I celebrated and preached at St Mary, Whissonsett on Sunday morning. I would have been about eight or nine when I first visited this church with my parents. We did so because a curate from a parish in our native Reading had moved here for his first incumbency, and my parents wanted to see where he was.
I recall all this because we got chatting to an old boy who lived opposite the entrance to the churchyard. I was proudly wearing my Norwich City replica kit. He looked down at me, and said, ‘So you’re a Norwich fan? I’ve got something you might like.’ He disappeared into his cottage for a few minutes, and returned with a box full of City memorabilia: old programmes, significant EDPs, and a Milk Cup Final rosette. ‘I don’t need this anymore. You have them.’ I’ve never forgotten that act of kindness from a stranger, so it was fitting to return to this village and give something back.
This is another church which falls into the 'country Catholic' category about which I wrote on Saturday. I knew this would probably be the case; the curate was at one of Reading’s Anglo-Catholic shrines before he came here, and from here moved to St John, Timberhill. It's now normal Norfolk middle-of-the-road, and, happily, thriving.
St Mary, Whissonsett
The church is hosting a D-Day exhibition over June and July, and this was the focus for the day’s Eucharist. There was a congregation of almost 30, and they’ve recently installed a loo and kitchen in the north-west corner of the nave. Everyone was very chatty over coffee. I’d confessed the theme of my sabbatical, which invited a range of insights into people’s feelings about church life.
I spoke to a couple of people who clearly felt that there was an agenda from the Diocese to close churches, and were adamant everything should be done to prevent this. I played devil’s advocate a bit, and asked some challenging questions about finance and resources. It was probably a livelier exchange than I expected! There was also the familiar theme of unrest over increasing bureaucracy and unrealistic expectations.
I spoke to several people who had travelled from other villages in the group. One lady explained that her Sunday Communion is important enough to her that she would rather travel to another village than attend a Service of the Word in her own. Sometimes I've got the impression that people are more interested in saving their church rather than saving their souls, so I was deeply encouraged by this example of Anglican piety, and I told her so.
St Mary, Whissonsett
There were two people with whom I wish I’d spent more time. One was a lady who turns 100 later this year. Born and brought up in Stody, near Holt, she moved here when she married. Another, aged 89, has lived here all her life. They would have been nineteen and nine respectively on D-Day. I wonder what their memories are.
I changed out of my cassock and collar into walking gear in the vesty. A group of hikers had descended on the church, so I decided to explore St Mary’s properly on my return, and headed south-west through the fields to the lost village of Godwick.
Norfolk has around 150 lost villages. Godwick is one of the most notable. In the middle ages it had a population of around 20, and, as this dwindled further in the sixteenth century, it was abandoned. It was a poor village because it had poor land. This has benefits for us today. The poor land has not subsequently been cultivated, leaving the tofts where properties once stood intact. You get a very clear sense of where Godwick's streets were, and helpful display boards guide you round the village.
Ruins of Godwick Church
The Cokes lived here in the sixteenth century before being lured away to Holkham, and they kept the tower of All Saints, Godwick as a folly to their hall. The hall is now gone, so all that remains here is the Cokes' Great Barn, built in 1597 – and now immaculately presented as a wedding and event venue – and the ruin of the tower. The eastern section collapsed in 1981.
Godwick is part eerie, part evocative. If only these little mounds of earth could talk. I’ve visited and prayed in almost 20 ruined churches now, but this one felt different; the voice of worship here has been silent for so very long.
This area feels like a particularly historic patch of Norfolk. I passed an old moat as I approached my next village. Whoever lives in the big house opposite St Mary, Tittleshall is clearly keen to leave an historical legacy for future generations. The boundary wall has been recently rebuilt, and is inlaid with a simple stone which reads:
CAROLVS REX
VI.V.MMXXIII
Interior of Tittleshall Church
The history continues in the church. A ceramic plaque in the north-west corner commemorates the Revd Robert Creagh Sayers, a former curate, and grandfather of the writer Dorothy L Sayers. Appropriately enough, it is now surrounded by second hand books. In the chancel is the tomb stone of the Revd Dixon Hoste, whose son William was Nelson’s protégé, hence The Hoste in Burnham Market.
Most notable are the monuments to the Coke family. They were only here for fifty years before the move to Holkham, but they loom large over the chancel. The alabaster memorial to Bridget Coke, who died in 1598, is sumptuous. She kneels before her Bible, surrounded by lavish decoration. Underneath, her eight children kneel in similar supplication. Their faces are almost lifelike. Bridget was a Paston, so there’s a nice link here to Friday’s walk.
Bridget Coke's monument in Tittleshall Church
Mileham is a sizable place, with the mound of a castle at its centre. All Saints, Mileham is at the end of the village, beyond a nursery, well hidden by trees and a Georgian rectory. An almost complete fourteenth century set of stained glass in the west window is a delight, and there are medieval panels in the east window of the south aisle too. To this collection has been added, in 2004, a striking depiction of the Baptism of Christ by Pippa Blackall. Norfolk cattle and sheep graze ignorant of the mystery they witness. Across the water, in miniature, Mary greets Elizabeth.
Mileham's west window
This church has suffered major subsidence, and the south aisle had to be shored up in the 1980s. Its pillars and walls lean alarmingly, and you can clearly see where the aisle was beginning to take the south side of the nave with it. In fact, wherever you can stand in the building you feel as though you’re leaning to the south. Nothing feels level. I suspect that if you put a golf ball on the floor it would roll away from you at speed.
There’s more history here too. The chancel contains the tombstones of Samuel Pepys’ cousins. Fermor Pepys, who must have spent all his life spelling his name out for people. He has an obit which is both delightful and interesting:
Of a worthy Descent, most happy Nature, choicest Education: of a tried Faith to God a perfecuted Church a banifhd Prince, and his old Freind. He was born and lived a Gentleman, baptized and liued a Christian, dyed a Belieuer and liues a Saint.
He died on 12 September 1660, so would have enjoyed only a few months of Charles II’s reign.
On the other side of the chancel is the most heartbreaking set of ledgers. Thomas and Elizabeth Browne had four children between 1676 and 1680. Thomas lived less than four months, William just three months, Mary two weeks, and, finally, John survived just four days. Their parents must have been exhausted with grief.
THESE PRETTY BABES MAY PASSE FOR WONDERS WHO
RAN THROVGH THE WORLD ERE THEY COVLD STAND OR GOE
THE SHORTEST AND THE CLEANEST WAY IS BEST
THESE TOOKE THAT TO THEIRE EVERLASTING REST
Mileham
I was looking forward to this walk because the route was almost entirely along footpaths. Walks 23 and 24 were mostly tarmac, and my heels were feeling it.
However, by Mileham, I had already struggled to locate and cross several paths, and the number of surprised deer, hares and pheasants I had met along my way suggested that these thoroughfares were not well-walked. The stretch back to Whissonsett was the longest of the walk, and turned out to be the most difficult of the sabbatical so far.
Crossing the first few fields was alright. I reached a lane, crossed it, and was relieved to find a broad footpath through the next field of wheat. However, it stopped before a large patch of woodland, and there was no bridge to cross the ditch, nor obvious opening in the hedgerow opposite. There was no alternative route to take, and I was now five or six miles in. Eventually I found a part of the ditch I could clamber down into, and I scrambled up the bank and through branches into the woods.
A carpet of ferns, mixed variously with brambles and nettles, lay ahead of me. Somewhere nearby a shoot was taking place, which, even if aim is being taken at the sky, never fills one with confidence. I waded through the undergrowth, occasionally having to duck under branches, all the while praying that I wouldn’t twist an ankle on something unseen beneath the ferns.
At last I found myself at the corner of the woodland, and back out into fields. But here there was no discernible path whatsoever. Thistles and perennial weeds almost my height barred my way. I fought through, regretting choosing shorts over trousers, my legs becoming increasingly stung and scraped. A waymarker, almost entirely submerged in undergrowth, confirmed that my map-reading skills were not at fault.
Norfolk has some excellent footpaths, including the Weavers’, Wherrymans’ and Peddars Ways. But many of its lesser paths are not at all well-kept. The significant rainfall of the last few weeks hasn’t helped – everything is growing at twice the rate it usually would. But these paths from Mileham haven’t seen any attention for years. It makes walking without a machete a dispiriting experience.
I was glad to return to the well-strimmed path which approaches Whissonsett. My car was the only one left outside the church, so I looked forward hopefully to having the building to myself. But another disappointment was in store. The church was locked! It was 4.30pm, so I imagine I had arrived just a little too late.
I didn’t mind too much. Tittleshall and Mileham, interesting though they both were, did not feel especially lively or prayed in. Whissonsett will still be here, and this morning I had done here what the church was built for.
I said Evening Prayer in the churchyard, and spent a few moments at the war memorial. The Rector here during the Second World War lost two sons, one a prisoner of war in Japan. Apparently they are the only two brothers to be awarded the Victoria and George Crosses. No wonder this village, in its collective memory, has a special desire to remember the fallen.
In some ways this was a maudlin walk. I had preached at Whissonsett about the way in which the death and resurrection Jesus Christ gives Chrsitians a unique understanding of the issues around war and peace, and a confident belief in God's power to transform suffering into joy, and death into life. Tempted to melancholy, I realised that, as is so often the case, I had been preaching to myself.
Walk: 8.5 miles
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