| |
|
St
Edmund, Thurne
 |
|
The
name is strange - it is the Saxon word for a
thorn bush - and this is a remote parish which
seems as much water as it does land. Narrow lanes
roll into the surprise of a fairly busy village,
and that is because it is a popular stop on the
Broads - people tend to arrive here by boat
rather than by road. There's a good pub down
towards the staithe, but St Edmund is on the
hillside above the village, out in the fields.
From the bank across the road there is a gorgeous
view of the parish's most famous feature, Thurne
windmill, with the ruined Abbey of St Benet in
the haze beyond. Coming here in the late summer,
the trees restless and the dust from the harvest
suffusing the air, it was like stepping into a Song
from the Auvergne, a sweet sadness I feel
every year as the nights begin to draw in, and
magnified here in this late afternoon. Thurne was
our last church of the day before heading back to
Norwich and the train, and I stood on the bank
looking out across the great flood plane of the
Yare, thinking to myself that the next time I saw
Norfolk it would be autumn again. St Edmund
is a small, simple church, like so many around
here. The roofs are thatched. Nothing much
happened here after the Black Death: there is
some fine 15th century tracery in the windows in
the chancel, when the roof appears to have been
raised to accomodate them. But essentially, this
is just an elaborated late Norman building. There
is one great curiosity: a long, circular squint
runs eastwards from outside through the western
wall of the tower, lining up on the altar in that
direction, and on St Benet's Abbey in the other.
Almost certainly, it was to create a kind of
sacramental connection between the two. When we
visited, a pigeon had nested inside it.
|
| And,
like so many around here, St Edmund has a plain
and simple interior, obviously well-loved and
looked after. Oil lamps hang from the roof above
simple 19th Century furnishings. A double piscina
of the late 13th century is the earliest
surviving enhancement to the original structure.
From a couple of centuries later, the original
rood beam is nicely set off by the simple roofs.
Perhaps the best single feature of the church is
the east window, with a striking Noli Me
Tangere by Martin Travers - Mary Magdalene
meets the Risen Christ in the garden and
recognises him at last. On either side, roundels
to St Edmund and the Blessed Virgin are full of
mid-century confidence. It would be interesting
to know how the work of such a major artist came
to be commissioned by such a small and remote
parish. And so, that was it. Norfok for
another summer. All over the Broads, the last
fortnighters, weekers and weekenders would be
steering their boats back into Wroxham, Potter
Heigham and Ludham, and setting off home for the
Midlands towns. The countryside would be stripped
of its riches, to lie empty under the lowering
skies. The earth would be turned like rich fruit
cake, and the skeletons of trees, which had
seemed so full of abundance just a few weeks
before, would be a stark punctuation across the
land. Breathing in the cooling air, I could sense
Norfolk closing in on itself again, settling down
in quiet solitude for the onset of winter,
darkness falling increasingly swiftly across the
bare fields.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
