A Candle Mass Pilgrimage
When she died in 1507, Agnes Parker owed a pilgrimage to St. Tebbald (St.Theobald) at Hobbies. In same year Thomas Wood of Coltishale left a legacies to the Guild of the Virgin at the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary at Hautbois and to paint the new tabernacle of St. Theobald in the Church. Thomas and Agnes were going to be my Simeon and Anna. Riding through Coltishall and past the Guides, Patterson Lodge Activity Centre , I chained my bike to the fence and walked down the track to the ruined church. To the right is the Golden Gates Pond where generation of village kids have grappled - without success - for the said, golden gates . I often wonder if the gates in question were from the tabernacle of St.Theobald and deposited there after the shrines were suppressed by Henry VIII in 1538. Candlemas Bells - Snowdrops - are sprinkled around the churchyard. Woodpeckers drum, Buzzards call overhead and Anna's warning echoes in my ears - "a sword ...