Godforsaken

It's 17 years since I was last in this abandoned church. It's kept firmly locked but last week I found that the vestry door was stoved in and access was possible.

On the previous occasion I had persuaded suggested to my then-11 year old son that this would be an ideal subject for his Year 7 history project (purely because I was keen to find out more about it.) The church had already been standing empty and deconsecrated for years and was attended only by birds. Now the floor is deep in guano and the desiccated corpses of pigeons. Today as I entered a barn owl screeched and flapped in panic up and down the rafters until it escaped through a hole in the roof.

The church has been on the market for decades. Once long ago someone must have intended to make repairs because a dusty red wheelbarrow sits by the font. On the right is the hulk of an old pump organ made by the Thomas organ company of Woodstock, Ontario, and beside it a wooden chest containing an assortment of candles, white for the altar and multicoloured for elsewhere. Otherwise there is little of interest, no memorials, no documents, no human connection with the people who worshipped and were buried here.

I don't think there's any reason to feel too sad about this demise. The church (see my previous blip) was a complete Victorian rebuild of an earlier one and possesses little intrinsic merit. The main interest lies in the ancient engraved crosses in the churchyard and the holy well in the adjoining field, both suggesting that this Christian place of worship usurped an earlier, pagan religious site. The well remains a destination for those of spiritual bent while the church has been abandoned to its feathered congregation.