God spede the plow And send us all corne enow Our purpose for to mak At crow of cock Of the plwlete of Sygate Be mery and glade (Wat Goodale this work mayd)
(15th Century inscription on the ringers gallery at Cawston, Norfolk)
It was May 2014, the most beautiful spring of the century. I had taken my bike on the train from Ipswich to Bishops Stortford before heading off away from the hell of Stansted airport into the wilds of Essex. Now I veered eastwards from the forest, entering the emptiest and most remote area of the county. No villages for miles, just hamlets, fields and the occasional farmstead. The road to my next target would have meant a five mile ride, but I spotted a half-mile bridleway, of which there are lots in this part of Essex. It would cut three miles off the journey, so I took it. It was a farm track, deeply rutted, and it took me down the side of a barley field to copses in the distance, the hysterical yellow of acres of rapeseed in full flower beyond.
At first, it was just about cycleable, but then it wasn't, so I pushed my bike for about ten minutes or so. As I approached the country lane at the far end of it I thought there seemed something vaguely familiar about it, and then I realised what it was. Ah, I thought to myself, I'm entering East Anglia again. Now I was on hedged lanes through rolling fields of barley and rapeseed. Profound green, intense yellow. The road climbed, and over the rise I saw a spire. I headed down a track for half a mile or so and came to one of the most remote churches in all Essex.
It was locked, there was no keyholder notice. An inexpressibly lonely place. The church itself is a poor little thing, its wooden spire shot through with woodpecker holes. There were no notices of service in the porch, and so I expect it has fallen into disuse. Redundancy beckons, and perhaps it will be left to go quietly back to nature. It might just as well be left open, in which case it would at least serve some purpose to passing walkers, pilgrims and strangers.
And yet there was something very special about just standing in the churchyard, in the silence. It felt like nothing had happened here for a very long time. I looked down at the inscription on a memorial cross to Our Dear Son, Bertie George Emberson, who died at the Military Hospital, Caterham, Surrey, September 7th 1918 aged 19 years. How awful. And yet, I thought, the churchyard they stood in to watch him put into the earth has not changed. The one they knew is the one there now.
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