Ride & Stride 2019

In 2014 I wrote a post about four supposedly participating churches only one of which was actually open - this made me incredibly [perhaps irrationally] angry. I even sent an angry church crawler denied email to the Ride and Stride website decrying the churches lack of participation despite their inclusion on the list of participating churches - as you'd expect nothing much came of that, so I wrote all three churches off as interiorly inaccessible.

Fast forward five years and I downloaded this year's list to see if some notoriously LNK churches were participating and found two which I really wanted access to were Ugley and Takeley. Both were marked with an asterisk which, after a bit of Googleing, seemed to indicate that they were open and manned/womanned. This sounded promising so I resolved on a mini trip.

Having dropped son 2 at the station I headed off to Ugley and on the single track to St Peter passed two lady striders. A little further up I espied a car parked in the church drive, surely a sign of the manned status and my spirits soared - I was going to get inside for the first time since 2010 when I found it open but being new to this game missed much including the Burne Jones East window; only to find a wedding was just beginning and yet again I was thwarted.

Disappointed I returned home - which in itself was difficult as guest after guest came up the single track lane forcing me to reverse to let them pass [this was at 12.45pm - is this a normal time to get married?].

I stewed at home thinking evil thoughts until I decided to try again at 2.45pm and set off once more [I really wanted the east window] and when I arrived the Bride & Groom were just leaving! The church, however, was open, and the east window and various missed monuments were recorded.

Visitors on the meet and greet list included an earlier cyclist and....no-one. The two striders left empty handed and I was cheating. So I take my hat off to St Peter for actually taking part even if they offset their participation by laying on the longest wedding in history.

Filled with joie de vie I decided to try Holy Trinity, Takeley, despite having phoned a keyholder  listed on their website [but not on their notice board] earlier that morning who knew nothing about their plans. To be fair she was very helpful even offering to go down to the church where she knew someone was setting up for Mass the next day. I should have called her on my mobile rather than the landline because, despite the asterisk against its listing, it was predictably locked. What really pissed me off was the laminated "Welcome to Holy Trinity" sign.

I've stopped off here dozens of times over the last decade and it's always been locked, so to list it with an asterisk for Ride and Stride and including it on the list implies intention to apply for funding. Which seems odd for a church that is inaccessible and may soon be subsumed by a second Stansted runway - either way until they open up to the public they shouldn't be charitably funded.