Wix, my blog provider, has warned me that I have almost reached my free storage allowance. From now on I will be limiting the number of images on this blog, and deleting images from previous posts. You can view lots of photos either on my Instagram @walkingnorfolkschurches or searching "Daniel Sandham" on the Historic Churches of Norfolk Facebook group. I usually upload images within a few hours of posting the blog.
Some religious sites have an enhanced sense of liminality because something remarkable happened there; a miracle, or a vision, or an association with the life of a saint. But there are others which are liminal places simply because of the building's relationship with the landscape.
If Walsingham is an example of that first sense of liminality, then, a few miles to its west, hidden in a tapestry of narrow country lanes, All Saints, Waterden is very much of the second. A farm and the old parsonage its only neighbours, the church sits on the edge of a hill, looking out over undulating fields. On this spring morning I was welcomed into the churchyard by a muntjac and brace of pheasants.
Entering this small church is both to step back in time, and also to enter into an overwhelming sense of peace. Its beauty lies in its simplicity: flagstone floor, tiny font built into the wall, rustic commandments boards, and box-pews which, in a local antique shop would be termed shabby-chic. Over it all hangs a (presumably early nineteenth century) board with words of Jesus from the end of Matthew’s gospel: ‘LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAY.’ That promise seems to ring even more truly in a place which is so utterly timeless.
It’s all been lovingly restored in recent years. That sense of timelessness is probably due in part to what Mortlock calls ‘a patchwork of alterations down the centuries’. Even in a church as small of this, there are Saxon, Norman, Early English and Tudor windows. Today is the day when the Church of England remembers Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, orchestrator of the Book of Common Prayer. As I prayed his Lenten collect, it didn’t feel much had changed since he wrote it.
One of the verses of scripture I have prayed on all these walks is from the prophecy of Jeremiah: ‘Stand at the crossroads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way lies; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’ I often wonder how ancient are the paths on which I am walking. No wondering, however, at the beginning of this walk. My OS map told me I was on a Roman road. It is no more than a track when it arrives in Waterden, and I had it to myself. In old churches one wishes the walls could speak. On this road one wishes the earth itself could tell of the journeys men and women have made here.
I followed a bridleway down into South Creake. This is an exceptionally pretty village. The River Burn, barely more than a stream, flows through it like a spine. Nestling on the edge of village is the church of Our Lady St Mary, South Creake. And what a church it is!
This is a spacious Perpendicular building. The angels of the excellent hammerbeam roof have been repainted in modern times, and now are as gaudy as they would have been in the early sixteenth century. Indeed, returning this building to its pre-Reformation state was exactly what was in the mind of those who brought Anglo-Catholicism here in the first part of the twentieth century. It feels not unlike Thaxted, in Essex. If such a thing as Anglo-Catholic Top Trumps existed, the presence of houselling cloths on the altar rails would surely make this a winning card.
Simon Jenkins is a little disparaging about all this in England’s Thousand Best Churches, and unfairly, in my view. What the ritualists achieved here was to fill the church with everything one needs for Anglo-Catholic worship and devotion, but without the building feeling cluttered. That is quite the achievement. And hats off to the current Rector, Fr Clive Wylie, for keeping it so. This must be Norfolk’s tidiest church.
But don’t let that lure you into thinking this is a fossil of the faith of our forebears. In the south aisle is a most affecting set of modern sculptures by Neal French. Calvary Group shows six figures in their reactions to the crucifixion. It is remarkable how such simple, smooth forms convey extraordinary depths of emotion. You could base a series of Lent talks or devotions on each figure. During my visit, the sunlight flooding through the windows added a dappled, latticed layer, which only served to heighten their beauty.
The only downside to this walk was the amount of time spent walking on tarmac. The problem with the footpaths in this little patch of Norfolk is that they don’t really lead anywhere. On a previous walk some years ago, we did a massive five mile loop to get to North Creake. Today I decided to walk the mile along the busy Burnham Road, which runs parallel to the river. There is no pavement nor friendly verge, so I wouldn't recommend it.
St Mary, North Creake is as impressive as its southern neighbour, but quite different in style. Another hammerbeam roof, but here the angels are age-worn and unrestored. The chancel was heavily restored in the 1890s, and with dark Victorian glass filling the windows; walking into it feels like entering a boarding school chapel. I wonder if it’s better to visit South Creake – which is all space and light – after North Creake, rather than before.
I like this church, but, returning to Simon Jenkins, I’m not sure it merits inclusion in England’s thousand best at the expense of other Norfolk gems further from the tourist hotspots. From a purely architectural perspective, what about Ringland or Edingthorpe or Hempstead or Little Witchingham?
As I was taking photographs a group of bellringers from Lincolnshire arrived. They had just come from Fakenham, and were on the first day of a quarter-peal weekend. I admitted I was a lapsed campanologist, and that this was one of the few towers in this area I hadn’t rung at in my youth. Despite not ringing regularly for a couple of decades, the urge to ‘grab’ a tower never goes away. They very graciously invited me to ring a few rounds with them before they started their quarter.
I love the sound of church bells. So it was that I began my ascent up Shepherd's Hill back towards Waterden with Superlative Surprise Major pealing in my ears. Gradually, rising from the village, the bells gave way to birdsong and the gentle breeze in the trees: the best of man-made and nature's noises in harmony in the English countryside.
Walk: 8 miles, but I would suggest this 12 mile route avoiding the road between the Creakes: https://explore.osmaps.com/route/25771662/waterden-and-the-creakes
コメント