A STRANGE VISIT TO PRIOR'S NORTON CHURCH IN 2011...

 Prior’s Norton: A Strange Visit To the Church in 2011…

A narrow lane wound upwards towards the small church at Prior’s Norton but the previously bright sky darkened, a breeze beginning to blow the threat of a rain-shower at my windscreen. There seemed nowhere to park, although even locating the church was tough enough anyway, where trees huddled against the lane’s narrow edges and before I realised it, I had taken a sweeping left bend past a short drive, which would have led into the churchyard. At the summit of the hill, I managed to turn round and I drove slowly back down to the corner, noticing that the church’s car-park was through a pair of gates, leading from the hidden drive I had missed. There had been no helpful signs at all.

After parking, I read a notice on the outer doors indicating that the porch was open but typically, the actual door into the church wasn’t. At that point, normally, I would have walked away but it had taken some effort to fling open the gates then park my car and so I chose to follow some advice on a church notice, which said that a key was available two hundred yards up the hill at ‘Woodlyn’. This seemed odd to me because the house adjacent to the church was called ‘Church House’ and the cottage opposite the drive was called ‘Church Cottage’… And the key was up the hill at ‘Woodlyn’? Hmm… The occupier of the cottage spoke with me and informed me that a tramp usually slept in the porch, so it seemed that another sought-after furnished residence had been taken…

I trudged uphill and rang the bell at ‘Woodlyn’, faced by a small, barking canine irritation but although the front door was clearly open, my bell-ringing skills were not up to standard, until I was just about to walk away and a lady appeared. She had been tarrying in her garden and only the dog’s incessant yapping had brought her out to investigate. She was clearly a church-person from hair, to clothes, to attitude. I borrowed a large key and agreed to post it through her letterbox afterwards. Perhaps she didn’t receive much post.

The interior of the church was dull and uninspiring, even after I turned on the lights, which surprised me, for it looked well worth a visit from the main road, atop an English hill. No wonder the tramp slept in the porch… There was no pamphlet and only one item took my interest, which was a mention of King Alfred’s daughter on a wooden information board. 

Spots of rain began to fall from a showery, grey sky, as I manoeuvred my car from the car-park in order to post the weighty key through the bungalow’s letterbox. 

I was disappointed. 

It’s what I feel sometimes…