Category Archives: churches

Wenhaston Doom

02 Tue Dec 2025

Posted by in architecture, churches, Days out, Rural Diary

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It is strange how one can live for years near to places of beauty or interest but never get around to visiting them.  There always seem to be other things to do and of course these places will always be there, won’t they? And we will always be able to get to them whenever we like – yes?  Elinor and I decided to visit one on a very warm afternoon in June this year.

Wenhaston church

Wenhaston is about ten miles from where we live, is fairly near to Southwold on the coast, and is surrounded by farms and heathland.  Not too far away is Bulcamp, the site of a battle in the year 654 between the Anglian King Anna and the Mercian King Penda.  Anna and a couple of his sons were killed during the battle.  A workhouse was built at Bulcamp in 1764 which then became a fever hospital and has now been converted into apartments.  A little bleak and isolated for my liking. There is a nice pub in Wenhaston and I think the choir I belonged to years ago performed a concert or two in the village hall. I also had to take Alice to Wenhaston once a week for guitar lessons for a while.

Plants on the churchyard wall

Mexican fleabane

Perforate St John’s-wort

Wenhaston church

Wenhaston church

Elinor and I had come to see the church which is situated in the middle of the village.  It is referred to in the Domesday Book and part of it is of Saxon origin.  For many years it was looked after by Blythburgh Priory but like lots of churches in this country it suffered much during the reign of Edward VI and also during the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell.  William Dowsing‘s men visited in 1643 and according to the Wenhaston church guide book ‘did a lot of damage, breaking the stained glass, taking down the carved angels from the roof, removing the organ and the font cover, destroying the altar, hacking the pulpit about and much else besides’.  What they didn’t find was the Doom which the people of the parish had covered with whitewash many years earlier during Edward’s reign when he had demanded the destruction of all roods and the abolition of paintings and pictures in church.  For three centuries and more it stayed undiscovered and forgotten on the rood beam, whitewashed and painted over with passages from the Bible.

Scale model of the church on a windowsill

The bell-tower with the ropes lifted high, out of the reach of the hoi-polloi. There are six bells, two of which are medieval and probably came from Blythburgh Priory.

Here are the local Constable’s manacles for the stocks hanging up in the vestry. Redundant now of course, and there is no local constable any more either. I think that is a truncheon hanging there too!

In 1892 the East end of the church was rebuilt.  During the dismantling of the roof the rood beam was discovered intact and to still have its original paint and gilding.  The whitewashed Doom was removed plank by plank and thrown out into the churchyard for later destruction.  Fortunately, it rained heavily during that night and in the morning the painting underneath was beginning to emerge from under the whitewash.  The whole Doom was cleaned and experts were called in to assess its provenance.  The Doom was put on display and people paid to see it; the proceeds of which helped to pay for the rebuilding of the roof and the church was then able to get even more repairs done.  The new chancel arch was too narrow for the Doom to be replaced in its old position so for a while it was put on the West wall of the church where there was a gallery.  The gallery was removed in 1927 so that the Doom could be seen more easily and sometime later the Doom was placed where it is now on the North wall.

The Doom

The Doom is a representation of the Last Judgement.  It was probably painted in about 1520 or just before then, the date partly based on the style of the Virgin Mary’s bodice as depicted in the Doom. The villagers had started saving for the work to be done during the 1480’s. Dooms were usually placed on the chancel arch which separates the Nave where the common people worship – the Church Militant – and the Chancel, where the priests lead the worship – the Church Triumphant.  A rood screen was often placed at the chancel arch, which added to the seclusion of the chancel, and the sculpted or carved figures of Our Lord on the Cross with the Virgin Mary on one side and St John the Baptist on the other were placed on the top of the rood beam.  In this church the figures of the rood were attached to the Doom.  The figures have long since disappeared but their position and shape can be seen by the blank spaces on the Doom painting.

At the top of the Doom on the left is God as Christ seated on a rainbow and displaying His wounds.  At the top on the right are the Virgin Mary and St John the Baptist kneeling in prayer.  (Sadly my photograph of these two latter figures wasn’t good enough to show here).

This is God appearing as Christ, the Son of Man

Beneath the figures of the Virgin and St John is the Archangel Michael with the Devil. The early Church adapted many pagan customs and ideas to Christian purposes in order to ease the transition from the pagan life to that of being a Christian.  One such custom was the idea of a messenger from Heaven and therefore the attributes of the Roman god Mercury were assumed by the Archangel Michael who became the guide of the dead.  Mercury weighed souls in classical mythology so now Michael holds the scales in his left hand.  His right hand holds his sword and he wears a circlet surmounted by a cross on his head.  The circlet at the time was very fashionable in Northern European and also English art.  You can see resurrected souls behind Michael and the Devil wending their way towards St Peter. The dead have arisen as naked as they were when they were created and all aged about 33, the age at which Christ was thought to have died.

The Archangel Michael and the Devil

The Devil is wearing ragged sleeves and trousers which, according to the guide book, suggests the outfit worn by the Devil when the Wenhaston actors visited the seaside village of Walberswick in the late 15th century.  The Walberswick churchwardens described the entertainment as the ‘Wenhaston game’.  There is a second face painted on the Devil’s belly.  This is an artistic convention often seen in late medieval painting which suggests that the Devil’s soul had been put at the service of his lower appetite and he was no better than a brute.  The Latin text says ‘N(unc) quo deest tu facias tabo amnesta – now for what is lacking may you give pardon for sin’.  This is for the benefit of these two (rather cute) little souls in the upper pan of the scales as they are weighed against the single pure soul in the lower pan.

Beneath the image of Christ are the resurrected souls appearing above ground and their headgear – crowns, tiaras and mitres – have been included to show their station in life. Usually, the rich and powerful are seen mixing with ordinary mortals in Dooms to show equality on Judgement Day but in the Wenhaston Doom they are set apart for some reason.  Meeting them is St Peter in his papal tiara representing The Church which alone had the power to admit men and women to eternal life through the Sacraments.

St Peter and the Resurrected.

The sheep and the goats have been separated and the sheep are admitted to the heavenly Mansions.  This is shown on the far left of the Doom.

‘Do come in and make yourselves at home!’

The goats however, have only the eternal fires and gnashing of teeth to look forward to.  On the far right of the Doom little devils gather up the accursed and cast them into the jaws of Hell which are depicted here as the gaping, toothed mouth of a fish.  Leviathan, a huge aquatic creature is often mentioned in Hebrew poetry and this led to commentators and artists seeing Satan as Leviathan.  In the picture there is also a person still wearing their shroud, a swine’s snout, a devil blowing on a ram’s horn (the last trump?), the damned encircled by red-hot chains and the Seven Deadly Sins are represented, one of them carrying a female figure upside-down.

The text underneath the Doom is probably Elizabethan and is from an unknown version of the English Bible.  Romans 13 vv 1-4

“Let every soule submit him selfe unto the authorytye of the hygher powers for there is no power but of God the Powers that be are ordyend of God, but they that rest or are againste the ordinaunce of God shall recyve to them selves utter damnacion.  For rulers are not fearfull to them that do good but to them that do evyll for he is the mynister of God”.

I am greatly indebted to the excellent guide book I bought at the church for the explanation of the Doom’s symbolism.

Elinor in her red hat contemplating the Doom. The wooden panelling you can see beyond her under the windows are the repurposed box pews.

The interior of the church looking Eastward towards the altar

The Font – a Seven Sacrament font but unfortunately the reliefs that had been in the arched panels were erased in the 19th century. Behind the font is the George III Royal Arms

The East window

A map of the parish

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Above is a gallery of all the windows in the church and below is the door.

The outside of the South door, the main entrance to the church. The door retains the medieval sanctuary knocker.

A cupboard with a catch

The Charity Board

Part of the new chancel arch from 1892

More carved panelling from the box pews.

The Nave roof

Part of a memorial to Reverend J Leman who died in Bath.

Medieval Holy water stoup on the outside of the church next to the door

Chest tombs
Chest tomb

Apologies for the length of this post.

Bungay Re-visited.

27 Tue Feb 2024

Posted by in architecture, churches, plants, Rural Diary, walking

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This last autumn and winter have been especially wet, so walking from home has not often been possible because of the mud and deep puddles everywhere.  In fact, I don’t think I have walked along our lanes since the autumn, though Richard has – he is a hardier soul than me!  The field paths are probably very squelchy and much too difficult for me to walk on as well.  Most of my recent walking has been town or city-based when I have driven to Norwich, Halesworth, Beccles, Harleston or Bungay to shop.

I have taken a few photos, mainly with my phone during my recents trips to Bungay and I thought I would share some of them with you.

When I first moved to East Anglia in the 80’s I was told that in former times there used to be lots of mistletoe here but it had virtually disappeared from this part of Suffolk.  It had mainly grown on apple trees and when the fruit farmers decided that growing apples had become uneconomical because of cheap imports, many of the old orchards were grubbed up and the mistletoe went too.  Recently, I have noticed mistletoe making a come-back, mainly in the towns rather than the countryside.  Mistletoe is a partial parasite and makes it’s home on a variety of trees – apple, lime, hawthorn, poplar, maple and willow and the best time to see it is during the winter when the host trees have lost their leaves.  There are many trees in Bungay with mistletoe but I have just included three examples.

The darker masses on this tree (I think it’s a hawthorn) opposite the Co-Op supermarket are mistletoe plants (Viscum album )

Balls of mistletoe on trees in-between where the Co-Op is situated and the centre of the town.

Mistletoe on trees at a road junction.

A little further on from the road junction and close to the centre of town is a road called Wharton Street and that is where the library is.  On the opposite side of the road to the library is a house sporting a popular architectural feature seen on many houses in Suffolk; an oriel window.

House with oriel window.

Probably because parts of Bungay were owned by the Dukes of Norfolk who are Roman Catholic, Bungay has a fine Roman Catholic church and an attached Roman Catholic primary school.

A poor picture of the Roman Catholic church in Bungay taken from the church yard belonging to the redundant Church of England Priory Church of St Mary next door.

The Priory Church of St Mary. A redundant church looked after by a charity.

Holy Trinity church.

Holy Trinity church is the parish church in Bungay and is found behind the Abbey Church.  It is a smaller building and so easier to look after than the enormous St Mary’s church.  Holy Trinity was not damaged in the dreadful fire during the 1600’s whereas the Abbey church was; two of the people sheltering inside the Abbey church were killed by molten lead from the roof falling on them.

Here is the Butter Cross in the centre of Bungay. A market is held here once a week on a Thursday. Here is more information about the markets in Bungay.

Cork Bricks

This little passageway between houses is called Cork Bricks.  A strange name for an alleyway but during the 1890’s the owner of the house on the left of the photo had the cobbles replaced by cork bricks when his wife was ill and was greatly disturbed by the noise of traffic clattering past the house.  Read here for more information.  If you look at the sign on the archway over the entrance you will see a running black dog on the top.  The dog is ‘Black Shuck‘, a phantom hound that features quite heavily in East Anglian folklore.

Bridge Street

I walked down Bridge Street towards the River Waveney.  The Waveney is the border between Suffolk and Norfolk and once the Falcon Bridge is crossed Bridge Street becomes Ditchingham Dam and we have entered Ditchingham in Norfolk.

Boroughwell Lane

Just a step or two down Bridge Street from the Market Place is a tiny lane off to the right.  This is Boroughwell Lane where the town well was situated.  The lane makes a sharp right turn further along and ends up near Holy Trinity church.

Bridge Street looking back up towards the Market Place with the cream-fronted Chequers Inn on the right.

Bridge Street is a one-way road for cars; drivers can only go down from the Market Place but cyclists, using the cycle lane marked on the left of the carriageway, are able to go up the hill to the market place.

Bridge Street looking down it in the direction of the bridge.

Further along Bridge Street looking towards the Market Place. The houses are painted so brightly and look very cheerful.

On the left of the photo is a red brick house called The Music House and just beyond it you can see an evergreen tree standing at the entrance to a courtyard.

The courtyard.

Both the houses you see here have had well-known people living in them.  The red brick house on the left (The Music House) was once stayed in by the writer, politician, diplomat and historian François-René Vicomte de Chateaubriand.  After being wounded during the Siege of Thionville in 1792 he was exiled to England and spent most of his time living in extreme poverty in London.  For some reason, he came to Bungay and stayed at the house (now the Music House) of a Mr and Mrs Ives.  He fell in love with their seventeen year-old daughter Charlotte but the romance came to an end when Charlotte’s parents discovered that the Vicomte was already married!  The wedding ceremony had taken place shortly before he had gone off to war.  It was a marriage arranged by his family and he had never met his bride before the ceremony.  He was constantly unfaithful to his wife and also changed his allegiance a number of times.  He was appointed to an official position by Napoleon on his return to France but he eventually resigned in disgust after Napoleon had Chateaubriand’s cousin executed.  Chateaubriand published a strongly-worded criticism of Napoleon for which Napoleon threatened to have him sabred on the steps of the Tuileries Palace!  In the end he was just banned from entering Paris.  He eventually returned to England as Ambassador to France in the 1820’s where his personal chef created the Chateaubriand steak dish you might have heard of.

Chateaubriand – self-confessed greatest lover, greatest writer and greatest philosopher of his age! (Thanks to cdn.britannica.com for the image)

The white house in the courtyard, Bridge House, (look! it has an oriel window) was lived in by the writer and actress Elizabeth Jane Howard for the last twenty-four years of her life.  She died in 2014 at the age of ninety. Abused by her father and unloved by her mother she looked for love all through her life and never found what she seeked, a stable, loving relationship.  She was married three times firstly to Peter Scott the naturalist and son of Robert Falcon Scott the explorer, secondly to another writer James Douglas Henry and lastly to Kingsley Amis the novelist.  She moved to Bungay after a friend, the artist Sargy Mann, said the house next-door was for sale and it would suit her.  It did, and she bought it straight away. She loved the long garden which led down to the river and re-designed and re-planted it.  Here is a wonderful obituary written by her friend Hilary Mantel. Elizabeth Jane Howard wrote the Cazalet Chronicles as well as a number of other superb novels.  Her autobiography, Slipstream is one of the most honest I have ever read.  She never glosses over anything she’d rather not admit to as other writers often do.

Elizabeth Jane Howard (with thanks to Babelio.com for the image)

More houses in Bridge Street

The last house before the bridge.

Here I am on the Norfolk side of the bridge looking towards Suffolk.

The River Waveney in its winter gloom.

 

I hope you have enjoyed this tour of a part of Bungay in Suffolk.

Huntingfield Church, Suffolk

13 Thu Apr 2023

Posted by in architecture, art, churches, Rural Diary

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For a number of reasons I have not posted anything on my blog for about a year.  Problems with the internet last Easter, an old laptop, a camera that needs servicing (or replacing), health issues and hardly any walks and journeys to share with you are the main reasons.  The almost complete absence of internet for ten days or so last Easter forced me into the hiatus and when the wi-fi returned I felt strangely unwilling to resume my WordPress and other internet activities. I obviously needed a break from being on-line; not that I am on-line a lot but I was finding I was becoming stressed because I didn’t have the time to read all the posts I wanted to and wasn’t able to comment fully on those posts.

During the last few months I have rediscovered not only the joy of reading all sorts of books but also the satisfaction I get from knitting.  Unfortunately, the gardening came to a halt during the hot summer drought and many of my garden plants died.  I am having to rethink how I will tend my garden in the future.  Richard and I were able to get away for a week’s holiday in early September to the Peak District in Staffordshire; our first break since the summer of 2019.  What a pleasure it was to revisit favourite places and to meet up with Alice and Elinor on my birthday.  Elinor stayed with Alice in Sheffield while Richard and I had our holiday.

Elinor finished her time at the University of Suffolk and was awarded a First Class Honours degree in Graphic Design (Graphic Illustration). We all attended her graduation in October on a very wet and chilly day; how proud we were!

I now have a new lap-top which has made life much easier but as yet, I haven’t been able to do anything about my camera.

May I take this opportunity to thank you all for your kind wishes and thoughtful comments on my posts.  I had no idea that I would spend so long away from my blog and I apologise for not explaining my absence earlier.

I have decided to ease my way back in by sharing a visit Elinor and I made to Huntingfield church last November.

Huntingfield church

This was the first time we had visited this church, which is surprising as it is only just over seven miles from our house.  Years and years ago, my father used to attend mid-week mass here helping the priest as a server or acolyte.

The church was begun in the 11th century but most of the building we see now is from the 15th century.  It is in good repair and has had a number of works of restoration done over the years.

The porch and main door

The church is known locally as the painted church.

Painted ceiling of the nave

detail from the nave ceiling

Detail from the chancel ceiling

Detail from the chancel ceiling

I took more photos of the ceiling with my phone but they weren’t a success. As you can see, the decorations are of more recent date than the church.  Any painting and decoration the church had had originally would have been destroyed or removed during the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century or during the time of the Commonwealth in the 17th century.  The ceiling was painted in the mid-19th century by a woman called Mildred Holland who was the Rector’s wife.  She worked on the painting of the chancel from September 1859 until April 1860 with no apparent help from anyone other than local tradesmen who put the scaffolding up for her and prepared and primed the surface of the ceiling.  She also had advice from a Mr. E.L. Blackburne F.S.A. who was an authority on medieval decoration.  Three years later she began painting again, this time in the Nave and the scaffolding eventually came down in 1866.  It is said she did most of the painting while lying on her back.  She ordered the angels and other figures from a specialist tradesman and had them fitted for her but painted them herself.  Her husband had received an inheritance just before they arrived at the parish and this money was spent on repairs, new windows and furnishings as well as all the equipment needed for his wife’s painting work.

Pew end

Pew end

We visited shortly after Remembrance Sunday

Pew end (and a glimpse of Elinor!)

Pew end

Pew end

Pew end

Pew end

The font with its ornate cover

Top of the font cover

Font cover

William Holland presented the church with this font cover in memory of his wife who died in 1878, twelve years after she had finished her painting.

A scrap of the original decoration on the wall

Fragments of a Saxon stone coffin and standing cross from the 10th century

Church door

The table tomb of William and Mildred Holland to the right and a standing cross in their memory to the left

The church has never been long without patrons who help to find funds for restoration work.  I was surprised to see that the guide book to the church is illustrated by the artist David Gentleman.

Here is a link to more information about the church.

You could also read a novel based on the story of Mildred and William’s work in Huntingfield church.  It is called “The Huntingfield Paintress” and is by Pamela Holmes.  I read it out of interest and found it well written aand well researched.  It was too romantic for my taste but other readers have been very pleased with it.

 

 

Castle Acre Priory

26 Sat Sep 2020

Posted by in architecture, churches, Days out, family, Historic Buildings, plants, Rural Diary

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It was Richard’s birthday in the middle of August and to celebrate, he decided he would like to visit Castle Acre Priory in Norfolk.  The Priory is a ruin which is cared for by English Heritage.

Because of Covid-19 restrictions we had to book a ‘slot’ and pre-pay for our visit.  We were so happy to have Alice staying with us for a week; she had arrived the day before and accompanied us on our trip.  We made a picnic lunch to take with us and set out at 11.00 am as our ‘slot’ was at 1.00 pm.  I drove us there and because the traffic was light we arrived in very good time.  We ate our picnic sitting in the car in the car-park;  it was a dull, cool day and the only benches and tables were beyond the reception building.  We had liked the look of Castle Acre village as we drove through it, (it also has a castle and an interesting-looking church) but it was very crowded with visitors wandering about the narrow lanes.  We will return in happier times, I think.

We donned our masks and presented ourselves at the reception desk where we were given a map of the priory and I bought a guide book.  Just outside the reception building was a charming herb garden.

Castle Acre Priory herb garden

There were a couple of stands of plants for sale. I resisted buying from them with difficulty!

This was our first view of the priory ruins on leaving the herb garden

Castle Acre was chosen by William de Warenne, a Norman knight who had fought at the Battle of Hastings, to be the headquarters of all his newly acquired Norfolk properties.  The castle, the priory and the massive 12th century town defences were all built by successive generations of the de Warenne family.  The building of the priory was begun in 1090 by de Warenne’s son.

The west front of the priory church

Just look at this exquisite blind arcading!

Have a closer look…

Carved archway in the west front

More intricate carving, with a couple of grotesques

We always seem to visit a place which is currently having work done to it!  Last year we visited Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire because I wished to see its stunning facade.  ‘Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall’.  When we got there (in the pouring rain, I might add) the whole of the front was covered in scaffolding because of on-going restoration work.

This time, a number of projects were being worked on at the priory which restricted where we were able to go.

The Prior’s chapel is to the left as you look at the photo and the Prior’s great chamber/study is on the right with its fabulous bay window, added in the early 16th century.  Further round the corner on the right side of the building you can see the side view of an early 16th century oriel window.

The Prior’s study with the oriel window is on the left and a late 15th century two-storey porch is on the right. The taller building behind the porch is the Prior’s lodging. You can also see the connecting passages and galleries of the west range joining the lodging to the Prior’s chapel behind the great chamber.  The Prior’s chapel was also connected to the Priory church so the Prior had no need to go outside at all, unless he wished to.

Another view of the Prior’s buildings

This is part of the decoration on the oriel window. It must be a portrait of someone, don’t you think? Such a wonderful face!  Apologies for the poor photo.

From left to right; entrance to the west range of the priory, then a kitchen and behind it the refectory and then the building on the far right is the reredorter or latrine block.

Restoration work is being done to the bridge (in the foreground) over the leat and also to the south boundary wall. The leat is a diversion of the River Nar; this leat was used by the monks to take the waste away from the reredorter. They dug the channel close to the priory and then built the latrine block over the top of it. The leat is dry at present.

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Castle Acre Priory was a Cluniac priory, a daughter-house of the great monastery at Cluny in Burgundy.  With the support of kings and nobility many Cluniac priories were created in England between 1076 and 1154.  During the wars with France the Cluniac priories had restrictions placed on them because they were ‘alien’ even though most of the monks were, in fact, English.  Gifts to the priory were reduced and the French monks were repatriated. Only after obtaining English or ‘denizen’ status did their situation improve again and their numbers increase.  Castle Acre was suppressed by Thomas Cromwell during the reign of Henry VIII and the deed of surrender was signed on 22 November 1537.  Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk acquired the lease of the priory’s site, lands and rights.  By the following summer the priory buildings were being demolished, though the Prior’s lodging was retained as a house.

Richard and Alice at the Priory

My girls!

Elinor with the reredorter in the background. You can see clearly here how the building straddles the leat.

Richard, Alice and Elinor

It started to rain, and we decided it was time to go home.

Alice and Richard approaching the bay of the south aisle of the priory church under the south-west tower

The ceiling of the bay under the tower

Arched exit from the south-west tower

View from under the south-west tower looking towards the inside of the west door and onwards to what would have been the north-west tower

As usual, I also took photos of the plants living on and near the ruins.

A Willowherb. It could be Hoary Willowherb ( Epilobium parviflorum) because of its very hairy stem and leaves. Growing on a wall would account for its small size.  (There are other willowherbs which are hairy which accounts for my doubtful ID).

Many plants growing on one of the walls

White Stonecrop (Sedum album)  I find its red leaves most attractive

White Stonecrop

White Stonecrop

Horse Chestnut ( Aesculus hippocastanum) These leaves are badly affected by leaf blotch caused by a fungus.  Horse chestnut trees are also often badly attacked by Horse chestnut leaf-mining moth larvae

Wild Teasel ( Dipsacus fullonum)

Wild teasel

Maidenhair spleenwort ( Asplenium trichomanes) Recognizable by its black midrib

I think this might be Roseroot (Sedum rosea).  Not a plant one would expect to find in this part of the country

Harebells ( Campanula rotundifolia) and Black Medick ( Medicago lupulina)

Harebells

Common liverwort/Umbrella liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha )  Common liverwort is a thallose liverwort; it has flattened leaf-like structures (thalli) with forked branches.  Common liverwort is also dioicous – it has separate male and female plants. This photo is of a female plant as it has star-like umbrella structures some of which are showing yellow mature sporangia or spores.  Common liverworts can also reproduce asexually by ‘gemmae’ produced in gammae cups which can be seen centre bottom of the photo on the thalli.  The gemmae are knocked out of the cups by splashes of water/raindrops.

Lady’s bedstraw (Galium verum )

Wallflower ( Erysimum cheiri)

I think this is Common calamint (Clinopodium ascendens )

Common calamint

We had a very enjoyable few hours at the priory and I hope to return to Castle Acre one day to look around the village and revisit the priory.

To end this post, I have added the following English Heritage guide to Medieval Monastic life….

and, here is the Salve Regina, a chant that would have been sung (probably not to this tune) when Castle Acre Priory was in its glory.

 

South Elmham Minster

01 Wed Jul 2020

Posted by in churches, Days out, Historic Buildings, plants, Rural Diary, walking, wild flowers

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WARNING: OVERLONG POST

It was our 26th wedding anniversary the Thursday before last and we had intended to go out for a walk and take a picnic with us.  However, the morning was very wet and, even though the rain had stopped by midday we decided that walking through long grass and along overgrown paths and then trying to find somewhere to sit and eat our lunch without getting wet would be too difficult, so we put off the walk until the following day.  I did the ironing instead.

Friday was a much better day for a walk, with warmth, some sunshine and a fair amount of cloud.  There was a light shower of rain mid-morning and another just as we approached our picnic spot but not enough to dampen our spirits or make the going, or sitting, any trouble.

As usual, I took my pocket camera with me and looked out for things of interest.  You will have to excuse the quality of the photos; I have to take the pictures as quickly as possible so that I am not left behind.  Also my camera has decided it doesn’t like pink and has changed all the pink flowers to blue or purple.

The beautiful almond-scented Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) was already in bloom along the lane just a few metres from our house.  This is a native plant.

I quote here from my ID, ‘Harrap’s Wild Flowers’ by Simon Harrap ” The name (Meadowsweet) refers to its use in flavouring mead and other drinks, rather than a predilection for meadows, and also used as a strewing herb, scattered on the floor to freshen up the house.”

The Dogwoods (Cornus sanguinea) have been marvellous this year. Most were past their best already but I felt I just had to record this shrub’s swansong.

This is a plant I have known since I was a small girl. It used to grow prolifically in the places I played. Pineappleweed (Matricaria discoidea)

The plant gives off a very strong pineapple scent when it is crushed.  It is an introduced plant, coming originally from east Asia and was first recorded in the wild in this country in 1871.

Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris). This tiny little plant was right next to the Pineappleweed (which you can see bottom right of the photo). It gets its name from the shape of the seed pods.  You can see them surrounding the upper white flowerhead; they are grey-brown in colour and triangular.  Shepherd’s Purse is an ancient introduction to this country.

Hedgerow Cranesbill (Geranium pyrenaicum). This is one of the plants my camera decided should not be as pink as it is. It has rather lovely darker veins on its petals. This is yet another introduction, this time from southern Europe and was first recorded in the wild here in 1762.  I have added a link for you to see the usual colour of the flower.

Creeping Cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans). I love the zingy lemon-yellow of this flower! Next to a buttercup it looks too bright but on its own backed by its lovely soft green leaves it looks glorious.

Italian Alder (Alnus cordata). Halfway down our lane a row of Italian Alders were planted as a windbreak. What attractive trees they are! Here you can see the substantial heart-shaped glossy leaves, dark cones from last year and the new green cones. This tree has beautiful long catkins in the spring which flutter in the strong winds that blow here.

Pretty pink and white striped Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis ) along the edge of this crop of Field Beans.

As you can see from this photo, it was quite breezy during our walk; not the best conditions for getting good pictures in a hurry! In amongst the grass you can see the brown seedheads of Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata).

Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra). The hard flowerheads of this plant have given it the name ‘Knap’ weed; ‘knap’ meaning knob.

In olden times, this flower could be used to tell a girl whether she would marry soon.  She had to pull all the expanded florets off the flowerhead and then put the rest of the flower inside her blouse, next to her heart.  After an hour she should take it out again and if the previously unexpanded florets had blossomed, that was a sure sign that the man she was going to marry was soon coming her way.

By this time we had left the lane and were walking along a footpath between fields.

Oxeye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare). Sitting on the flower on the right is a Thick-legged Flower Beetle (Oedemera nobilis).  Only the males of this harmless shiny green beetle have the distinctive swollen ‘thighs’.

Lady’s Bedstraw (Galium verum). This is the only photo I managed to get of this pretty plant and most of it is out of focus because of the wind blowing it about.

Harrap’s tells me it is ‘honey-scented when fresh but smells of new-mown hay when dry.  Formerly believed to discourage fleas and was incorporated into straw mattresses, especially for the beds of women about to give birth, hence its name.’

I cannot confirm the information about the scent because: 1. I would have found it very difficult getting down low enough to smell the plant and would then have struggled to get back up again, so I didn’t. 2. The wind was blowing too strongly for the delicate scent to be discernible and 3. I haven’t got a strong sense of smell, anyway.  We’ll just have to take Mr Harrap’s word for it.

Lesser Trefoil (Trifolium dubium). This plant with its three leaflets joined together is widely believed to be the true shamrock.  There are other plants which are also thought to be the shamrock; white clover, black medick, watercress and wood sorrel.

This plant is one of the hop trefoils; its seedheads look like tiny heads of hops.  Once the seeds begin to ripen the petals don’t fall off the plant but turn brown and the standard, the upper petal of the flower, folds down on either side of its centre line over the ripening pod like a ridged roof.  If you click on the photo above to enlarge it and look about a third of the way up from the bottom, you will find a seed head in the centre.  Does that make sense?

Pyramidal Orchid (Anacamptis pyramidalis).

Another not-as-pink, pink flower.  Here is a link to images of what a Pyramidal Orchid really looks like.

I believe this plant might be Oxford Ragwort (Senecio squalidus). The leaves look too evenly-branched to be the native Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) though the latter plant is what I would expect to find here. Oxford Ragwort is found mainly in urban settings. It escaped from Oxford Botanic Garden in 1794 and then spread rapidly via the railway network. It sounds like the main character in a John Buchan novel!

Ragwort is poisonous, its leaves containing an alkaloid poison that can remain in plants that have been dried with hay.  Animals are not aware they are eating it when it’s in hay (though they will avoid it when it is growing in the field) and the alkaloids will destroy their livers in just a few months. Understandably, farmers will try to get rid of all the ragwort they find.

Our aim was to picnic at South Elmham Minster and we discovered it surrounded by trees.  It is on private land but the owners allow walkers to visit it as long as they respect the place.

Here is Elinor discovering and photographing the entrance to the site.

Richard, Alice and I had been here before, when we walked to it from St James in April 1995, nearly two years before Elinor was born!  We hadn’t been back since, though it is only half an hour’s walk from our present home.

The entrance and path leading to the ruins of the ‘Minster’ were very overgrown which somehow added a frisson of mystery to the occasion.

To the Minster

There was a lot of Comfrey growing next to the path.

Common Comfrey (Symphytum officinale). These flowers were lavender-coloured.

And there it was!

South Elmham Minster

Instead of me writing screeds about this interesting ruin I will recommend this article for you to read, if you so wish.

Here is an information sign with the ubiquitous ‘artist’s impression’ of the Minster.

Here is a message we found. We have no idea when the damage was done or when this sign was put up. It looks fairly recent.

We wandered around for a short while and then sat on the bench provided under the trees and had our lunch.

Our picnic spot

Below are a few photos of the ruins themselves.

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An interesting tree-trunk.

Many of the trees surrounding the Minster were Hornbeam (Carpinus betulus).  Hornbeam trunks are said to be ‘fluted’ which might describe the tree above.

Hornbeam pleated leaves with bunches of fruits

The Hornbeam nut forms with a three-lobed bract attached that sometimes grows as long as 5cms.  This acts as ‘wings’ when the nut is released from the tree in the autumn.

I think the Hornbeams have been coppiced in the past though Hornbeams are usually pollarded.  Local children have been making dens under the trees.

Lesser Burdock ( Arctium minus)

Cleavers or Goosegrass (Galium aparine)

Above are two different plants with fruits covered in hooks.  The stems and leaves of Cleavers also have bristles that cause them to stick to anything that touches them.

An enormous Bramble patch! (Rubus fruticosus agg. )

A bird had made a nest in one of the hollows in the wall. It was empty.

Another enormous Lesser Burdock; it must have been almost 2 metres tall. By this time the sun had come out and the air was becoming warm.

The ditch; looking left
The ditch; looking right

There was another exit path from the Minster which crossed the wide surrounding ditch.  This ditch is fairly deep though my photographs do not show this at all clearly.

A Hoverfly, I’m not sure which one, on a large Buttercup flower; again I’m not sure which buttercup.

Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica). In reality this flower is a little pinker than this photo shows.

Woundworts have been used to stem bleeding and treat wounds since the time of the ancient Greeks.  Formally, the leaves were usually used as a poultice.  Ointments and infusions were also made with the leaves and the flowers made into conserves.  In fact, the volatile oil in Hedge Woundwort does have antiseptic qualities.

Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis)

The Dog’s Mercury was all in seed. This one appears to have lost a few of its upper seeds.  Dog’s Mercury is extremely poisonous to animals and humans alike.

We left the Minster and walked home in the sunshine.

Mayweed.  I wasn’t able to check to see if it was Scentless or Scented Mayweed.  The white outer ray florets were just emerging round the central disc-florets of these daisy-like flowerheads.

Lesser Stitchwort (Stellaria graminea).

Field Rose (Rosa arvensis).

Field entrance

I didn’t take many photos of our surroundings as we walked and most of those shots were not suitable.  I am glad this one came out as it shows the countryside through which we walked.  Old-fashioned small fields with high dense hedges.  Lots of birds were still singing and wherever we walked we heard numerous skylarks.

A drainage ditch

Richard pointed out the cracked clay sides of this ditch.  The water though not deep, was running quickly along and was particularly clear.  We saw small fish swimming in it.

Further along, the ditch was crossed by a small bridge with what I assume is a gate to prevent sheep from crossing from one field to the next.

A cart pond.  In former times, when carthorses needed to drink, the cart drivers could get into these ponds and out again easily without having to take the horses off the cart.

Pyramidal orchid

Field edge full of orchids…

…and yet more

A selection of different Vetches

Hedge Bedstraw ( Galium album)

Borage ( Borago officinalis)

Agrimony ( Agrimonia eupatoria)

A field full of wild flowers

Unfortunately I couldn’t get into the field because of a deep ditch around it.  I had to take my photos using the zoom on my camera.

Sainfoin ( Onobrychis viciifolia)

I think the pretty pink and white clover in the centre of the photo is Alsike Clover ( Trifolium hybridum)

I think the owner of this field has sown some wildflower seed mix here.  I have never seen so many different flowers all in one field before.  From what I hear from the stories of the elderly people I know at church, all the fields were covered in wild flowers like these when they were young.  Intensive agriculture was becoming the norm thirty or forty years ago: hedges were ripped out and everything was sprayed to kill off the wild flowers and most of the insects.  This was still being done when I moved to East Anglia in 1988 and the birds I heard regularly then and the quantities of moths, butterflies and other insects I used to see then are much reduced.  I especially noticed the difference when I returned to East Anglia in 2006 after our 18 months in Somerset.  Far fewer insects certainly.  However, we had got used to hearing and seeing Buzzards during that 18 months while in Somerset and I was greatly surprised and excited to see and hear a Buzzard in Suffolk for the first time in 2007.  They are well established here now.

Common Mallow ( Malva sylvestris)  The Common Mallow is an ancient introduction to this country.  It seems to line all the lanes at this time of year.

This is the rather handsome caterpillar of the Peacock butterfly . I found it crossing the lane as I was nearing home.

You will be glad to know we all got home safely having met no-one on our walk and only saw a lady driving her pony and trap and I think a couple of cars along the lane.You will be especially glad to know that this is the end of the post!

No Time to Stand and Stare

24 Mon Feb 2020

Posted by in churches, family, Folk Traditions, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, wild birds

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Both our cars are covered in mud all the time; they are in a worse state now than in the photo! Most of our lane is inches deep in sloppy mud and it is hardly worth our while to wash the cars.

This year has been crazily busy so far and there has been no time for even a short walk since the new year.  At last, I have managed to catch-up with all my blog reading, I’ve sorted out all my bank statements and receipts and have got rid of large amounts of paper.  I have even spent a little time in the garden weeding and tidying-up the flowerbeds; there has been very little cold weather and the weeds have grown and grown!

Rosemary ( Rosmarinus ‘Miss Jessup’s Upright’) in flower in January

Witch Hazel; the stems covered in lichen.

Crocus
Crocus

Snowdrops. These and the crocus above grow under the crabapple tree. It has got somewhat weedy there in recent years!

Iris reticulata
Iris reticulata

Pulmonaria

I have taken a Morning Prayer service at church and attended a meeting with others in our Benefice who take church services.

Plough Sunday Service 12th January. Richard took this service very nicely. Much of the congregation is made up of members of ‘Old Glory’ the Molly Men and their friends and supporters

The decorated plough; the star of the Plough Sunday service.

Look at these beautiful horse brasses!

Most of my time has been spent in the car, taking Elinor to the station on her university days, taking Mum to her many hospital appointments, taking myself to hospital and doctor’s appointments, dental appointments, eye clinic appointments and grocery shopping trips.  Mum has had both her cataracts removed and such a load has been lifted from her and my shoulders!  She has so much more sight than we thought and the fear that she may not be able to look after herself and live alone as she wishes has receded for a while.  She is approaching her 90th birthday and though she tires easily and is somewhat twisted and stooping because of arthritis, she is still able to cook and look after herself.  Richard and I had to visit her the week before last to repair her hedge and fence, damaged by the first of our storms.  Mum hadn’t been able to do any gardening for some months because she couldn’t see, and the garden has become overgrown with brambles and nettles, thistles and other unwelcome weeds.  I had done a few jobs for her and so had Richard but the weeds had taken over and the fence that broke in the storm was covered in enormous brambles.

A rather beautiful female Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus ) who observed me taking her photo

This coming week I only have three appointments to keep and none for Mum except for taking her to church on Ash Wednesday.  I’m at the hospital all day on Tuesday having eye pressure tests, I have a hygienist appointment at the dentist on Wednesday and a hair appointment in Norwich on Thursday.  Housework has been a bit hit-and-miss lately and I hope to be able to catch-up with all my chores at home very soon.

This is just a short post to let you know what has been happening.  My next post will probably be about one of our days out last year, or even the year before that!  I have plenty of old photos but hardly any new ones!

Our Church

05 Thu Dec 2019

Posted by in churches, Rural Diary

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Quite a lot of our time is taken up with the church.  Not just attending services, fund raising, going to meetings and social occasions, but dealing with the crumbling fabric of the church building.

A beautiful spring day with the churchyard full of cowslips

St Michael and St Felix priory church in Rumburgh

Here is the church that Richard and I belong to in the benefice of The Saints in NE Suffolk.  This photo was taken in the middle of April this year and work had just begun to restore the porch roof which was in great danger of falling down.  It takes such a long time to instigate any repairs to the ancient churches in our benefice, I am always worried in case the church collapses into ruins before we have firstly, raised enough funds for the task, then filled in all the endless forms and lastly, all the numerous visits from the authorities have taken place.  Our church is old.  It had its beginnings nearly one thousand years ago, though most of the church was built in the 13th century.

The porch

Quite a lot of rotting timber was removed from the roof.

We are waiting for the inside to dry out now that the roof is watertight.

The builder’s excellent work under the eaves.

The opposite side needed just as much work.

The finished porch

The gate also needed repairing.

This photo was taken towards the end of May this year.  The metal bars sticking up in front of the gate are an attempt to stop thieves driving up to the church to steal parts of the building.  We can unlock the bars when necessary.

Gate one….

…and gate two.

You can see how well these gates have been repaired, all the rotten wood removed and new parts inserted.  We could not afford to have new gates made.

We have had some problems with damage and vandalism in the church this year.  We keep our church open and unlocked so that it is accessible and available to all who may need to visit and use it for prayer or for peaceful meditation.  Fire extinguishers have been set off in the church, mud smeared over the furniture and other minor damage has been done.  On occasion we have had to lock the church overnight and sometimes during the day.  This is the first time in living memory that Rumburgh has had to deal with this problem.

In August of 2017 I published this post in which I spoke about the retirement of our vicar, Richard.  From that moment on we had to run ourselves, all eleven parish churches in our benefice.  We have had to organise our services and make sure there were priests available for communion services, for funerals, for baptisms and for weddings.  We couldn’t have done this without the organisational skills of Maurice, our Elder (who has just retired) and without the kindness of a team of retired priests and the hard work of our one Reader, Lynda.  Many of us were roped in to take Morning and Evening Prayer services, Harvest Festivals and Carol Services, Richard and me included.  We still had our PCC meetings to attend, repairs to our ancient churches to arrange, fund raising for said repairs as well as trying to find our Parish Share each year. At the same time we had many discussions about the future and whether we would be able to get a new priest at all.  All eleven churches provided a wish list; what we wanted in our new priest.

This collection of eleven different pictures of an ideal vicar was read by the Rural Dean, his Assistant Rural Dean and by the Archdeacon who sent them back to us with lots of red pen all over them and a few ‘see me’s.  Eventually we produced a booklet describing our benefice and all the churches within it.  We stated what we thought our new priest ought to be like and asked potential vicars to come and live with us.  We were told at first that we probably wouldn’t get a full-time vicar but the Archdeacon then said he thought that as we don’t have a ‘mother church’ (we are all small churches in small villages; no town church with a larger congregation) and the benefice though sparsely populated is large in area, we needed a full-time priest, or at least two part-time priests.  The Archdeacon got his way and we advertised for two part-time ‘house-for-duty’ priests.  The priest would be provided with a house in exchange for working in the benefice.  The Archdeacon, the Rural Dean and his assistant also all took turns in taking services in our benefice during the interregnum.  The Archdeacon played the organ at the services he took, so we didn’t need to find an organist or arrange a karaoke machine for the hymns.  Sadly, the Archdeacon who wasn’t in the best of health and was just about to retire early, became very ill and then died a few weeks ago.  He lived long enough to see that we managed to get one of our two house-for-duty priests who was licensed on the 5th of September this year.

Leon was born and grew up in this benefice and is the son of a farmer and his wife who live in Ilketshall St Margaret.  Leon’s mum is the Church Warden at Ilketshall St Margaret church.  Leon has been a priest for some years, maybe nearly twenty years, as I remember him at home before he went off to college about a year after Elinor was born.  He is married with two young children.  He originally wanted to give up the priesthood completely and return home to help run his parents’ farm, full time.  But he changed his mind and took the part-time job as our priest and works with his parents on the farm for the rest of the week.  He now finds himself doing two jobs which ideally need to be done by two people working full-time.  We are still wanting another part-time priest so a lot of the duties we carried out during the interregnum we are still doing now.  I took Morning Prayer two weeks ago and Richard and I took the Harvest Festival service together.

Rumburgh church filling up with people ready for Leon’s licensing service.

The clergy congregate at the back of the church before the service. The Bishop is the one with the red over his shoulder on the left of the photo.  He is talking to Maurice.

Unfortunately I became too busy to take any more photos at the service, which went very well.  Afterwards we all went to the village hall for food and drink.  We had all provided one savoury and one sweet item of food and had delivered them to the village hall before the service.

Here is the cheese and broccoli quiche I made.

Mum cooked a tray-bake fruit cake for me to take.

It is good to have a priest in the benefice again.  The PCC meetings and the benefice meetings continue and we are now planning our Christmas services.

Richard and John (another member of our PCC) have been working very hard for  months to get major repairs done at our church.  At the beginning of this year I showed you, in a post, some photographs of large cracks that had appeared in the east wall of the church.  These cracks have become larger and pieces of masonry are falling down inside the building.  Builders have been approached but very few are willing to do the work or, if willing at first, then had to back out because of the length of time it took for the authorities to give us the go-ahead.  A visit was made to the church by a group of people who were very concerned at the state of the church and wished to help but insisted that the gutters should be repaired first before the cracks in the wall are tackled.  The gutters definitely need replacing/repairing as the walls are so damp inside the church they are green.  The visitors said they would give us a grant to get the work done.  A local retired builder who has worked in many of our churches was approached to do the work.  He agreed, but last week the poor man became ill and can no longer help us.  We have to start looking for another builder and the time is running out.  To claim the grant the work has to be done by February.

We must support Richard and John in their work, say our prayers and trust that something will turn up!

As an antidote to all this frustration, here is a festive song.

 

 

April’s End

28 Sun Jul 2019

Posted by in churches, Rural Diary, seashore, wild flowers

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I began writing this post immediately after publishing my last one and got well over half way through writing it and then had to stop.  No time for much self-indulgence, reading and writing for some weeks and now that I have a little time, this post seems somewhat irrelevant.  However, I don’t want to waste it by deleting it so I’ll finish it as best I can.

A pastoral scene at St Michael South Elmham church

Holy Week and then Easter week were very busy, so I didn’t manage to take many photos.  This was one of a very few and was taken on Good Friday as I was leaving church after a service of quiet prayer.

The churchyard of the church of St. Michael and St. Felix at Rumburgh

This and the next two photos were taken on Easter Day in the early afternoon.  As you can see, the churchyard was full of yellow Cowslips ( Primula veris).  I had taken Mum to her church at Eye in the morning and Richard had been to a service at St. Margaret South Elmham in our benefice.  After having some lunch we visited Rumburgh church to make sure all was well and to change the colours on the altar and to put flowers in the church.  We returned home and I began preparing the dinner to which Mum had been invited.

One of the many cowslips in the churchyard

Rumburgh church

During April we had work done on the church porch at Rumburgh.  It is now less likely to fall down.

A striking sunset seen from the back of our house.

Richard and I managed to find time for a short walk round the lanes during Easter week.

Crown Imperial

Someone must have either discarded a Crown Imperial fritillary at the side of our lane or planted it there on purpose.  We have seen it here for a few springs now and it is getting larger and larger.  It is about 3.5 feet tall, well over a metre in height.  I was unable to stop and photograph it when it was in full and glorious flower but even with its shrivelled petals you can easily see what it is and how well it is doing.

The Beck – the stream that flows through much of The Saints.

There was very little water in the Beck at the end of April and by the middle of the following month it had dried up completely.

Some of the undergrowth and scrub had been cleared away from this area next to the lane and an ancient boundary ditch was revealed

The first Greater Stitchwort (Stellaria holostea ) flowers of the year

A bright and beautiful Dandelion (Taraxacum agg. )

The Common Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna ) was just beginning to blossom

I noticed some Forget-me-nots at the back of the grass verge but didn’t look to see what kind they were.  Probably Field Forget-me-not (Myosotis arvensis).

I also saw my first Lords and Ladies (Arum maculatum) of the season. I love all the different shades of green in this photo!

A couple of days later I had to go to the doctor’s surgery for my regular blood-test and noticed that there were many flowers blooming in the patches of grass alongside the driveway.  These grassy areas haven’t been tended as they used to be, due to financial cuts and other problems so these ‘weeds’ have flourished.

Dove’s-foot Cranesbill (Geranium molle) with Daisy (Bellis perennis) and Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata)

I noticed a profusion of yet more small pink flowers….

…and discovered they were Common Storksbill (Erodium cicutarium), a plant that I usually see nearer to the sea as it likes growing in sand and gravel. My camera doesn’t show how very pink this flower is.

And that is all I managed to record in April this year.  Rather an abrupt end, for which I apologise.

Spring Odds and Ends – March

26 Sun May 2019

Posted by in churches, Gardening, plants, Rural Diary, trees, wild animals, wild flowers

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Not having posted anything for over two months I have a number of photographs of things I’ve seen on my travels or in the garden.  This post will be a selection of these photos.

View from my kitchen window

This photo was taken with my phone early one March morning.  You can see the maple leaf sticker on the glass which works well at preventing birds from crashing into the window and injuring themselves.  Just outside the window is my witch-hazel which is planted in a large pot and also a Japanese flowering-cherry tree tied to canes, in a different pot.  We keep both trees up close to the front of the house to protect them from wind damage.  On the other side of our drive you can see the first of the daffodils in flower along the edge of the ditch.  What really excited me was the sight of a leveret, a young hare ( lepus europaeus), crouched in the grass.  Richard had had a sight of this young animal in the garden a couple of days before this and I was so pleased to see it for myself.

Leveret

I took this picture with my smaller camera from the utility room window and you can see how damp with dew everything was, including the leveret.  It stayed with us for a few days, hardly ever moving from its ‘form’, the nest in the grass it had made for itself.

The leveret’s form

Cherry-plum tree (Prunus cerasifera )covered in blossom

When this tree first grew I assumed it was an early-flowering blackthorn tree as they can look very similar.  However, a few years ago I happened to see some of its fruit before the birds ate it all and realised my mistake.

cherry-plum blossom
cherry-plum blossom
cherry-plum blossom

Silver-laced Primula

A year and a half ago I was trying to get rid of Common Nettle and Black Bryony in a flowerbed full of primulas and hellebores.  The only way to deal with them was to remove the plants I wanted before tackling the ones I didn’t.  I planted some of the primulas at the edge of a bed Richard grows dahlias in.  This March I was pleased to see that my treasured silver-laced primula had survived the move and two winters.  I still haven’t finished working on that weedy bed!  The Primula has a pretty silver edge to its petals.

Early Dog-violet ( Viola reichenbachiana )

We have these early violets growing in the grass round our pond.

Large pond
Large pond

Our large pond in March.  The water-level is very low due to insufficient rainfall for a year.

The front hedge and ditch

A week or two on from when the photo of the leveret was taken and the daffodils are all coming out.

I love these little Narcissus ‘Rip van Winkle’!

Grape Hyacinth (Muscari ), Bugle (Ajuga reptans ), Variegated Lesser Periwinkle(Vinca minor ) and Spindle (Euonymous ) ‘Emerald n Gold’.

This is a very narrow bed alongside the rear of the garage next to the back door.  All the flowers are blue and two of the plants have variegated yellow and green leaves.  However, just to prove that nothing goes exactly to plan, the bed also contains a red-berried Firethorn ( Pyracantha) which has creamy white flowers; this plant was here when we moved here and the birds and bees love it.

St. Mary’s church at Homersfield

We attended church here in March and I thought it looked lovely in the sunshine.

Primroses (Primula vulgaris )

That same day I walked round the garden and then out onto the verge next to the lane  beyond our hedge and found these primroses in flower.  Garden primulas are able to flower at any time of the year as long as it isn’t too hot or too cold.  Wild primroses, however, have their season and late March is the best time to see them round here.

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa )

There is a tangle of Blackthorn on the verge and it was just coming into flower.  You can see our garden over the other side of the hedge.

Here is the Blackthorn on the verge.

It is a very untidy tree with suckers but it has blossom like snow and the fruit (sloes) in the autumn are used for flavouring gin, among other things.

Dog’s Mercury (Mercurialis perennis )

We have this rather insignificant plant growing under all our hedges and in amongst the trees near the large pond.  It is often a sign of old woodland and won’t tolerate being disturbed; it fades away.  The male and female flowers are on separate plants.

The daffodils at the end of March

Daisy (Bellis perennis )

Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna )

Here is this sunshiny little flower peeping out from inbetween Common Nettles and Ground Elder in the ditch.

These were the highlights of March this year.  I hope to begin an April post as soon as I have published this one.  Whether I’ll be able to finish it and publish it in the next day or so only time will tell!

A Walk at Iken

11 Mon Mar 2019

Posted by in churches, Rural Diary, walking

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Three days after the walk we took round the lanes on New Year’s Day, mentioned in a previous post, Richard and I took ourselves off for another walk.  Elinor joined us.  We set off quite early as we needed to complete the walk before lunchtime; Richard had an optician’s appointment in the early afternoon in Halesworth and we had decided we would have lunch in a pub together before the appointment.

Iken is about twenty-four miles to the south of us and is a tiny village near the estuary of the River Alde and near the coast.  We have walked here a few times before but not for some time and never in the depths of winter.  The day was cloudy and raw, the temperature didn’t rise above 1 degree Centigrade all day ; a day when it would have been pleasant to have stayed at home and read a book.

The view of the Alde estuary through the trees at the edge of the car park.

There is a narrow pathway from the car park down to the estuary.

Despite the cold weather the Gorse (Ulex europaeus) was still in bloom. ‘Gorse is out of bloom, kissing’s out of fashion’.

I noticed this branch covered in fungus.  It was almost luminous.

I looked closer……

I don’t know what this fungus is.  It was much too cold to stand still for more than a couple of minutes so I had to leave it.

The Alde estuary.  You can just see the tower of Iken church sticking out above the dark trees on the horizon on the right.

There are many geese, ducks and wading birds on the estuary.  I don’t know what type of geese these are.

Some, if not all of these waders are probably Bar-tailed Godwits (Limosa lapponica). They appear to have slightly up-turned bills with pink-orange bases.

Here is Iken church near the edge of the estuary.

The shore was very muddy and difficult to walk on.

Ducks…..

I couldn’t definitely identify these ducks either!

……. and yet more ducks. All floating about far out on the water in the gloom.

We left the estuary and walked along another narrow pathway adjacent to a few gardens until we got to the road in the village.  At a junction on the edge of the village we turned left towards the church which is situated right at the end of a promontory jutting out into the estuary.

I saw this Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) in flower by the side of the lane, What a hardy plant!

Richard disappearing into the distance along the lane towards the church.

Sheep in a field by the side of the lane. So many molehills in this field!

Iken church, dedicated to Saint Botolph.

This church is mentioned in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle.  “Here in 654……Botwulf (Botulph) began to build the minster at Icanho”.  There are a couple of other places that have been considered as the possible site of Botulph’s first church (Boston in Lincolnshire and Hadstock in Essex) but this promontory, or hoo is now considered to be the most likely site.Here is a short passage quoted from the church guide written by Roy Tricker.

‘A Saxon minster was a nucleus of Christian worship, witness and learning for a wide area.  It was staffed either by a community of monks or a group of priests and from it missionaries travelled to spread the Faith and to establish satellite churches.  Botolph remained at Icanho as its abbot until his death in c.680.  It is recorded that he was buried by his disciples on June 17th and this has remained his annual feast day.  Abbot Coelfrith of Wearmouth and Jarrow, who nurtured the young (though later to become the Venerable) Bede, paid a visit to Icanho in 670 to observe the type of monastic life in operation here, and it is recorded that he was greatly impressed.

From Icanho the monks made missionary journeys into East Anglia and beyond and it may be that the 75 or so English churches which bear (or have once borne) St. Botolph’s name may give some clue to the extent of their work.  They include 16 in Norfolk, 4 in Essex and 6 in Suffolk, of which the church at Burgh (near Woodbridge) appears to have enshrined the Saint’s remains for a time.  King Cnut authorised the removal of some of Botolph’s bones to the abbey at Bury St. Edmunds, which he had founded in 1020.  These precious relics had clearly at some time been transferred from Icanho to the relative safety of Burgh, which was also a fort and a defensive site”.

The invading Danes destroyed the monastery in 870 and some time later the site was marked with a stone memorial cross.  The church was rebuilt, again in timber in 900 and re-dedicated to Saint Botolph.  The Normans rebuilt the church in flint-rubble between 1070 and 1110 and from then on parts were rebuilt or improved upon over the centuries.  By the early 19th century only the western end of the church was in use, the rest being in ruins.  The church was repaired and a new chancel built in the mid 19th century.  The village was evacuated in 1942 and the church closed so that the area could be used as a centre for battle training.  The church, which had been slightly damaged  by a fallen tree in a gale and then by the blast from a land mine, reopened in 1947 and the parishioners spent the next ten years or so improving and decorating the church.  During tree-felling in the churchyard in 1968 some sparks from a pile of burning logs set fire to the thatched roof of the nave and destroyed it.  Fortunately, the chancel was undamaged and was blocked off and made fairly watertight. The Parochial Church Council and the tiny congregation have worked hard for many years to raise money for the church’s restoration.  The tower was restored first from 1984 onwards then the nave walls and buttresses conserved and the nave got its new roof in 1987-9.  Between 1990-94 the nave floor was laid and repairs done to the porch and chancel roofs, benches and altar rails, the stonework and glass of the windows and the font.  The work continues still.

A plaque donated by the 81st Fighter Wing USAF who were stationed near Iken from 1951 – 1993.

Information plaque.

Noticeboard with what I believe to be a bell-clapper.

The War Memorial to ten local men who lost their lives in the Great War 1914-18.

The door from the porch into the church.

The beautiful 15th Century font with it’s typically East Anglian decoration of four lions round the stem and angels with outstretched wings under the bowl. The bowl is decorated with the emblems of the four Evangelists and four angels.

I apologise for the murky picture.  It was a very gloomy day and the church had no lights available to us.

The opening to the rood loft staircase.

You can just see the stairs going up to the rood loft. The rood loft has long gone so the stairs go nowhere.

A recess. See the angel with spread wings underneath!

A prettily carved corbel in the roof.

A piscina, so that water used by the priest to wash his hands could be disposed of.

The lower half of the 9th Century Saxon cross probably dedicated to St Botolph found embedded in the tower wall during restoration work in the 1970’s.

The cross is very weather-beaten as one might suppose, but typical inter-lacing Saxon patterns decorate it and there is also what could be a dragon carved on it, but I was unable to photograph it due to the gloom.We left the church and retraced our steps back to the car-park.

I saw this tiny rose in flower!

The entrance to the car-park.

A replica Saxon cross stands in the car-park.

The view across the estuary.

Another bleak view!

We were glad to return to the car and I drove us to Halesworth where we enjoyed a tasty lunch and a drink.