The Path Behind The Church

Besides the footpaths which lead from one village to the next, there are many small paths in every village which owe their existence to quirks of history. In my village there is such a path, it leaves the road, leads around behind the church and then rejoins the road once again. It's just over a quarter of a mile (400m) in length and saves you all of a minute compared to taking the road, though it does involve climbing a stile, opening a couple of gates and crossing a footbridge. Why go any other way?

First we go over the stile next to the churchyard, then along a track between two rather old walls.

The wall on your left is made of flints, field stones and the odd old brick. It's held together with concrete and copious amounts of ivy.

On your right is the village church and its graveyard. It may looks as though I'm lying on the ground taking this shot, but in fact ground level in the churchyard is almost at the top of the surrounding wall. We've seen this before on our travels and is the result of the number of burials which have taken place over the centuries.

Looking back you can see how the wall has been pushed over and is now held in place by a series of buttresses. 

And very soon it's going to need some more support!

Our path opens out into a small meadow which, at this time of year, is frothing with the white flowers of Cow Parsley.

And here we get a view of the north side of the Holy Trinity Church. Like most village churches parts of it are very old, probably Norman, and then it's been added to, repaired and partly rebuilt over the centuries.

Then we come to a little footbridge crossing the River Mel, the river along which our village was built.

As you can see it's not a very substantial watercourse, but it did at one time power four watermills.

The meadow on this side of the stream is home to a couple of friendly horses, though they've learned over the years that I don't have any treats for them and a cursory glance is all I get from them these days.

There are plenty of Buttercups here, but not many butterflies about today, just a couple of Orange Tips and an unidentified Blue, none of which were remotely interested in posing for photographs.

More buttercups!

And even more! You can just about make out some of the dips and hollows in the meadow which mark the route of an old road which once ran through here and was known as Dukes Lane. Back in those times the road into the village split into two and passed either side of the church. One is now the road while this is now just a footpath.

At the other side of the meadow we pass through the little gate, then alongside the garden wall and back out on to the road again. The house that you can see peeking over the hedge is called "The Warren" and was rented in the summers of 1906 and 1907 by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and his wife, Adeline.

And so concludes our brief excursion. So much nicer than walking alongside the road!


Take care.