A Place of Pilgrimage: Walsingham Abbey

Skull and Cross

In the undergrowth surrounding the church of St John the Baptist, Old Lakenham.

Of All the Days: The Derelict Church of St Wandregesilius, Bixley

Not far south of Norwich, the site of the ruins of the parish church of the tiny hamlet of Bixley nonetheless feels as isolated a spot in East Anglia. Down a dirt track, surrounded by chest-high nettles and weeds, and fields beyond, the church of St Wandregesilius dates back to 1272. In 2004, it was gutted by arson, the fury of the flames still clearly evident today.

The church is notable in its own small way for being the only dedicated to Wandregesilius, the Latinised name for Wandrille, an obscure seventh century monk and hermit. The date of his death, and that of his feast, is, coincidentally, the date I wandered round the ruins of his church: July 22nd.

Candle Flicker

Flickering candle-light in St Mary's Church, Great Yarmouth.

"Once Our Foe:" The Grave of Jean de Narde, Dereham

In the churchyard of St Nicholas, Dereham - the same churchyard in which St. Walstan's Well can be found (as detailed in an October 2012 entry), lies a memorial for a French soldier called Jean de Narde. The imposing-looking bell tower of St Nicholas actually stands apart from the church proper - apparently the actual church tower is not strong enough to hold the bells, making this separate structure necessary.

Supposedly dating from around the early sixteenth century, in the late 1700s the bell tower had something of a different use - that of a holding prison for French prisoners of the Napoleonic wars. On October 6th 1799, one of these prisoners managed to escape the tower, only to be shot, and killed, by a guard. He was buried in the churchyard.

The memorial was erected in tribute to de Narde in 1858, and includes a line I found particularly moving when I read it: "Once our foes but now our allies and brethren."

"Contained the Remains of Withburga:" Saint Withburga's Well, Dereham

"Wihtburh (or Withburga) (died 743) was an East Anglia saint, princess and abbess who was possibly a daughter of Anna of East Anglia. She founded a monastery at Dereham in Norfolk and a traditional story says that the Virgin Mary sent a pair of does to provide milk for her workers during the monastery's construction. Her body is supposed to have been uncorrupted when discovered half a century after her death: it was later stolen on the orders of the abbot of Ely and a spring then appeared at the site of the saint's empty tomb at Dereham." - Wikipedia entry for 'Wihtburh'

In the churchyard of St Nicholas' Church in Dereham, this supposedly holy well remains, quietly minding its own business. According to another Wiki entry, on the history of Dereham, attempts were made in the eighteenth century to turn the town into a new Bath or Buxton by building a bath house over the well. The building was apparently ugly and unpopular and was eventually demolished in the late 1880s.

I visited on an overcast day. A young woman was sitting on a bench by the well talking loudly on her mobile phone. I felt a bit shifty, poking around with a camera, but she paid no heed. "I f**king didn't! I f**king didn't! I'm f**king telling you, I f**king didn't!" she kept yelling down the receiver. I never found out what she was denying.





















This final image is of the lady herself, on a fifteenth century rood screen inside the church.

The Raunchy Rector, The Prostitute's Padre: The Grave of Harold Davidson, the Vicar of Stiffkey

In the quiet churchyard of St John the Baptist, Stiffkey, up on the North Norfolk coast, lies the grave of a figure who scandalised early 1930s Britain. Harold Davidson was the Rector of Stiffkey from 1906 to 1932, when he was defrocked following the sensational revelations of the less respectable company he kept. It emerged that he would regularly travel to London and wander the streets of Soho, approaching prostitutes and claiming to attempt to help save them from vice by helping them find employment within the theatre industry.

The scandal was reported nationally. Even at the time, opinion was divided over whether his intentions (and, perhaps more importantly, behaviour) were honourable: however, he was thrown out of the church in 1932 and, today, amongst those who are aware of the story, is often the source of a wry smile or two. His appearance (short, middle-aged, toothy) certainly feeds well into the tradition of the utterly-unsexy British sex comedy. (Indeed, a raunchy British comedy in the early 1980s, 'The Missionary,' may have been loosely based on the case).

He his also notable for the bizarre nature of his death. In 1937, he began working at an amusement park in Skegness, where he would stand, with tame lions, in a lion cage (a reference to Daniel in the lions' den, apparently) and talk to the audience of the injustice he had recently experienced. (The fact that this was seen as a draw highlights Davidson's continuing celebrity). During one performance, he accidentally stepped on the tail of one of the placcid lions, and was promptly mauled to death.

The quotation on his grave is from Robert Louis Stevenson.