Outdoor Spirituality in Norfolk and further afield
The Rising of the Sun and the Running of the Deer…
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It’s great to get outside on a winters day, to stretch the legs and walk off the turkey. 21st December is the shortest day. From then on the days will begin to lengthen and the singing of the birds surpass organ music and singing in the choir!
If you want a winter walk that with the sight of deer, head for Holkham. I you leave the car park in front of the Hall and head right around the lake and you will be on the Holkham Lake Path -leaflets are available at Holkham or on-line at www.holkham.co.uk/html/park_03.html. I can guarantee skeins of pink footed geese flying overhead and herds of deer sheltering beneath the trees. The deer are quite used to people, are tame and are very photogenic.
Following the path round the lake and into the woods you’ll soon come to the Holkham church. Heavily restored, it’s only the dedication, the site its self and west wall that give clues to its ancient foundation. Perched on a hillock, it is dedicated to St. Withbura, the 7th century royal princess-turned-nun who was the first abbess of Dereham. The west wall shows signs of being as old as any church building in Suffolk and Norfolk. Famously Withburga and her sisters were supplied with milk from a doe deer that came everyday to be milked!
I’m not sure if the church can offer visitors and pilgrims merry music or sweet singing save for that of the birds. Last time I passed that way the door was locked – conveniently they appeared to have locked God out. In the stillness and beauty of a place where prayer has been valid I thought I caught a glimpse! Rather, like the fleeting vision of a deer passing silently through a glade!There is certainly a holly tree in the churchyard but you would be hard pressed to find any ivy. Holkham’s foresters have a hatred of it and wouldn’t let it choke any of their beautiful trees.
Beneath a winter sky the sun sinks slowly in the west . Wrapped against the cold - and rapt by the beauty - I pondered on the generations before me who had stood and watched as day turned to night. Millions of sunsets and millions upon millions of the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve . I found myself signing with the Psalmist: You appointed the moon to mark the seasons and the sun knows the time of its setting, You make darkness that it may be night in which the beasts of the forest creep forth (Psalm 104) Across the darkening marsh the whistles and murmuring of widgeon quietened, a thin mist rose and deer emerge from the woodland to graze beneath a reddening sky. All this was but the overture to the evening’s main event. I had come to see a wild life spectacular which is repeated every night during the winter period and the station platform was the grandstand from which to view it. From far and wide streamed “ in a countless host” each as black a clergyma...
Turning left off the Hautbois Road A path leads past Golden Gates Pond. Ahead, the tower of Great Hautbois Church is a silhouette glimpsed through winter trees. Beneath the tower - Snowdrops, Candlemas Bells. We've come to St. Mary's Church to ponder the Feast of the Presentation. Did Mary travel to Jerusalem's temple to offer her own her flesh and blood, her baby Jesus to his Heavenly Father? Or was it to bring God to his Temple? Whatever was going on she is at the heart of the mystery. Simeon had it right. The boy child is the light that enlightens the Gentiles but the 2 turtle doves were just a down-payment. More would be given. Candlemas - one last look back to Christmas before turning our faces towards Passiontide and Good Friday. And a sword certainly pieced Mary's soul when she stood by the cross. In real time, fast military jets manoeuvre overhead and a war torn world comes into shar...
Within their own earthworks the stubbs of flint walls delineate where once a proud building stood. Not the Saxon Minster promised by the Ordinance Survey map but a rather later build, like churches in Great Yarmouth and Kings Lynn and the cathedral in Norwich, the work of Herbert de Losinga. But Herbert built where a church had stood from the earliest days of Christianity in East Anglia. Beneath ancient Hornbeams the all pervading green is relieved by flowers - patches of Red Campion and the white filigree of Queen Ann’s Lace. And from tree top stalls Blackbirds sing antiphonally where once choirs sung their Creators praise. This is South Elmham. I had walked to the glade on way marked paths from a car park at South Elmham Hall where I’d called into the café to pick up a leaflet. The parishes of the Ferding of Elmham form a block of land which might have been given to St. Felix by King Sigbert in the 7th Century. “Of Elmham” Bishops were d...
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