To the coast. Brooding fortification commanding the desolation of the dunes. Had the Germans been foolish enough to invade the county they would have been thrown back into the sea.
The dunes were formed by a tremendous medieval storm that threw sand over a low range of hills. The sandy paths through them are like a maze, with towering masses of sea buckthorn. No-one about apart from once I was passed by two lovers on horses, dogs following behind.
Speckled Wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria) on the sea buckthorn. The heat and humidity were intense. The air seemed to press down heavily on me so that it was an effort to move, an effect accentuated by the experience of walking on sand.
The end of the dunes and the start of the beach, and far out (perhaps a quarter mile in the distance) you can see the North Sea. Rushing warm wind, humid and not at all refreshing. I am sure if I had entered the sea it would have been cold but I did not have the energy to walk so far.
Returning to the village I looked at the hall from the road. Parade of roses leading up to the manor house, the view romantically satisfying. The house is sixteenth-century, the lack of defensive architecture so close to the coast an indication of how peaceful this area of the county has been, for centuries.
The nearby church dates from Norman times and is grade 1 listed. Attractive combination of greenstone repaired with mellow red brick on the fourteenth-century tower. You can see running up the corner of the tower the slit windows of the internal staircase.
The church is no longer used. Inside I could hear the squeaking of bats, and bat droppings were everywhere. Looking towards the east, you can see the rood screen in the middle with either side the wooden box structures which are chapels enclosed by parclose screens.
The chancel is notable for these early eighteenth-century communion rails. Four graves waiting for the end of days. On the right you can see part of the Norman sedelia.
The chapel on the south side of the church. An enclosure of this kind was probably a chantry set up by a bequest paying for a chantry priest to offer daily prayers on behalf of the deceased. This screen dates from the Marian restoration of catholicism, but may well replace more ancient screens removed at the closure of the chantries.
On the floor of the chapel is this brass memorial to a knight, dated 1424. Image of martial masculinity - lion at his feet, enormous sword on his belt, narrow waist and the v-shaped physique of an athlete. His name was John - I wonder if his remains are still beneath this stone slab.
His arms are unusual - a lion and a cross. Does this indicate he was a crusader? Not sure if this is meant to be an African or an Asiatic lion.
Also in the south chapel is a medieval stone altar and this rare medieval reredos surround (most were destroyed at the Reformation). Probably an ornate alabaster plaque fitted into the frame. Possibly it was buried at the time of the Reformation and may yet be uncovered.
The parclose screen around the chapel on the north side of the church. Again the woodwork is mid-1550s, but perhaps recreating what might have been destroyed in the 1530s. As well as chantries and family mausoleums, chapels of this kind would also have been used by guilds - semi-religious bodies that served a particular saintly cult, operated as mutual self-help charities for different professions, and raised money for specific purposes.
I was very struck by the carving above the entry to the north chapel which shows the Head of John the Baptist on a plate with two heads either side (perhaps Herod Antipas and Salome). Veneration of John the Baptist is associated with crusaders. Is it possible that this chapel was the focus of a guild that raised money for the crusades?
And in one of those strange coincidences that happen so many times, driving through the next village I noticed that the pub was called the Turks Head. The present building dates from 1821, but may well be a rebuilding of a previous inn going back to medieval times. Was an actual Turks Head brought back from a crusade as proof that they money raised by the John the Baptist Guild had been spent as purposed? (Guilds would have rituals and services in the chapel and feasts in a local inn).
