Serving clergy have to undertake a Ministerial Development Review every two years. Part of the process includes setting ‘personal objectives’ to enable the priest’s wellbeing and development. My MDR came hot on the heels of my sabbatical, so one of my personal objectives is to take a 48 hour retreat three times a year, and to use that time to carry on my walking pilgrimage around Norfolk’s churches.
One of the truisms of the North Norfolk Coast is that, if you check the weather forecast a week in advance of a visit, you can almost guarantee it will be wrong. But there’s always an exception that proves the rule. Heavy downpours were forecast a week ago. By yesterday evening, the Met Office had declared a yellow weather warning for rain.
It was the wind that woke me before 6am. I took it as God’s way of telling me to go to the 7.30am Mass in the Shrine at Walsingham. Today is the feast of St Jerome, one of the Four Doctors of the Church. It is also, I learnt, St Nedin’s Day. Nedin was a sixth century bishop who, with Kentigern, travelled from Wales to Scotland to evangelise the people of Aberdeenshire. The Shrine has a relic of him – hence the name-check – which we all got to venerate afterwards.
The weather forecast had put me in two minds about this walk. But the nature of pilgrimage is that it must contend with less favourable conditions. Does not God send the rain as much as he sends the sun? I suspected that Nedin must have overcome some tasty weather in his missionary journeys, and I trusted that God might reveal something to me in the wind and the rain.
I started at St Margaret, Cley-next-the-Sea, which, as it happens, was one of the churches on Walk 1, in similarly damp conditions. It was only 8.30am, so I said Morning Prayer in the shelter of the south porch. (There are not one, but three to choose from here.)
Leaving Cley via Old Woman’s Lane, I walked parallel with the coast road with Cley Marshes to my left. This is one of Norfolk’s premier nature reserves, overlooked by Cley Spy visitor centre. Heading back inland, I crossed fields towards Salthouse. A sparrow-hawk was waiting patiently on the kissing gate leading into the village, as if to welcome me.
St Nicholas, Salthouse is a church of the sea. Dedicated to the patron saint of seafarers, only the tower predates the rebuilding which took place at the turn of the sixteenth century. Except for a tiny continental roundel – showing a priest celebrating Mass – the glass is all plain, which means that, even on the dankest of days, this church is bathed in light.
Norfolk’s churches are famed for the quality of their art and craftmanship. But at Salthouse it is the crude graffiti on the choirstalls which catches the eye. Scratched into the wood is a series of ships. I wonder by whom? The panel nearest the altar on the south side still has traces of medieval stencilling: Nicholas’s mitre emblem and ‘N’ monogram, little signs of his intercession over the vessel which sails beneath. It rather sums up the spirit of this church.
Salthouse Church is a popular venue for modern-day artists exhibiting their work. The church was opened up for me by Brett Lightwait, whose ‘Ask the Angels’ exhibition began on Saturday. The works depict angels, and a space is set aside for people to write down their own requests of the angels, hence the title. I asked Brett if the exhibition has been deliberately timed to coincide with Michaelmas. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s just nice synchronicity.’
Brett and I chatted angels. This is a rare Norfolk church insofar that there are no (permanent) representations of them. I told him that he needed to visit Barton Turf, and we exchanged our stories of angelic encounters. This is, I suppose, the power of art. It opens up conversations that would otherwise remain dormant.
Leaving Salthouse, I forked away from the coast road towards the sea. These marshes are good grazing for cattle. I chatted lazily to some friendly cows until two of them got too friendly (with one another), and I headed towards the beach.
I remembered an arduous walk along this stretch of shingled coast path a few years ago. Today the tide was almost fully out, so I decided to drop down to where the waves were angrily crashing onto the firmer going of the sand. As I did so I discovered literally thousands of starfish washed up at the tide-mark, a nautical meteor shower stretching miles along the coast.
I headed back inland towards the Priory Church of All Saints, Weybourne, sitting at the centre of this pretty village. To the east of the present church are the ruins of a thirteenth-century Augustinian priory. Much of a Saxon tower remains, as well as what would have been the choir. The nave of the current church would have been the south aisle of the old priory, and the present north aisle (part of) the nave.
Since I started this project in April I have signed a lot of visitors’ books. At Weybourne I had the unusual privilege of being the first entry in a new book. I made sure I wrote as
neatly as possible!
I wondered if anywhere had such a high concentration of monastic houses on the eve of the Reformation as this part of North Norfolk. There were more Augustinians at Beeston and North Creake, Carmelites in Burnham, Benedictines at Binham, and, of course, multiple houses in Walsingham.
At the eastern end of Weybourne is the windmill. I’ve driven past it many times. It forms part of what must be one of the finest views from a heritage railway as you pass through Kelling Halt on the North Norfolk Railway. The lane from the windmill took me back to the coast path, but this time tracing a path at the top of the cliffs rather than being on the beach.
The fields between Cley and Salthouse were full of sugar beet yet to be harvested. Here, as I turned inland, a farmer was already ploughing a field ready for next year’s crop. From the footbridge over the railway I could just make out the grey silhouette of St Peter’s, Sheringham, the final destination of this peregrination.
I was now on the National Trust land, part of the Sheringham Park estate. I crossed the main road, and headed towards Sheringham Hall. When we walked in these grounds as a family in the summer, we didn’t get as far as the ‘gazebo’ marked on the map. I followed the sign away from the footpath, not realising the extent of the steep flight of steps to reach it. I passed an almost-elderly couple coming down in the other direction, as surprised as I was that there were people sufficiently daft to be walking in this weather.
The gazebo itself is a tall viewing tower. You need a head for heights to ascend its sixty steps, which cantilever from the main, steel structure. It would have been worth it on a better day.
So far, I had taken the rain in my stride. But, as I walked past the Hall and through Humphrey Repton’s landscaped park, the showers became significantly heavier. My ‘entirely waterproof’ coat, which promises to ‘keep you dry even in the heaviest downpours’ was failing. I was not a little relieved to reach All Saints, Upper Sheringham. This was Sheringham until the nineteenth century brought tourists to the seaside. It feels very much like an estate village, and the Upchers of Sheringham Hall clearly were significant benefactors during the nineteenth century.
A couple of miles from the sea, the first thing to greet the visitor is the legend of the mermaid who, drawn by the melodious music coming from the church, tried to gain entry to divine service. ‘Git yew arn owt,’ said the churchwarden, ‘we can’t hev noo marmearas in hare.’ According to the legend, the mermaid was persistent. (Although I think she couldn’t understand the Norfolk dialect.) ‘When no one was looking,’ the calligraphed tale recalls, ‘she crept in and seated herself on the outside edge of the pew nearest the door.’ Sure enough, there she is, immortalised in a medieval bench end.
That’s not the end of beautiful things crafted from wood in this church. Here we have a rare example of a complete medieval rood loft. There are very many rood screens surviving in East Anglia, but we forget that they were generally surmounted by a loft like this.
From Upper Sheringham, I followed Butts Lane down into the outskirts of Lower Sheringham. The Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph, Sheringham is a familiar sight from the Tesco car park opposite. It is a handsome, reb-brick church by Giles Gilbert Scott, with attached clergy house. Sadly for me, it was locked. The rain continued to pour, and I was wet through, so I had little appetite to search for a key.
My journey ended at St Peter, Sheringham, the Church of England parish church. Also funded by the Upchers, it was dedicated as a daughter church of All Saints on St Peter’s Day in 1897. The front cover of the order of service is framed on the south wall next to a good modern statue of the patron saint. It remained a chapel of ease until it became the parish church of a new parish in 1953.
Apart from its flint walls, St Peter’s doesn't feel very Norfolk. It would not look at all out of place in a London suburb. Unlike its neighbours, with clerestories flooding their naves with light, this is a dark church on a day like this.
It more than makes up for this in activity. There are signs of life everywhere, including nurture courses, parish meals, concerts and cafes. I know the Director of Music, Philip Adams, from our days in Brighton almost 20 years ago, so I’m sure the music is of a high quality. I imagine that, with lights on and full of lots of people, this building would feel very different.
The rain had not relented. I warmed myself up with sone well-deserved fish and chips and a quick visit to Smiths, Sheringham’s model railway shop. The four-year-old at home will be very pleased with a second-hand tractor – complete with trailer and plough – for the layout.
The Coasthopper bus makes possible linear walks along the North Norfolk Coast. This is a great surf-and-turf walk, including varied churches, scenery and wildlife. If I did it again – which I will in more temperate conditions – I think I’d start at Sheringham and work up to the glories of Salthouse and Cley. But I would have to forego the fish and chips.
And I’m glad I persevered despite the weather. Walking as pilgrimage is different from walking as recreation. When we walk as pilgrims our disposition must change. Rather than seeing rain as a nuisance, or a reason not to walk, we receive it – as we should receive everything from God – as gift. I returned from my walk damp, but thankful. I suspect St Nedin had a hand in that.
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