A finely-spun rain fell from the soft grey sky.
Above: Eight o'clock Holy Communion at the church. The building dates from 1864 ("the previous church blew down in a hurricane" the churchwarden told me later). Pevsner describes the architectural style as pre-archaeological gothic.
Above: a piebald pony watched as I parked my car in a sloping meadow (in the background you can see over the edge of the escarpement). A few other cars were parked nearby, so I assumed it was alright to leave my car there. A path led across the meadow to the church, which was ringed with sycamore and beech trees.
Above: inside the building was small - just a whitewashed nave and a chancel, dominated by the gothic chancel arch. A huge brass chandalier hung above the nave, the three tiers resembling a papal crown. No flowers in the church as it was the first Sunday of Lent
Above: either side of the nave were two Victorian painted glass windows. I am really disappointed at the washed-out appearance of this photograph as the colours in these windows were exceptionally beautiful. The blues in particular were so attractive that I wished I had a pantone colour chart with me to identify them.
Above: I took this photograph right at the end, after everyone had gone down to the west end to have a natter. The candles are still alight on the altar. I wanted to record these brass rods that were fixed to each of the pews, supporting candles (I have never seen this arrangement before, and would quite like to go back to the church to see them lit).
As you would expect at an eight-o'clock Communion in a small remote village there were only a sprinkling of people present. I sat near the back, on the right side of the nave. The pews each had doors to them, so once you were sat down you were shut in.
Leather-covered hassocks in the shape of firm cubes, so that you knelt about two feet above the floor.
The priest said the service, which took about forty minutes. No hymns. An elderly lady in a red-check coat made two attempts to stand up, and when she managed to do so (she seemed very frail) turned to face us to give the reading which was from Genesis and referred to the rainbow: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
As it was St David's Day in the Intercessionary Prayers we prayed for the Anglican Church in Wales. Also for Macau (in the Anglican cycle of prayer) and a remote parish down on the plain. During the Eucharist as I knelt at the altar rail my thoughts were distracted by the modern patio tiles that were used in the chancel floor.
Afterwards I joined the group at the west end and talked to the churchwarden. He was very intelligent and educated, and I wish we could have talked longer. He gave me directions to a farmhouse at the foot of the escarpment that he said was worth looking at.
To get to the farmhouse meant driving over the edge of the internal cliff and along a narrow straight road that reared up and down like a rollercoaster. I would never have gone down this road ordinarily as it was little more than a metalled track. Eventually I was down on the plain, in a green landscape entirely bereft of human life.
Above: the straight road ended in mounds and earthworks. A complex series of waterworks moats encircled the area. Presumably as the landscape was so flat moats were the principle means of defence.
Above: I came to a gap in the earthworks and managed to get a glimpse of the house, which was formerly the summer palace of the bishops (until the sixteenth-century) now reduced to a farmhouse. If you click on the image to enlarge it you might be able to make out the medieval tower on the right with a Tudor house attached. "Keep out" signs deterred me from going any closer.
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