What an enjoyable day! We’ve spent the day on the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust annual members’ tour.
Wedged between Rye, Hythe, the sea, and the high ground of the Weald, Romney Marsh (information here and here) is an ancient, if man-made, landscape at England’s extreme SE tip. Over the years, roughly from the Romans through to the Reformation, the marsh land has gradually been inned, or reclaimed from the sea. There have been setbacks, storms, the River Rother, which used to enter the sea at Old Romney, then at New Romney, changed it’s course completely (it now enters the sea some miles away at Rye Harbour) with the demise of a major royal shipyard at Smallhythe. Most of the marsh is around 10 feet below high water. Drainage is a constant battle. This is a volatile landscape, made by man and by sheep.
There are 14 churches, plus 4 ruins, on the Romney Marsh. They are all medieval and apart from one (and the ruins) they are all still in use although many have very small parishes. A number of these churches are built on the sites of the earlier Saxon churches; many have seen worship on their site for well over 1000 years. They are important churches and important sites.
The Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust exists to assist with the preservation and restoration of these glorious small country churches which are so much a part of the country’s heritage. With a couple of exceptions they are not grand parish churches in the style of East Anglian wool country or of the West Country. They are small, designed to serve small communities living on the edge – even at the height of the Marsh’s population just before the Black Death, none of the parishes was large. The exceptions were probably New Romney and Lydd.
Every year the Trust organises a tour for its members, usually in July with a repeat in September (both tours easily fill a 50-seater coach). The tour visits three or four of the churches, often to see the results of the Trust’s work supporting their fabric. We’ve been on the tours fairly regularly for the last 10 or so years and have now seen all but one of the 14 churches, most of them of course several times.
This year we visited St Mary, East Guldeford (top); St Clement, Old Romney (above); St Augustine, Snave (the only church not in regular use and for which the Trust has full responsibility); and St Eanswith, Brenzett. The day starts with coffee at the Royal Oak pub in Brookland (right next to St Augustine, Brookland, so the keen can add a fifth church). Two churches are visited by coach in the morning. We return to the pub for a splendid buffet salad lunch and a pint. Then off to do two more churches. And ending the afternoon with tea provided by the Brenzett WI. WI tea is to die for; it is (almost) the highlight of the day: fifty odd people sit down in the village hall and demolish three trestle tables groaning with home-made cake! You end the day feeling like a python which has just stuffed down a tasty gazelle and doesn’t want to eat again for a month.
At each church there is a short talk from an expert – very often the indefatigable Joan Campbell who is the leading expert on these churches – and chance to look round and take photographs. Every time there is something new to discover: newly researched information about Richard de Guldeford, benefactor of East Guldeford; the effects of 13th century storms and the Black Death on the Marsh; church furnishings which quietly move from parish to parish over the years; major restoration work, often (part) funded by the Trust, this year to the Tudor brickwork of East Guldeford.
These are not neglected and forgotten little churches being propped up by a tiny interest group: the Trust has over 1000 members. Film director Derek Jarman is buried at Old Romney (he lived his last years at Dungeness). Children’s author Edith Nesbit is buried at St Mary-in-the-Marsh. Lydd and New Romney regularly stage concerts and other events. These churches are still important parts of their communities.
And I’ve not mentioned the delights of the Marsh: the ever changing patterns of sheep and arable, sky and earth; the views of the scarp to the north which once upon a time was the old shoreline; or the distant vista of Rye nestling atop its hill. Neither have I mentioned my distant ancestors who lived on the Marsh and the surrounding area – in fact I spent some time today looking for gravestones on the off-chance of discovering something new. And we always seem to have good weather, whatever the forecast.
All in all it’s a superbly delightful day out!
It always surprises me what the brain does and the associations it makes.
But of course The Millipede Brothers do sound rather like an act from some Victorian Circus. Perhaps they were a star turn promoted by Barnum and Bailey. Or more likely they were part of Pablo Fanque’s Fair, featuring Mr Kite, a poster for which so inspired John Lennon and the Beatles to produce Sgt Peppers.
Pablo Fanque, began as a famous circus performer in his youth but became the proprietor of his own circus company. His earliest known appearance in the sawdust ring was in Norwich on 26 December 1821, as ‘Young Darby’, with William Batty’s company. His circus acts included horsemanship, rope walking, leaping and rope vaulting. In 1841, aged forty-five and living in Oxford, he left William Batty to begin business on his own account, with just two horses. The towns of Lancashire, Yorkshire and adjacent counties became Fanque’s favourite venues and it was his visit to Rochdale on 14 February 1843 which produced the poster (above) that inspired John Lennon’s lyric For the Benefit of Mr Kite. Fanque died in Stockport in 1871 and is buried in Woodhouse Cemetery, Leeds next to his first wife Susannah Darby.
