In Search of St. Withburga


I wanted to honour a founding mother of the faith but even before I started I feared I was on a fool’s errand. The old books tell how the monks of Ely Abbey came to Dereham and stole St. Withburga’s body! So what relics could I hope to find?

She, a royal princess, is said to have founded a religious community in Dereham in 654AD. The town sign depicts her with deer - two does - whose milk, it is said, sustained her community in its early days.

One can’t imagine many deer in Dere- ham today! So instead of going straight to her holy well, I turned left in front of the church, into St. Withburga’s Lane and headed for what looked as if it might be country. On the right I found Rolling Pin Lane. Crossing into an open space, I followed a path downhill and turned right along a little brook. At a T-junction I went right again and approached the church from the valley.

For the first time I thought that I might catch the sight of a deer as the path passed through some Alder Carr. I was surprisingly pleased. The legend recounts that it was to a bridge crossing the stream, close by the church, that the sisters came to meet and milk the deer. I could easily imagine how it might have been.


Once up the hill and into the churchyard I went straight to the holy well. Tradition says it is a healing well that sprang up when St. Withburga’s body was snatched away! Here it was! But the sceptic in me imagines the spring has always been there! To have a church and community by a source of clean water made a lot of sense in 654 AD! In any case, it was still St. Withburga’s well!


The present day church is open during daylight hours. There are good guide books and lots to see. But if, like me, you travel as a pilgrim you will want to take some time in the Lady Chapel. As I stilled myself in that beautiful space I saw all round me evidence for the continuing work of the church and remembered it had begun 1353 years ago. As I prayed I had a sense of someone, there and then gone, like a deer passing through a glade. The Saint? I wondered! Hmmnnnn…..


©Richard Woodham 2007

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Day of the Rest of My Life

Image
 I have not posted much of late. I have been struggling. Between completing the pioneering work on a possible Withburga Way between Holkham and Dereham in the summer of 2022 and today my health has gone downhill in alarming way. I'll never walk the route in a couple of days, nor yet in 3.  I'll never walk it.  The rapid onset Pulmonary Fibrosis has left me struggling for breath putting my boots on let alone walking.  Yesterday, I went to St. Benet's Abbey , ate my picnic lunch in the car park and set myself the challenge of walking from the car park to the Abbey ruins. It is 0.35 miles and uphill all the way from from the Gate House to the old rugged cross that marks the site of the high altar at the summit. The hill looked quite daunting -  "Who can ascend the hill of the Lord?" I sang under by breath. Stopping often to catch my breath, slowly one foot in front of the other, I got closer to the summit. There before the cross, wind in my hair, it felt as if the b
Read more

North Elmham

Image
I’d come to North Elmham pursuing a mystery. Did the Bishops of Elmham from Bedwinus in the 7th century to Herfast in the 11th have their cathedral in Norfolk or  Suffolk?  North or South Elmham? I’d followed a circular walk I’d found in the  Norfolk Health Heritage and Conservations Walks  leaflet (You can get hold of one from Norfolk County Council or on-line at www.countrysideaccess.norfolk.gov.uk .)  It took me through parkland,  along quiet lanes and ended up at the parish church  (Well worth a visit in its own right!) My final destination was indicated by a brown tourist sign. Uncompromisingly it asserts “Saxon Cathedral”! But when you get to the ruins and read English Heritage’s helpful interpretation boards there’s no certainty at all.  What you see are earthworks and  ruins of a castle built by Henry Despencer,  the fighting Bishop of Norwich. He was famous for putting down the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. A man not without enemies, Henry had obviously felt the need of
Read more

Buckenham Rook Roost

Image
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 clergyman’s cassock and eac
Read more