In Kersey

The little village of Kersey lies tucked in a fold of the Suffolk countryside, hidden away from the bustling world of the twenty-first century. Or so you might think.....

....except that almost everyone knows it's there and people have been visiting this out-of-the-way place for many years...many, many years in fact.

It has the kind of ancient beauty that's hard to ignore. Although it's basically one narrow street that's less than half a mile (0.8 Km) in length, there are 40 listed buildings along its length (buildings that are protected as being of great historical or cultural interest).

In summer (at least in a normal summer) this place can be heaving with tourists and even if you never visit you'll probably encounter photographs of it on calendars or catch sight of it in an episode of "Lovejoy"!

Even in the early days of motoring it was a significant enough destination to persuade the AA to erect one of its signs to help its members on their way.

This little place had its own market as far back as the thirteenth century and, like many of the villages in this area, probably owes much of its historical importance to the manufacture and trade in wool and textiles. There was even a kind of coarse woollen cloth called "kersey". However the village's website says that historical evidence for all this is hard to find.

I also learned from various sources that there was also another matter putting Kersey on the map in Medieval times.

On the hill at the south end of The Street stands the village church which, through its tall tower and imposing location, gives the feeling of being larger than it actually is. Back in the fourteenth century this became a place of pilgrimage on account of "the many miracles" that occurred there.

The shrine in the church and the idea of pilgrimage did not survive the political and religious upheavals of the seventeenth century, but in 2020 the Shrine was "re-hallowed", though at present, like many other institutions, it's operating via the internet.

I didn't enter the church to see the Shrine so I'll have to rely on the power of the lucky black cat that crossed my path.

Just a few more pictures before we set out on a walk in the surrounding countryside....

The door of a fine old house, right next to the ford. I noticed that it was For Sale if anyone's interested.

That last shot was taken at the start of the walk, using a telephoto lens and looking back over the village through a hole in the hedge. The rest of the walk will have to wait for the next post.

Take care