"Deserving of Imitation:" The John Fox Memorial Stone, Colney St Andrew's

At St Andrew's Church, Colney, above the porch door, is an intriguing memorial stone that illustrates the church's historical location on a main (ie traffic-heavy) thoroughfare into Norwich. The stone reads:

"Sacred To the Memory of JOHN FOX who on the 20th of Dec 1806 in the 79th Year of his Age was unfortunately kill'd near this spot having been thrust down & trampled on by the Horses of a Waggon Tho his Life was humble yet it is deserving of imitation He was a worthy & useful Member of Society an honest & industrious Labourer READER If thou drivest a team be careful & endanger not the Life of another or thine own"

Nearly two hundred years later, a near-namesake of the deceased, John Foxx, would record several songs - 'Crash,' 'Crash and Burn,' others - heavily influenced by the Ballardian fascination with the traffic accident. No real connection, of course, but still.

The Special Relationship: St Andrews Church, Hingham

The small, moneyed village of Hingham, Norfolk. A somewhat unique claim to fame here is the village's role in the creation of the modern world: this Church was the place of baptism of Samuel Lincoln, ancestor of future American President Abraham Licoln. Samuel Lincoln would be part of a group of Puritans who left Hingham in the early seventeenth century to emigrate to the colony of Massachusetts. Here they would found Hingham, Massachusetts: in the twentieth century, during the Second World War, Eleanor Roosevelt would refer to this Hingham's Main Street as "the most beautiful Main Street in America." There are numerous signs of the relationship between the two Hinghams: a tea-shop in the village is called Lincoln's, for instance, and there are numerous plaques and items (such as a bust of Abraham Lincoln) in St Andrews Church presented by representatives of the Massachusetts Hingham.

Paradoxical Loneliness: The Ruins of St. Andrew, Whitlingham

The ruins of the medieval church of St Andrew, at Whitlingham, close to Norwich. Located on the top of a ridge overlooking the Yare, most of the church has collapsed over the years (such as the round tower, in 1940), or has been pulled down for building materials.

Despite the fact that the church has not been in use since the Reformation, some features remaining are Victorian: sites such as The Norfolk Churches Site ( http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/whitlingham/whitlingham.htm )suggest that for many years the church was preserved for aesthetic considerations. Little concern now: nowadays, the A47 noisily screams past only a few yards away.

In obvious ways, this has dragged the site away from its picturesque beginnings and towards something far more grey and ugly. The easiest way to approach the church, for instance, is on an old cracked access road for workers used during the A47's construction. Yet it does provide the ruins with a new, stranger atmosphere. It is difficult to actually make out the A47 or its traffic through the roadside trees, and the incessant sounds of passing traffic provides visitors with the feeling of seperation, of invisibility in the face of the mundane and the harsh. The fact that there is no official access to the site (visiting involves clambering over fencing and tramping through nettles), and it is situated at the 'wrong end' of Whitlingham Lane (all traffic for the ski-slopes and the Broad stops much farther up), maintains this place's paradoxical feeling of isolation and loneliness.

Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?

The in-no-way-amusingly named Suckling Chapel, in the medieval St Andrews Church, Norwich. The second largest church in the city, there is plenty to see here, but I was drawn mainly to the grand monument to politician Sir John Suckling (1569-1627) and his first wife, Lady Martha.

(Sir John's son, another Sir John Suckling (1609-1642), penned the poem 'Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?').