gas cylinder obscures the screen, presumably to take the chill off in the winter. What a treat it must have been last Sunday, in this isolated country church, to have Evensong sung by the King’s Singers. I’m guessing this must be a parish under the patronage of King’s College, Cambridge, as there is also a set of six pews which arrived here from King’s Chapel in 1989.
Screen, Hempstead
I am a great believer in external patronage. I know it seems archaic, but, if we lost the patronage system, we would almost certainly lose with it these quirky but undeniably beneficial links between parishes and patrons. Many patrons – among them Oxbridge colleges, livery companies, and aristocrats – are relatively privileged, and can make a palpable difference to parishes with little or no resources. More often than not, the benefit is two-way.
My route was taking me back towards the sea, and to the group of tatty chalets which now comprise Eccles-on-Sea. I followed Church Lane to the beach, assuming that this would take me as close as possible to where St Mary, Eccles-on-Sea once stood. The church and most of the village became Eccles-in-Sea in the seventeenth century. The round tower finally succumbed to the waves in 1895. I hadn’t planned to pray here, but I felt moved to say the prayer I am praying in ruined churches. Nothing visible remains now of St Mary’s, but there was something deeply powerful about shouting towards the waves a prayer which I would usually say sotto voce in less tempestuous surroundings:
The North Sea from Eccles beach
God of our ancestors, who of old didst move thy servants in this place to build an house of prayer for the offering of eternal praises to thy glorious majesty: We praise thee for those living stones who herein called upon thy holy name. By thy mercy receive them into the perfect house of prayer in the heavens, to worship with the company of thy saints, for ever and ever.
The twin towers of Happisburgh Lighthouse and Church had seldom disappeared from view during this walk. I now followed the coast path north along the sandy beach. It is strange that I have mapped over 30 routes in a county which shares most of its borders with the sea, but this is the only walk which allowed me to paddle in the waves
Happisburgh, together with Hemsby further south towards Yarmouth, has been in the news a great deal recently owing to the drastic effects of coastal erosion here. Walking along the beach, one can understand the sense of injustice which is felt by its inhabitants. Eccles now has a mighty flood defence, rising defiantly above the beach. Happisburgh is, apparently, not sufficiently populated enough to warrant one. As soon as you pass the Eccles flood defence the beach becomes twice as deep. The effects of the erosion could not be clearer.
Where Eccles meets Happisburgh
Walking at the foot of the cliff, I marvelled at the layers of geology displayed like a slice of Battenberg, but I also realised that, at my feet, among the usual pebbles and bits of seaweed, were pieces of brickwork and broken chimneys. My prayer for those who served and worshipped in St Mary, Eccles, now became a prayer for those for whom homes and businesses vanishing under the sea is a present reality. It is hard not to have a great deal of sympathy for the recently renamed Save Happisburgh Campaign. (And it’s a good job they have volunteers sensible enough to realise that Save Happisburgh Action Group was inevitably going to attract the wrong sort of attention.)
The heavens had been threatening to open for a good hour, and they chose their moment just as I prepared to take the obligatory photograph of Happisburgh Lighthouse. The Hill House Inn provided very welcome shelter, offering ales from Norwich breweries Mr Winter and Fat Cat.
Happisburgh
Does any Norfolk church enjoy a better situation than St Mary, Happisburgh? Apparently, you can spot 30 churches from the top of its tower, including the spire of Norwich Cathedral on a clear day. Even from the relative lowliness of its churchyard you can see countryside sprawling for miles to the south and west, and the vast expanse of ocean to the north and east.
The church befits its site. The tower is 110 feet in height, and the whole building is beautifully proportioned. The font is among the finest in the county. Here evangelists alternate, rather more conventionally than East Ruston, with musical angels. The base is more secular, with figures including a number of – and here comes my new word for the day – wodewoses. These are, in the words of the church guide, ‘hairy wild men holding clubs,’ and were perhaps a Pagan symbol of fertility. (Although I’m not sure why that would be a pressing concern while celebrating the sacrament of baptism.)
Font, Happisburgh
I arrived at Happisburgh at the same time as an elderly gentleman, clutching a collection of organ music. It took him the duration of my visit to get himself from the south porch to the organ console, the years of nimbly jumping on the organ stall well behind him. His fingers have not lost their sprightliness, however. I left to the strains of Widor’s Toccata. Perhaps there’s a wedding here this weekend.
I returned through the fields to Walcott. I had agonised – more so than usual – about the direction of today’s walk. I normally get this right, but today I had got it wrong. Nearly all the best views of the churches, especially Happisburgh, were over my shoulder. None more so than on this final stretch. It was my only regret of this otherwise superb 10 mile ramble. I shall have to do it again.
Happisburgh over the fields
I walked this walk on the eve of the 80th anniversary of D-Day. I had been acutely aware all day of reminders of warfare and valiant sacrifice. Every churchyard I visited contained at least one war grave. The Cutting family of Lessingham and Hempstead lost men in both world wars.
In Happisburgh there is no escaping the effects of war. A slab in the churchyard tells of HMS Invincible, wrecked off Happisburg beach on 17 March 1801, on its way to join forces with Admiral Nelson at Copenhagen. A staggering 119 of the ship’s company are buried here. That’s merely a quarter of those who lost their lives that day.
The coastline here is dotted with pillboxes, one of which, in Eccles, is now encased in the concrete flood defence; a defence within a defence. They were necessary. In 1940 a bomb fell close to the church, blowing out all the windows and causing severe damage to the tower.
Pillbox, Eccles
Every Norfolk church I have visited contains a Roll of Honour, and most a more substantial monument to the fallen in stone, wood or glass. Even the smallest villages will record half a dozen names. What must the effect of each of these world wars been on fragile, rural communities?
The benefactor who made that addition to the screen in Walcott could not possibly have foreseen the inhumanity humankind would inflict on itself in the following century. But he or she could not have chosen a better psalm. I hope in Walcott and elsewhere, amid the vicissitudes of the world wars, the faithful of these villages prayed to the end of Psalm 46. I will make it my prayer tomorrow.
He maketh wars to cease in all the world :
he breaketh the bow, and knappeth the spear in sunder, and burneth the chariots in the fire.
Be still then, and know that I am God :
I will be exalted among the heathen, and I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord of hosts is with us :
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Walk: 10 miles https://explore.osmaps.com/route/21887553/happisburgh-5-churches- (This gives the walk in the better, clockwise direction. For best results, I would start at Happisburgh, but leave its church to the end.)
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