A hand-written sign announced “Country Fair”

Below the escarpment is the plain, a flat country that stretches as far as the sea. Formerly (prehistoric times) it was half-sea itself, and for centuries comprised freshwater marshes, permanent islands, meres, summer islands, tidal sea-marshes and quicksands. Following drainage in the 18th century this watery landscape became solid land, chopped up into dozens of man-made islands by wide deep drainage canals.

Most visitors passing through dismiss the region as flat and featureless, but it is actually endlessly varied and subtle, full of hidden corners where the past lingers. This is not apparent when looking at a map – it is only when you are on the ground that you realise how cut-off some areas can be. You could be looking at a place only a few hundred yards away, and yet to drive there takes you on a diversion of perhaps twenty miles or so (or you could risk walking across one of the narrow plank bridges that give access from one field to another across a deep body of water, the makeshift bridge propped up on rickerty posts).

As the new land was drained it was colonised by the existing villages (the medieval islands) so that the new parishes tend to radiate outwards in oblong chunks of flat land, the settlements giving rise to subsidiary settlements, each new tranche of land, as it was drained, providing farms for younger sons so that the geographic map became mirrored by a genealogical one.



Above: Sunday, on my way to a remote hamlet (a sub-settlement of a sub-settlement of a settlement) I passed through an old village. I knew at once, from the medieval church, and the twists and turns in the road, that this had been one of the original island villages of the pre-drainage period. I stopped to have a look at the church, but it was locked, the windows boarded up so that the place looked redundant (it is incredible that a medieval building of this size and importance should be in such a state).



Above: I passed the village manor house – also derelict. Although we are barely three hours drive from London the area is so little known that attractive buildings like this, in unspoilt fields, can remain on the market for months without finding a buyer. Pevsner described this building as “a town house, a brick cube in shape, dropped down in the countryside”.



Above: At least the village butcher was still in business.



Above: From a busy road I turned off into a long straight by-road, and then turned off again onto an absolutely straight lane that went along one side of the drainage river known locally as “the little forty foot” (“forty foot” was a common name for the drainage canals of the 18th century – presumably because they were forty feet wide). I went for miles along this lane, not meeting any other traffic (just as well, as it was barely wide enough for two cars to pass). There was no barrier between the road and the river, and a false move would have tipped my car into the water. Eventually, after driving in a straight line for about seven miles, I arrived at the hamlet which comprised a row of widely spaced houses facing the “drain” and a flat empty green landscape. Behind the houses were gardens, with more of the flat fields beyond. At one of the houses the entrance was decked in bunting and a hand-written sign announced “Country Fair”.



Above: Paying £1 at the entrance, I was advised to look round the church first before going into the fair. The church was actually a chapel that had been built in 1812 as a daughter foundation of the original parish church (the old village was too far to walk to on Sunday mornings). The chapel was brick built, with a simple white cupola and wide clear windows. The west end of the church was so festooned in rampant ivy that the entrance looked smothered.



Above: Inside, on the south wall, were the Royal Arms (required to be displayed in all churches to signify the monarch’s position as Defender of the Faith). A rare survival - these arms date from Hanoverian times (the first four Georges) as they include the Hanoverian royal device in the centre. George the First, Second, Third and Fourth were Electors of Hanover as well as Kings of England, but Victoria being a woman had to give up the German territories (where only men could rule).



Above: The banner of the Mothers’ Union (still active) enshrined in maternal respectability beside the high altar.



Above: From the chapel I re-crossed the track and went into the fair, which was being held in an orchard and paddock behind one of the houses. Although it was not a very big event, for such a small community to put on a show of this kind was a considerable achievement. It was quite moving to see the humble lives the people lived, and how proud they were of their little world. But some parts of the fair seemed absurd. This skittles stall was almost a parody of old-time rustic entertainment. By enacting this sort of thing were the inhabitants of the hamlet deliberately turning their backs on the modern world, or (as the Royal Arms in the chapel seem to imply) had their little society genuinely remained intact since the Hanoverian age?



Above: Everyone seemed to have contributed to the fair – this collection of tobacco tins had been accumulated by one old resident and put on show mounted in a wooden fruit tray.



Above: A retired miner had made this model of a coal-mining scene. What had brought a miner to this obscure settlement a hundred miles from the nearest mining area? I didn’t like to ask as retired miners seem to have only one topic of conversation – the great miners’ strike of 1984 (quite interesting when you hear it the first time, but it’s always delivered in very partisan terms, as if one side was completely right and the other side completely wrong, with absolutely no concession to the complexity of the situation).



Above: What are these agricultural tools? What do they do? Why are they on show?



Above: In the village hall local produce was put on exhibition. This was part of the cake-making competition. After the prizes were awarded the cakes went on sale.



Above: Someone had brought along an old car. You can see in the background the fields stretching away into the distance (recurring feature of the landscape). Later the owner drove off in the car, the wheels slithering about on the surface of the lane so that I feared the vehicle would slide into the water of the “drain”.



Above: At three o’clock was a display of German dancing by the local boys’ school (illustrating their recent trip to Bavaria). Tapes of German brass band music played over the loudspeakers. The boys appeared in Bavarian costumes and performed for about an hour, their teacher explaining each of the dances as they were executed (sometimes the boys got the routines so mixed up that the result was a confusing fiasco).



Above: The German dancing culminated with the boys scrambling into this human pyramid, photographed by parents and grand-parents, the structure toppling over seconds later.



Above: The long-horned cattle in the fields were unimpressed.



Above: Even on a Sunday the harvest continued to be gathered in.