It has been observed that at least one friend has bemoaned a lack of culinary content in my blog posts. A pilgrim, after all, marches on his stomach.
On Monday evening I stayed in Loddon, and crossed the river to neighbouring Chedgrave for dinner at The White Lion. This is a proper pub, with carpets, and where strangers chat at the bar. I got talking to someone who, it turned out, is related to Nathan West. ‘Westy’ was presented with the Norwich City ‘Fan of the Season’ award at Carrow Road on Saturday. Back in August, ‘Westy’ was the victim of a torrent of online abuse for the way he looks and sounds, having given a pre-match interview for The Pinkun social media channels.. An even bigger torrent of love followed, as the football community rallied around him. He was preparing to do a sponsored 10k run for MacMillan Nurses at the time, and ended up raising over £60,000.
Back to the grub! The food here is delicious and unpretentious, and the portions are very generous. I enjoyed pheasant breast in an onion and mushroom gravy, washed down with a pint of Woodforde’s Wherry. It doesn’t get much more Norfolk than that. As I retraced my steps back to my accommodation a heron was silently wading across the River Chet in the moonlight.
I had some time on my hands this morning so had a wander round the locality. Is Loddon a large village or a small town? The parish church suggests the latter. Holy Trinity, Loddon is a lofty, Perpendicular building with a fine porch. Like Salle, the first floor priest's room is accessible. Here it houses a local history museum. I got chatting to the person on ‘church watch’ duty. He moved from London to Loddon 18 months ago after a career with the Met, and yesterday became the churchwarden.
We had an interesting conversation about Anti-Semitism, provoked not by the recent criticism of the Met over its actions at a pro-Palestinian rally, but by the image of William of Norwich on the rood screen. William, aged 12, died on Mousehold Heath near Norwich in 1144. Some time after his death the Jewish community in Norwich was falsely accused of his murder. Ecclesiastical bigwigs jumped on the bandwagon, promoting a cult of this so-called child martyr. This is one of a number of churches in the region which has imagery reminding us that the evil of Anti-Semitism did not start with Hitler and Nazi Germany. William’s ‘shrine’ in Norwich Cathedral is now dedicated to healing, reconciliation, and the plight of suffering children. Here the image is explained sensitively.
Another link to London was in the far north-east corner of the church, where Lady Dame Dyonis Williamson reclines. She donated the whopping sum of £2,001 to the rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire, making her, by £1, the single biggest donor. Ordained there in 2009, I have reason to be grateful to her.
The churchwardens of the benefice were out in force this morning. At All Saints, Chedgrave I met Derek, who gave me a tour of the church. In the summer of 2023 some children, not much older than William of Norwich would have been, threw pieces of flint through the windows of both Loddon and Chedgrave churches. The damage here is much more serious than at Loddon, and the east window is still boarded up awaiting repair. The community is as sad that there are local children who have nothing better to do than to vandalise churches as they are about the damage.
Derek has an academic interest in Norman architecture. There are two Norman doorways here. Derek has a lovely notion that the north one, which is now enclosed in the superbly sympathetic extension, was perhaps a practice for the much more elaborate south. Or that an apprentice was left to carve the back door, while the master craftsman concentrated on the front.
Seven miles west is the village of Shotesham. In the Middle Ages this small village had four churches, one for each manor. Today two remain open for public worship. The other two are in ruins.
I began at Shotesham All Saints, which, like a castle, sits on a mound surveying the village below. An organist was practising for a big funeral later in the week. You’d need to have a good head for heights to be a bellringer here. The ringing chamber is accessed by a wrought iron staircase which scales the exterior of the church.
Across the valley are the remains of Shotesham St Botolph. The base of what I suppose was the east wall is the only indication of what was here, but the grounds are well kept. I’m making a point of praying in ruins, and this space is very peaceful.
Further south is Shotesham St Mary. Like its neighbour All Saints, this church has a sanctus bell surviving in the bellcote over the chancel arch. There’s a rope too, so I hope it’s used as intended. Inside was yet another nice link to London. The late nineteenth century Last Supper reredos is remarkably similar to that in my own church, and almost certainly from the same firm. Although, by this stage, such things were being virtually mass-produced.
The ruin of Shotesham St Martin cannot be more than 500 feet away. Ironically, given what I have written in my earlier posts, the tower has not collapsed. It is home now to the call of rooks, rather than bells. A display in St Mary’s shows a troop of volunteers, back in 2009, removing the ivy which had engulfed these ruins.
The guide at All Saints concludes with a quote from ‘A Lionel Fellowes’, who I think must have been a local squire or incumbent (or both!) at some stage: ‘Long may our beautiful churches stand as the fairest ornaments of the place, a testimony to the piety and generosity of Shotesham people, giving us all a striking call to do what we can in our own days for God’s honour, that we may, when the time comes, hand on our goodly heritage untarnished to those who are yet to come.’ I think the people of Shotesham are doing a good job.
St Mary, Saxlingham Nethergate, flanked by an Elizabethan Hall on one side, and a rectory built by Sir John Soanes on the other, is a deeply elegant building. I wish I’d done this walk in the opposite direction, so that I had approached the church from the south. This church reputedly has the oldest surviving medieval glass in the county. Better still is that much of it is at eye-level. No squinting through binoculars here, like at Ringland last week. (The photo of St Edmund presenting the tools of his martyrdom is at the top of this post.) The floor of the north aisle is exactly the same size as that of the nave (yes, I measured them), so it must be odd to be at the front when the church is full.
This is a walk where the number of ruins equals that of extant churches. Nestled in woodland are the remains of St Mary, Saxlingham Thorpe. These are not as complete at Shotesham St Martin, but the church must have been similarly small. Prayers said, and on I went.
To make this walk circular, I traced the Boudicca Way through the fields east of Shotesham St Mary. From this perspective St Martin’s look like an unfinished miniature replica of its neighbour.
While All Saints dominates the buildings to its north, it is almost entirely hidden from the south. Except, that is, for the flag of St George flying in honour of his feast, poking up over the trees. As it guided me back I passed, in the woods, a crater caused by a German V2 ballistic missile which narrowly missed the village on the morning of 6 October 1944. 'Cry God for Harry, England and St George.'
An important part of a sabbatical is spending quality time with my family, as well as pottering around churches. There will now be a little pause in the blog posts, but join me again on Monday as I travel to the Wild West.
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