Edingthorpe
Even when you've lived in Norfolk a long time and you
think you know the place well - it can still surprise
you. Edingthorpe Church is one of these delightful
surprises. You turn off at the duck pond in the centre
of the village and drive along a narrow, muddy lane.
After about a quarter of a mile, the lane turns into a
track and heads up a steep (for Norfolk) hill and you
find the church located on its own on the crest of the
hill - surrounded by a belt of pine trees. On the
Easter weekend when I visited, I also found the
graveyard full of daffodils.
The war poet Siegfried Sassoon visited the church
when he was child on holiday in Norfolk. The location
obviously made an impression on him for, later in life,
when he came to write his autobiography The Old
Century and Seven More Years (1938), he remembers
the timelessness of the place:
|
| 'It had a very
special dignity and simplicity, standing there on its
low hill above the harvest fields, as though it were the
faithful servant of the life around it. All churches
are alike in the eyes of our Maker, it now seemed to be
saying; it evokes in me a sense of local England and the
centuries behind it, - the harvests it has seen and the
pathos of those humble folk who had toiled and died and
had been "of this parish". |
Supported
by Norfolk Tourism