Norfolk Pilgrim

Pilgrimage of Morris Tour ?  A good question! In the end, I thought the best answer was,"Yes !" And, when I began to treat it like a pilgrimage something changed. Travelling down to Kent from Norfolk, we speculated about Thomas a Becket true martyr or something else? Silly fool, he bit the hand that fed him! That is the King's hand! What did he expect! Unlike Oscar Romero of El Salvador, gunned down in his own cathedral church for supporting the poor, Becket was trying to extend the rights of the Church. Not quite the same thing. And, of course, extending the rights of the Church was to the Pope's advantage. So, of course, he made Thomas a saint!  Who gained from Becket's martyrdom ?  Who still gains? It has even been suggested, on the basis of heraldry, that Canterbury Cathedral are offing pay day loans to cover the entrance fee! Later, dancing at the White Horse at Chilham, we were able to contrast...

A week and a day after a cardiac arrest the Norfolk Pilgrim is sitting up and taking notice in the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital Like the boy Lazarus, whose friend Jesus raised him to live the rest of his life, his friends kept him going until the paramedics could set his ticker going again! Many of his posts have been about walks on the edge. This past week has got him nearer to the edge than ever before! Many of the earlier posts in this blog began life as articles in the Norwich Diocese magazine Across the See . His aim is to use this place to log his insights as he continues to tread the pilgrim path on the edge

Streams of cars speed down Kings Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Way everyday. High above the traffic a ruined church has paid witness for a thousand years and more. For decades it has been drawing me like a magnet. So on a sunny Spring day I finally found my way up the hill. Church Farm, Bawsey is managed under a Higher Level Stewardship scheme and provides parking and permissive footpaths.  You can approach the farm from the Gayton Road turning left into Church Lane just beyond the crematorium. Maps showing the paths and parking are available online on the Natural England website ( cwr.naturalengland.org.uk ). They are also displayed at strategic places around the farm .  I had intended to walk from Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Roydon Common, via the Grimston Warren reserve but that was closed as the work there continues. They are converting it from commercial forestry back to its original lowland heath. I followed a path to the edge of the warren through recently restored pasture...

Going to mid-day prayers with the Carmelite sisters at Quiddenham I encountered a mother and child. The child was grievously ill – all floppy in his mothers arms as she carried him out of the Children’s Hospice. Two nurses accompanying her gave support and carried the oxygen that was keeping the little lamb alive.  It was a heartbreaking! And yet the love and care was beautiful to behold. Such love! Such pain! I was privileged to catch a glimpse of something so precious. After prayers, contemplating the  Stations of the Cross,  I was able to put the experience in context. Such love! Such pain!  As I set out on the next stage of my journey there was plenty to turn over in my heart. By footpath, bridleway and quiet lanes, I was making my way from Eccles, via Quiddenham to Steve and Gill Eggleton’s home in Banham. The route forms part of a project that they and friends are working on.

Imagine a string of beads – precious gems - stretched out across the heart of England and Wales, from Lowestoft Ness in the east to St. David’s in the west. Each bead representing an artwork communicating the Christian Gospel, set up in a place where people can stop and ponder.  The string that joins these way stations  is a pilgrim path – part of which I had walked - by which seeker and pilgrim  can travel either the whole length ,or over shorter sections. They call it the Via Beata. (Way of Blessing) The first artwork has already been set up in a summerhouse/shelter by the front gate of  Steve and Gill’s garden. It is a carved triptych telling the story of the Return of the Prodigal Son.  You are invited to visit. The address is: Rowancroft, Kenninghall Road, Banningham. NR16 2HE . During the summer a small organising group has begun to pioneer some of the paths, talk with people about suitable artworks and places to display them and given s...

Walking around the town I thought I had glimpsed dawning light against the darkness of  warring madness.  As well as the castle, churches and old coaching inns I’d seen the Abbey, the Grammar School and the statue of Thomas Paine, Thetford’s most famous son. The monks who built the, now ruined, Abbey had pioneered the Peace of God movement. It urged barons to use force as a last resort and insisted on protection for non-combatants as a Christian duty. In post-Reformation times their concern for education found expression in the Grammar School that lists Paine among its old boys.  His words inspired the American Constitution and the emancipation of slaves.  The publication of his Rights of Man marked a huge step in the recognition of human rights.   While his creed, “The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”  still has the ability to challenge. The birds of war still flew in and out of USAF Mildenhall...

From Britain’s highest medieval castle mound the sea of green forest stretched to the horizon. I had followed the Heritage Trail around Thetford and climbed  the hill to watch and pray. The town has an image of  being an unlovely London overspill and a centre for European immigrants, but  is much more. Since early days it has been the Gateway to Norfolk . The first fortifications were built 500 years before Christ. It was from Thetford Queen Boudicca set out to avenge the rape of her daughters and when the revolt was over the Romans came and burnt it to the ground ! Saxons followed Romans and then came the Vikings, time and again, laying waste and burning. After them the Norman Conquest brought more of the same! To-day, atop the castle mound the Normans built  all is peaceful but in the west I could see planes flying in and out of the USAF Mildenhall and I knew soldiers were training on the Battle Area.  In Iraq and Afghanistan victims...

This walk has it all. Like Jesus you can walk by the seaside and on the hills above the sea. There are woods and wayside flowers, birds, heritage sites . And to top it all, there’s Noah’s Ark(!), or something that looks like it, the man in the moon (!) and a love story waiting to be discovered. . I parked the car at Brancaster Staithe and walked east along the Coastal Path, past fishermen’s huts and boats high and dry on low tide mudflats. At Noah’s Ark I turned inland going a little of my route to look into Burnham Deepdale’s round-towered church. Next to the busy coast road the cool interior is an oasis of calm. The church has some notable medieval glass – that’s where I found the man in the moon - as well as an interesting font with carved labours of the month around the edge. Across the road there’s a great café too! Passing the café on my left, I took the next left uphill, along a metalled road through rolling farm land and into a shady wood with noble beech trees. At...

I just can’t help myself! Each daisy and dandelion is a miracle , but I’ll still make the pilgrimage to New Buckenham Common to see the green-winged orchids! These flashy flowers also grow on the limestone hills of Galilee. I sometimes wonder if these were the flowers of the field Jesus spoke of who’s natural beauty far outstripped King Solomon’s designer label elegance. Conspicuous consumption on clothing and cosmetics are a near necessity for many who gauge their worth against the ever shifting orthodoxies of fashion. The orchid remains a fragile yet unchanging thing of beauty. Its scientific name is Anacampcis Morio, morio from the Greek for fool. The flower is said to resemble fools cap. Contemplating beauty and foolishness, I recall the well known phrase or saying, “if the hat fits wear it!” Green-winged orchids maybe the stars of the show, there is also a full supporting cast on New Buckenham Common: buttercups, cuckoo flowers, meadow sweet, cowslip, meadow saxifrage – even...

It’s great to get outside on a winters day, to stretch the legs and walk off the turkey. 21 st 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 7 th cent...

There was standing room only at Burgh Castle church on Saturday 4th October when the annual pilgrimage of the Fursey Pilgrims took place. Joining the pilgrims this year was Fr Nicolas Jouy, the Parish Priest of Peronne in the Somme area of France. St. Fursey died before returning to England from France in the year 650 AD. His shrine was established at Peronne. The service only took places after the pilgrims had refreshed themselves at the Church Farm pub. Some had earned a good lunch by walking the Breydon Water path from Great Yarmouth train station. Others had come long distances to honour St.Fursey so they could not be denied a delicious carvery meal looking out across the water to the Berney Arms windpump and the Fleggs. Pere Nicholas preached the sermon developing the idea of ecumenism as putting the pieces of a jig-saw together - it may seem impossible at first, there should be no attempt to force pieces together where they do not belong, miraculously we find there is a fit betw...

Remembering how they “ went with the throng, * and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving.” (Psalm 42) A great and holy place I know! But when I’ve been there on my own, I find it too restless with pilgrims to settle to prayer. Scilla Landale introduced me to a quieter, calmer Walsingham. Here are some highlights:- 1) On a raised section of lawn in the Abbey grounds is a six inch wooden square. It marks the site of the original place of pilgrimage. I stood on the spot, took in the very English country scene and reflected about the vision that had led the Lady Richeldis to build the replica of Jesus’ and Mary’s Nazareth home. 2)Crossing the grass to where the Priory’s high altar once stood, I tried to imagine the generations of Christians, from 1061 to the present day who had come here to pay homage to the human Jesus and the mother who had nurtured him. I marvelled anew at the mystery of the inca...

I'm just into name dropping now! Did I tell you about going to visit the head of John the Baptist at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus or St. Zecharia at the Umayyad Mosque in Allepo I wasn't much impressed by the tomb of Salladin but felt I need to show my respects and apolgise for Richard Coeur de Lion. And I wasn't too fussed by visiting the chapel at the place where St. Paul was allegedly let down from the walls. They would, I'm sure have chosen a place well away from a gate and sentries if he was making a get away! I liked the House of Annanias. That was believable ! OK if you are doing believable then, no I don't think it is John the Baptist's relics. There are two churches in France that claim that distinction. One having the head of John the Baptist as a young man! But I liked being welcome in the Mosque and having the Prophet John the Baptist, Peace be upon him, in common with the Moslems and I liked praying there and daring to hope that the prophecy of ...

There's a story untold in the Bible -  how the returned to life Lazarus went on to be the first Bishop of Larnaka.  The stone coffin in which he lay is preserved in a crypt beneath the high altar of the Church of St. Lazarus,  When I went down into the crypt it reminded me of  the Cave of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.  In Orthodox pilgrim mode I have kissed the rock in both those places! But there was to be no kissing Lazarus in the crpypt His coffin is empty! He has not yet been raised from the dead a second time, in spite of the empty tomb! The body was nicked by the high principled Crusaders who took it off to Marsailles!  However, there was no need to rely on a Homeopathic Theory of relics - i..e. the notion that there's a holy place where the relic used to be. The Crusaders  conveniently left a portion of skull behind. It is upstairs in the church, in a golden relique. Kneeling in the near darkness of ...

The Church of England Diocese of Norwich has a bad attack of the intiatives - caught it from the politicians I shouldn't wonder! Committed to Growth, it's called!  For busy church people it can seem like a burden - Do something more! Be more committed! it seems to shout. Those of us with long memories and a touch of the cynic about us remember Moving Forward and from Maintenance to Mission ( nobody really wanted people to cease maintenance on the 600+ medieval churches in the diocese to cease from maintenance no matter what the slogan said!) I was turning these things over in my mind as I hiked through Cypriot vineyards. I knew the Allegory of the Vine (John 15) as well as the next well educated person in the pew. What I had forgotten, even if I had originally known, was how harshly a vine-dresser cuts back the vine. There in the vinyard were these dead looking sticks! That's what Committed to Growth looks like! ©Richard Woodham 2008

We parked by the West Acre church and walked east. It was too early to stop for refreshments at the Stag public house, instead we turned right and crossed the river on a footbridge. At the way mark, we went left through woods to arrive by another ford and footbridge, ignoring these we took the way-marked path just down stream. It is part of the Nar Valley Way , a long distance path that connects Kings Lyn with East Dereham . On a summer’s day one can imagine families and children playing in the river at the fords. The river is one of the finest lowland chalk streams in the country supporting a wide range of wild life. We saw trout going against the current and a grass-snake swimming from one side to the other. The trees and meadows were full of birds and the path was not too soggy underfoot. Our destination was Castle Acre where the Peddar’s Way crosses the river Nar. The crossing was fortified by the Earl of Surrey soon after the Norman Conquest. Its earthworks and ru...