I have been quietly dreading this walk: thirteen miles of dreary Fens, several major roads to cross, and the prospect of multiple locked churches.
My only experience of the part of Norfolk west of King’s Lynn was driving through it in mid-January last year on the way to a funeral. I confess I may be prejudiced…
Today, in glorious spring sunshine, I started my route from its south-eastern corner, in Tilney-cum-Islington. A far cry from its London namesake, this stretch of the walk turned out to be the richest for wildlife. Within 15 minutes I had seen a heron and a marsh harrier, and reed warblers abounded like sparrows. So far, so good.
The tower of Tilney St Mary beckoned me over the fields. It is easy to see how this church fell into disrepair. Only a farmhouse and a cottage keep it company, flush with the A47 thundering past. As well as the tower, the chancel stands complete, but is not accessible to the visitor. Peering through the translucent plastic screen there is little to see. It is denuded of its furnishings, and only tiny fragments of Victorian glass remain in the otherwise empty east window. Some ruins are romantic, but not this one. Perhaps this made praying the prayer I am using in ruined churches all the more important.
This is a good walk for being able to see your next church long before you get to it. And what a treat awaits at Tilney All Saints. I love churches which have bits dating from different periods, hotch-potched together. Here the Perpendicular, Early English, and Decorated styles all seem to bow in reverence to the grand Norman arcades running both sides of nave and chancel. There’s a double hammer-beam roof, Jacobean screen, and an unusual seventeenth century font.
The massive tower is wider than the central aisle of the nave. The bells here are rung from the ground floor. This can’t always have been the case. One buttress of the tower is larger than the others, and it contains a staircase to an oak floored ringing chamber visible from the ground. Looking up, you can see through the gaps in the wood into an empty, cavernous space. Presumably at some point it was declared unsafe, and the ringers moved downstairs. It makes for an exceptionally long draught (the distance between the ringers and the bells) and must make handling these bells a challenge.
Outside, looking at the nave, chancel and aisles, the church appears to be sinking into the marshes. It probably is. Massive buttresses have been crudely added to keep the walls from collapsing.
Aside from the architectural delights on offer, this is a church community which clearly wants to welcome visitors. A note on the gate apologises that, due to vandalism, the church must be kept locked at night – but it’s still open during the day. There are signs telling you where the light switches are. There’s a loo. (It’s small thing, but so many open churches lock their loos. I can’t understand why.)
I am making a point of signing visitors’ books, which I’ve not been very assiduous about in the past. It’s important that people who put the effort into keeping churches open know that it’s worthwhile. It can also be helpful to churches when submitting applications for grants. Here I was in good company. A few ledgers above mine was the instantly recognisable handwriting of the watercolourist Matthew Rice.
Footpaths here are not always clear. As I left the village, map in hand, I began to enter someone’s back garden. Paul, who lives here, was in his greenhouse. He beckoned me through. ‘What’s it like,’ I asked him, ‘having a public footpath running through your property?’ ‘The previous owners didn’t like it,’ he replied, ‘but the footpath was here before the house was.’ He’s on the parish council, and seems to quite like chatting to passers-by. I told him how far I still had to walk. ‘Yer better be on yer way, me bewty!’
I crossed the A17 – no mean feat – to Terrington St Clement. This ‘Cathedral of the Marshes’ is one of the most resplendent churches in the county. Simon Knott had warned me that it was normally locked and, particularly keen to see the interior, I had emailed in advance. Alas, the church is only open when services or activities are taking place, and the vicar was on leave. I don’t want to judge churches which aren’t open during the week. There can be all sorts of reasons informing these sorts of decisions. Nonetheless, that a such a significant church building in a well-populated village is routinely locked is a serious pity.
I am finding that these walks are as much about the people I am meeting as it is the churches I am visiting. A good job here! As I walked through the churchyard, I got chatting to a gentleman who was putting a strimmer in his car. Terrington St Clement born and bred, he and his wife were married in this church in 1954. Her mother died when she was 11, and touchingly, they still tend her grave to this day. He was preparing to go to another cemetery, just over the Lincolnshire border, to tend a different grave. Their son died in a road traffic accident in 2007. He recalled the fateful knock at the door in the early hours of that day. He still holds the hurt that those who caused the accident were not found guilty. I have recent experience of ministering to a family in similar circumstances. The grief is unthinkable.
Norfolk people are often assumed to be unfriendly and unwelcoming. I don’t know why. My experience has often been the very opposite. This conversation started when I made a comment about how beautiful the church was. I didn’t even tell him I was a priest. In reply, I got his life history. It’s making me wonder if I should spend more time in my parish wandering around and randomly chatting to people. ‘Lurking with intent,’ as Bishop Peter Wheatley called it. I’m just not sure it would work in North London suburbia.
I was glad of these encounters, as the long stretch across windy marshland was a lonely one. This would not be a good walk in miserable weather. My notes told me that the key for Terrington St John was available from the village shop, which would have added another mile or two to my walk. Happily, this reasonably isolated church, set back from the road, is now open 9am-5pm.
Seventeenth century fonts are few and far between on these isles, and here was my second of the day. According to Mortlock, this church was a daughter church of Terrington St Clement until the nineteenth century, and this explains the priest’s house linking the nave and tower. Priest’s rooms, normally above the porch, as at Loddon last week, are common in Norfolk churches. They provided somewhere for visiting clergy to stay overnight. This triple-storey structure, however, is peculiar and must be unique. One goes through its lower level to reach the loo. (Again, hat tip to this church.)
I met a gravedigger in the churchyard. I’ve always been intrigued to know whether gravediggers have any other employment, or if they just go around digging graves all day. This gravedigger, at least, is a retired lorry driver, and gardening is now his main source of income. He used to drive from Wisbech to Wales and back each day, so this makes a welcome change.
Every church tower on this walk had been visible for miles. The very opposite is true of Tilney St Lawrence. In fact, this is a church which seems to use every possible technique to hide itself. Its tower is squat, and the rest of the building is rendered in cement. In 1979, according to a plaque in the churchyard, an avenue of beech trees was planted to commemorate 40 years of the Tilney St Lawrence Women’s Institute. It must have seemed a good idea at the time, but now they entirely block the view of the church. In their defence, they created the most beautiful carpet of blossom for my arrival. At first glance I thought it had been snowing. This was another locked church, but the clear-glass windows are low enough to peer through.
The final leg of my walk took me alongside Reeds Drain. The footpath is set in the dyke itself, alongside the water, a good six to eight feet lower than the adjacent fields. I expected another feast of wildlife. Instead, I found an electronically controlled American mink trap sitting on a raft in the water. American minks are endangering the water vole population, and they also eat other native animals and birds. The trap was empty, and all I spotted on this stretch of water was the occasional pair of mallards. This doesn’t bode well.
This walk delivered more than it promised. The landscape of the Fens is far more diverse and interesting than I had expected. Its churches are glorious, and the people are charming. Tomorrow’s walk starts less than a mile from today’s. It’s safe to say I’m looking forward to it.
Walk: 13.5 miles https://explore.osmaps.com/route/21321335/terringtons-and-tilneys
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