Suffolk churches 199: Shipmeadow, Little Livermere (ruin) and Thorpe (ruin) (August 2021)

admin Blog 12/11/202129/04/2022Landscape, Places, Suffolk churches

St Bartholomew’s, Shipmeadow
Before my appointment at Shipmeadow, I had a date with the ruins at Covehithe and Walberswick: I had intended to play outdoors there ever since I gave a concert in Covehithe church in March 2019. Time was running out, summer weather was in short supply, and I couldn’t possibly finish my church tour without fulfilling that particular desire. On arrival at Covehithe, I still (after nearly 500 churches) found it strangely difficult to just get my cello out and start playing while there were people wandering around. I was a bit surprised there was such a steady flow of people, actually; but I soon realised it was because the lane up to the church was being used as a parking spot for the beach, and everyone was popping into the church on their way down. Playing at Walberswick was easier: there were fewer visitors and I had company in the form of a new friendly acquaintance from Yoxford, Richard, who’d photographed me playing in Blythburgh church a few weeks earlier. I don’t know why being with someone should give me more confidence to do peculiar things. But it does.

Shipmeadow was different, again, to the other converted churches I’d visited: this one was open plan from end to end, with a raised floor. Apart from one bedroom - down some steps from the chancel in the old vestry - which I spotted when I went to use the loo, I didn’t manage to figure out where the rest must have been – assuming there was more than one bedroom, which I took for granted given the size of the place. This was my favourite conversion, I decided. Of course, it was probably impossible to keep warm in the winter, but open plan has always been my preference, and in this case it retained more of the character of the original building.

Suffolk churches 195: Newmarket All Saints and Fornham St Genevieve (July 2021)

admin Blog 13/10/202113/10/2021Landscape, Places, Suffolk churches, Summer

All Saints’, Newmarket
Inexplicably, it had escaped my notice that there was more than one church of medieval foundation in Newmarket. I’d played in St Mary’s twice, and thought that was it for Newmarket. All Saints’, though entirely Victorian, should most definitely have been on my list, as it was rebuilt on the site of the medieval church. Munro Cautley seems also to include churches rebuilt on new sites – Westley and Braiseworth, for example – but I’m afraid this makes no sense to me. Luckily ruins still remain of both of these churches, and they were my chosen substitutes.

Suffolk churches 190: Herringfleet, Pakefield and Kirkley (July 2021)

admin Blog 28/08/202128/08/2021Coast, Landscape, Music, Places, Suffolk churches, Summer

St Margaret’s, Herringfleet
Herringfleet was the only church on the Broads that I had yet to visit, as it was under scaffolding and full of builders the last time I was in the area. I’d arranged with the vicar that it would be left open for me, so I walked confidently up to the door at noon, only to find it locked.

Suffolk churches 189: Lowestoft and Oulton (July 2021)

admin Blog 12/08/2021Landscape, Music, Places, Seasons, Suffolk churches, Summer

St Margaret’s, Lowestoft
I’d arranged a full weekend of church visits in and around Lowestoft, with the result that I was giving at least two concerts, if not more, in two days. I’d slightly lost track of which ones were concerts and which weren’t. I took pains to stress they would be very informal: I was out of solo performance practice and my stamina wasn’t up to a full recital. But I knew that if there were more than a handful of people attending, they would feel like concerts anyway.

Suffolk churches 186: Willisham and Leiston (June 2021)

admin Blog 24/07/2021Landscape, Music, Places, Spring, Suffolk churches

St Mary’s, Willisham
It was an idyllic morning when I arrived at Willisham church to play at a Sunday service (though clouded over by the time I took this photo!). It was finally time to meet the cello-playing vicar I’d heard rumours of three years previously, made even more intriguing by the fact his cello – our email correspondence revealed – was made by Joseph Hill senior, the father of the maker of my own cello.

The extent of my acquaintance with the church was that I’d walked past it once, nearly a decade ago, but found it locked. It is essentially a Victorian church, but such are its charms and setting that I was glad to have arrived early to enjoy the view across the valley (see header photo) and its beautiful acoustic for a few minutes before anyone arrived. Playing alone in a church never loses its magic, no matter how often I do it, and no matter how glad I am to share music with others – particularly at a time when singing is not allowed, and so little live music has been enjoyed.

Suffolk churches 184: Wangford St Denys, Barnardiston and Haverhill (May 2021)

admin Blog 19/07/202127/12/2021Landscape, Music, Places, Spring, Suffolk churches

The photographic aspect of this blog is proving a problem in keeping up with my church accounts as it is so time consuming - so I will reduce the number included from now on (only slightly in this post), until I have finished the remaining churches. Then I will gradually add in the rest!

Wangford St Denys
I’d expected Wangford to be one of two possibly insuperable obstacles in my path to playing all of Suffolk’s medieval churches: it is not used by the Church of England, but leased to an American Baptist church, and the curate at Brandon church gave the impression I’d be hard-pressed even to make contact - he himself could give me no information about it. I could find nothing but a postal address when I searched online, and nothing about the church on the RAF Lakenheath website, to whom I assumed the church had been leased.

All was not lost, however, thanks to some photos of the church posted online. Outside the church was a sign saying New Beginnings International and listing services times and the name of Pastor Jake Jacobs. This church, I discovered, had a Facebook page, with email address and phone number. Phoning out of the blue was a little beyond my courage limits, so I sent an email, not very hopeful of a response. But, to my astonishment, the following day I received a friendly and encouraging reply from Bishop Jake Jacobs, and a day after that I was making my way to Wangford.

Suffolk churches 180: Melton Old Church, Creeting St Mary and Great Cornard (March – April 2021)

admin Blog 11/06/202111/06/2021Landscape, Music, Places, Spring, Suffolk churches

St Andrew’s, Melton
This church visit, my first of 2021, was as special as the occasion demanded. On the last day of March we were blessed with sun and warmth, spring blossom and birdsong. I was expecting a little audience – which might have been worrying given the many months that had passed since I last played in public – but having started practising for a concert with my friend Rachel, I felt comfortable with the prospect, especially as I knew how long it had been since anyone heard live music. The audience would be at a distance, anyway: I’d be in the church, and they’d be outside the open tower door.

It’s a little confusing that both the churches in Melton are dedicated to St Andrew; but the medieval one outside the village is usually referred to as Melton Old Church. St Andrew’s, in the village, is Victorian, built when the village migrated towards the railway. But since the medieval font from the old church was also moved here – not just any old medieval font, but one of Suffolk’s 13 Seven Sacrament fonts – I feel obliged to pay it a visit before the end of my church tour.

Suffolk churches 179: Ickworth, Hundon and Little Bealings (December 2020)

admin Blog 11/04/202111/04/2021Landscape, Music, Places, Suffolk churches, Winter

St Mary’s, Ickworth
Still enjoying the novelty of being within a day trip of each other following her move from south London to Hertford, I arranged to meet my friend Rachel at the National Trust’s Ickworth Park to play in the church there in the run-up to Christmas. There was an additional motive in this meeting: Rachel had recently confessed to me that she couldn’t bring herself to play the oboe in her local church, even though she’d been to sit there a few times and no one had ever come in. She felt it would be presumptuous, and that the oboe has the potential to offend more than the cello does. I tried to persuade her that if no one was there, there was no one to offend; and besides, if an instrument is played well, it never offends. More importantly, she would be doing the building a service by filling it with music. This wasn’t only my opinion, after having played in 437 Suffolk churches; it was also the opinion of most of the people I had spoken to along the way, whether religious, unreligious or anti-religious. But I couldn’t convince her with words alone, so I decided she needed breaking in gently, in Suffolk churches instead of Hertford ones. Perhaps after that, I thought, she might feel differently enough for me to accompany her to her local church with my cello.

Suffolk churches 175: Trimley St Mary (September 2020)

admin Blog 12/01/202112/01/2021Concerts, Landscape, Music, Suffolk churches, Summer

St Mary’s, Trimley St Mary
My planned July concert at Trimley St Mary church – now the Two Sisters Arts Centre – was moved to September, with a limited live audience and a larger virtual one. I changed the programme and my co-conspirators: Rachel and Steve would join me on oboe and bassoon respectively. It needed to be easy to arrange and relatively pressure-free for all of us, and, most importantly, I wanted to be in the company of good friends. I needed to rediscover the joy of practising, rehearsing and performing even in the context of arm troubles and my accompanist’s, James’, absence.

Summer treasure 15: Early mornings

admin Blog 12/08/202012/08/2020Crossways Farm, Hobbets, Landscape, Summer, Wildlife

12/8/20 After I got back from Wiltshire a few weeks ago, I made a list of things that might help me to keep up my spirits and think positively. The break had done me a huge amount of good, but I could already feel that it wouldn’t solve the problems of being at home again. I was going to have to work hard at maintaining the change in mindset I had experienced in those few days away. I had already identified one thing that would give me that sense of wellbeing and excitement about life which had been so lacking in recent weeks: to go looking for chalk streams in Norfolk. But at least a whole free day was required for that kind of adventure, and I needed things I could do every day, at home, even on busy days.

I looked back at the list yesterday. Even though I had already implemented many of the items, I had forgotten it was so long. As well as obvious things such as planning to see friends and getting out regularly, the list read as follows:

Sit in the boat on the pond
Swim in the rain
Walk at dusk
Write at the reservoir
Sleep in the garden
Make a campfire & seat area at the top of the garden by the moat
Get up early (walk/bike ride)
Go into the hedge/stream area beside the meadow
Go for a new walk twice a week

Seeing this list again, it is clearly all about new perspectives: seeing and doing familiar things in new ways, and taking advantage of novelty available close to home.

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