Fairstead

St Mary & St Peter was undergoing some serious restoration work when I visited and was mostly buried under scaffolding and plastic sheeting but the wall paintings were uncovered which was a relief. Other than the paintings the church is uninspiring though this may be the addition of plastic to the interior!

ST MARY. Nave, chancel, and W tower with shingled. broach spire. The nave is Norman, with Roman brick quoins and small original windows, one in the N, one in the S wall, also the remains of a S doorway - all with Roman brick dressings. Norman also the plain, broad chancel arch. The tower was added in the C13, also with much use of Roman brick. Lancet windows and W doorway with one renewed order of E.E. columns. Of the C13, but later, is the chancel, with restored lancet windows. The group of three at the E end is unusual in that they are stepped not only at the top but also at the foot. Sedilia and Piscina are original, but not specially ornate. C15 N porch of timber. - REREDOS. Of stone, fragmentary, at the NE end of the nave. What remains is part of the ribbed soffit of c. 1500. - BENCHES. Fourteen in the nave, straight-topped ends with linenfold decoration. - CHEST. Dug-out, heavily iron-bound, C13 or C14, in the nave. - PAINTINGS. The most valuable thing in the church is its wall-paintings above the chancel arch. They date from c. 1275 and were restored in 1936 by the late Professor Tristram. There are four tiers rising in size as the eye moves upwards. The lowest tier has small scenes, in the second one recognizes the Crowning with Thorns, the Mocking, the Scourging, Christ before Pilate, and the Carrying of the Cross. Above this the Last Supper and the Betrayal, and in the top tier the Entry into Jerusalem. The artistic quality is not high.

 

 

FAIRSTEAD. Few villages in the county are more remote; we come to it by a winding lane from lovely Terling. It has a shingled spire of the last years of Queen Elizabeth, set on a tower of 1200, pointing to the sky in the midst of limes, sycamores, and chestnuts. The capitals at its doorway have weathered the storms of over 700 years. But far older is some of the material in these walls, for there are Roman bricks halfway along the chancel showing where the Norman building ended and where our first English builders continued in the 13th century. The chancel arch has Roman bricks at the top, and in doorway, window, and wall these red bricks abound, mingled with pebbles and flints; it is as if the eager builders had said that any rough assortment would do, only let there be a church.

At least 700 years ago the wall over the Roman bricks in the chancel arch was made a picture gallery, and it is interesting to see that instead of painting the conventional Last Judgment the artists crowded several scenes in rows into their space. Next to the roof are Our Lord riding on the Ass; below are the Last Supper and the Betrayal (with Peter cutting off the ear of Malchus); in the third tier are Christ crowned with thorns, mocked, scourged, and brought before Pilate, while on the extreme right He is carrying His Cross. In a fourth row only two figures are at all clear. There are traces of later paintings on other walls and six red consecration crosses. There is a chest 700 years old, a dug-out nine feet long with two lids, 15th century benches in the nave, and in the belfry a bell which has been ringing for 600 years.

Four centuries ago a traveller would have seen a quaint figure roaming about these lanes. He was Thomas Tusser, the author who had come to test some of the 500 points of good husbandry of which he wrote. His theories met with very little practical success, and he confessed that Jack and Jill tithed so ill that he felt too heavily the burden of the daily pays and the miry ways. So Thomas returned to London, to die in a debtor’s prison, a stone of Sisyphus which could gather no moss, as Fuller said, or, as the epigram says:

Tusser, they tell me when thou wert alive
Thou, teaching thrift, thyself couldst never thrive;
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont
To sharpen others when themselves are blunt.

Flickr set.

Tilbury juxta Clare

St Margaret was locked, appears to be have been clad in concrete and is an absolute gem of a church - it should be awful but it's not. It's situated in the middle of fields away from the village and has an assortment of interesting features not the least the 16th century brick built tower funded by Elizabeth, Countess of Oxford, in 1519.

By the tower in the north west wall is a niche with a strange statue/carving of a figure - possibly a Bishop - and in the porch a board with a poem for God's Blessing.

ST MARGARET. In the fields under a few large trees. C15 nave and chancel and early C16 brick tower with blue brick diapering, diagonal buttresses, battlements and a higher stair turret. Perp windows in nave and chancel. - PULPIT with two tiers of arches with plaited ornament in each panel; Elizabethan.- PAINTINGS. Fragments of wall paintings of the late C15, with late C16 over-painting, on N and S walls. Chiefly ornamental, but also a scene with a man holding a white horse and standing in front of a half-timbered house which exhibits clearly its brick-nogging between the timber studs. In the chancel, in imitation of the ornamental parts of the old work, very rustic wall decoration. - PLATE. Cup and Paten c. 1600.

TILBURY-JUXTA-CLARE. We come to its lonely little church at the end of a narrow lane. It has a tower of Tudor brick, with the badge of the proud De Veres who were probably its benefactors. Much of what we see is 500 years old, the nave and chancel and porch all with their original roofs, the glass canopy-work in the east window, and the fragments of wall-painting, which include a picture of a timbered house with a man and a horse in the foreground. It is partly painted over with 16th century ornament, and there are traces of black-letter texts from the same time. There is a pulpit with Jacobean woodwork, and a fine old chest heavily bound with iron. Grotesque heads look down from the roof, and above the 17th century panelling in the tower is a crude winged beast in plaster.

I wish I could have gained access, it sounds fascinating.

Simon K -

I bet nobody actually calls it Tilbury-juxta-Clare. The church is alone in the fields near to some woods, half a mile from the village (which is really a suburb of Great Yeldham - why not Tilbury-juxta-Yeldham, I wonder?) and a quarter mile track runs up beside a field to reach it. The restoration here was very quirky, under the eye of the vicar. His wife set all sorts of ecclesiological junk in the outer walls, I've seen nothing quite like it before. The interior is supposed to be very good - wall paintings as at Belchamp Walter, and also some medieval glass. The keyholder notice is friendly enough, and there are two keyholders. Their house numbers suggest they are neighbours, but there was no phone number. I went back to the village and headed down the main street where they were supposed to be, but most houses had names rather than numbers, and by the time I got to where I thought they should be I was in Great Yeldham. I decided to give up rather than waste more time.

Flickr set.

Stambourne

St Peter and St Thomas Becket has the largest tower footprint I've yet seen - I've seen better, I've seen prettier, I've seen more striking but I've not seen bigger. It's reminiscent of a peel tower and I imagine, given its 17 sq foot size, that it must have been built with defence in mind.

The nave, chancel and south porch seem diminutive in comparison and contain some fine carving, glass and old painting on the rood screen.

ST PETER AND ST THOMAS. Impressive broad and powerful C11 W tower, unbuttressed with two large windows fairly high up on the W, N, and S sides, an arch to the nave with decoration on the N abacus, and later battlements. The rest C15 to early C16 (early C16 the plain brick S porch), and apparently largely due to the generosity of the Macwilliam family. All windows Late Perp, several of three lights with depressed heads and intersecting tracery. One S window in the nave has four lights, and the E jamb inside is decorated by two niches with elaborate canopies. The N arcade of three bays has slim octagonal piers with partly wave-moulded arches. The N aisle roof is specially good. The N chancel chapel is only one bay long, but the E respond has a quite exceptional enrichment; a niche for a figure and above it a shield with the Macwilliam arms, a beautifully carved helmet and as a background a spray of leaf-work. - STAINED GLASS. In the E window the kneeling figures of Henry Macwilliam and his first wife who died in 1530; also small fragments in the tracery. - FONT.  Octagonal, with traceried stem and the usual quatrefoils and shields on the bowl. - SCREEN. One-light divisions with ogee tops and simple panel-tracery above. The dado on the l. side painted with figures of saints - an East Anglian rather than an Essex tradition. The quality of the paintings is low.

STAMBOURNE. Charles Haddon Spurgeon knew its lanes long before he began preaching, for he spent much of his youth with his grandfather at the manse. The medieval Lion Inn was once Moone Hall; it has a 17th century chimney in its moss-covered roof, and a gable with its original woodwork. The wide and massive Norman tower of the church reminds us of a castle keep. Its walls are four feet thick, and built into the corners are Roman bricks. Roman tiles form the sides and round heads of five Norman windows, and grotesque gargoyles run round the parapet.

The Tudor porch covers the original doorway of the 14th century nave, which has rafters 500 years old, and but a century later is some brightly coloured glass showing the shield and badge of the Macwilliams, a local family. The lofty chancel arch is 15th century, crossed by a glorious wooden screen over 400 years old. It has five bays of beautiful tracery, some of the lower panels painted in red, green, and gold, with four figures on pedestals. We see St Denis as a bishop holding his head in his hands, St George cheerfully spearing the dragon, Edmund the Martyr with the arrow which killed him, and that unofficial saint Henry the Sixth, standing on an antelope and holding an orb.

The 16th century chancel has its original roof carved with foliage, and some glorious glass possibly put up by Henry Macwilliam in 1530 to show his pedigree. The east window has two big panels showing a woman in a heraldic mantle kneeling at a prayer desk, with her an armoured man in a tabard. In the tracery are shields held by figures or hung on trees. In the chancel wall is a pointed arch on which one capital is beautifully carved with a helmet, mantling, and shield; below is a delightful little niche. Through the arch is a 400-year-old chapel with its original roof and studded door. The north aisle is 16th century, and also has its original roof. By a window are two lovely niches matching two in the nave, all a feature of the church. The aisle is divided from the nave by a gracious medieval arcade. The dignified pulpit has plain 18th century panels; one richly carved chair in the sanctuary is 16th century, and has an inlaid back. A medieval chest by the tower has three hasps, its little panels deeply sunk.

Simon K -

A huge square Norman tower, a most attractive sight, very reminiscent of Little Bardfield. The outer doors were locked open. I stepped into a church of no small interest, with a range of medieval glass of donors, etc, which is remarkable for being so late, the 1530s - think Sheldon, Denston, Long Melford. There is also a contemporary screen with painted Saints, better than Great Yeldham, I thought. Best of all, in my opinion, a window of 2008 by Derek Hunt in the north aisle which shows there is life in the art of stained glass after the Millennium Windows dumbing down debacle.

This was the best church of the day - not Essex top 10 material, but top 25 I should think.

I was only a mile or so from Birdbrook, but I knew that, as it had gone 1 o'clock, I needed to turn east again. Birdbrook and Sturmer would have to wait for another day. Instead, I turned into a freshening wind towards Ridgewell.

Flickr set. 

Ovington

St Mary the Virgin was unsurprisingly locked - I say unsurprisingly since it, and the adjacent Hall, are in the middle of nowhere. It would have been nice for a keyholder to have been listed since this looked to be a fascinating church in a slightly shabby state. In this case it is the simplicity of the church that lends it its charm and its truly stunning location (even in the rain).

ST MARY. Nave, chancel, and belfry, the latter resting on four rough posts inside the nave. Cross-beam on the two E posts. The windows indicate the C14 as the date for nave and chancel. - No furnishings of interest.

 

Strangely this is another village which is not mentioned by Mee but Wikepedia says:

Ovington is a small village in Essex. The village is situated about three miles (5 km) from the village of Clare. It consists of Ovington hall, St. Mary's Church, and a few houses. Its a pretty place, with the air traffic of Ridgewell Airfield (usually gliders and sometimes military training exercises).

One of the earliest mentions of this place is in the Domesday book where it is mentioned together with Hedingham Castle and listed amongst the lands given to Roger Bigod by the King. The land given to Roger included 24 acres (97,000 m²) of meadow that was (in total) valued at four pounds.

Simon K -

A sweet little Essex church in a field beside the Hall, about a mile from its village. A hard track runs up to the Hall which you can take (I did) or there is a footpath from the village. It wasn't clear to me if the church was still in use - there were a few notices, but nothing current. I suspect it is not used in winter. It didn't look interesting inside - all the windows are clear, so you can see inside. A bogstandard restoration of the 1870s I should think. And again, ecclesiological junk set in the outer walls, because Ovington was under the same Rector and his wife as Tilbury. Despite being locked no keyholder, I quite liked it really. I'd like to see it again in sunshine. I'm not really that bothered about getting inside.

Little Yeldham

I don't know why but St John the Baptist did not really float my boat perhaps the weather, it had started raining and there was a bitter north easterly wind, had an affect. The interior is simple, not to say plain, and, for me, has not retained many features of interest and the exterior is spoilt by a rather stumpy wood and shingle tower.

ST JOHN THE BAPTIST. Nave of unknown date, but probably earlier than the C15 chancel which is exceptionally out of line with the nave. Belfry of the C15 resting inside the nave on four posts with cross-beams on arched braces. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with quatrefoils etc. and shields.

Rather surprisingly Mee appears to have missed Little Yeldham or the fifth edition of Essex, printed in 1951, failed to include the village.

Simon K -

And this is a wholly Essex church with its little wooden bell turret. The outer gates were latched back, a nice touch, and one I found at several churches today. The interior is the work of Seddon, an architect whose quirkiness I quite like, although I could do without his enthusiasm for stone furnishings. Here, the stone screen and pulpit completely dominate the little church. As at Hellesdon, the east window was a quick fix repair after the old window was destroyed by a German bomb - by GER Smith, but still has a hasty look about it. But I quite liked it for being so friendly.

Flickr set.

Great Yeldham

This was a particularly fruitful trip with almost all the churches visited being open and almost all of them of interest. St Andrew was no exception and is an architectural curio.

From the road it appears to be a fairly run of the mill flint and rubble building consisting of the English style chancel, nave, a north aisle and an obviously later brick and flint tower - pleasant enough but run of the mill.

When viewed from the south east, however, you are confronted with a veritable melting pot of styles and materials, with a vestry, south chapel, a simply enormous brick built porch and added to this the tower reveals itself to be rather interesting.

The porch started life as the first stage of an abandoned tower and gives the church a certain majesty which the, as expected, over-restored interior does not quite live up to, however there's enough of interest to make the sum of its parts, whilst maybe not a knee trembler, certainly worth a visit.

ST ANDREW. Entirely Perp. Nave, N aisle and chancel mid C14, but the N arcade redone in 1884. For reasons not convincingly  explained a huge W tower was added to the nave on its S side, near the W end. It was begun later in the C14, with angle buttresses and a big S doorway enriched by an ogee canopy and two niches l. and r. This was not continued and later given a blank stepped brick gable as a piece of decoration. Instead, late in the C15, a more normal W tower was erected, also with angle buttresses. It has bell-openings of three lights with one transome, stepped battlements with pinnacles and, between them, in the middle of each side, a smallish figure of an angel. - PULPIT. Elizabethan, with two tiers of blank arches with plaited decoration on each panel. - SCREEN. One-light divisions with ogee tops and a little tracery above them. On the r. side of the screen the dado is painted with figures of saints, in the East Anglian manner. The quality of the paintings is low. - BRASS. Plate with arched top and kneeling figures, Symonds family, 1627. - (MONUMENT. Mr Gunnis mentions Gregory Way d. 1799, by John Bacon.)

GREAT YELDHAM. At its heart stands the huge Yeldham Oak, 30 feet round and perhaps 1000 years old; and in its beautiful churchyard is a hollow elm. They are the grand old men of this pleasant place, the oak probably twice as old as the oldest of Great Yeldham’s charming houses.

One of them is Spaynes Hall of the 17th and 18th centuries; another is an inn going back to 1500, with a Tudor chimney-stack, a fine door at the back, and woodwork 300 years old; and a third is beautiful Yeldham Hall, built of timber and plaster in the 16th and 17th centuries, and still keeping its old panelling and balusters.

Older than most of these houses is the church, which comes from the 14th and 15th centuries. Its tower has angels on the parapet. Its porch is the lowest storey of an earlier tower which was either never finished or partly pulled down. It has an outer doorway with much beauty from the 14th century, and a Tudor room above. The door itself is 600 years old, and has kept its ancient handle and a long iron strap. A little doorway in the nave wall was meant to lead to the turret of the unfinished tower. On the 15th century screen are remains of a painting showing a bishop and a lady with a crown. The pulpit is Jacobean, and there are two chests and a carved chair from the 17th century. Timbers 500 years old are over the north aisle. In the 15th century south chapel is a brass showing Richard Symonds of 1627, kneeling with his wife and looking up at a cloud with the word Jehovah. Their six children are at another desk below. In the vestry, we found a picture of old George Hardy, who knew every stone of this ancient place, for he was singing in the choir for three-quarters of a century.

An old timbered dovecot, seen from the road, has a pyramid roof.

Simon K -

A better and more impressive church outside than in. It was rather dark inside - I nearly missed the screen paintings of Saints, and only remembered them as I was leaving. I did like the glass though - unusual workshops of the late 19th Century/early 20th Century, which I shall have to find out about. I noticed the bench to John Suddard. he was vicar here in the 1990s, and last year was murdered in his Somerset vicarage by a mentally ill man with an anti-Christian fixation.

Flickr set.

Gestingthorpe

St Mary the Virgin and more particularly Gestingthorpe in general have for a long time been on my must visit list - for teenage associations and memories - but it was only relatively recently that I learnt that it also housed a memorial to Captain Oates of "I may be some time" fame.

St Mary is rather spartan and over-restored for my taste and was the most disappointing visit on this trip - perhaps my expectations were too high!

ST MARY. The church is small in comparison with the tower. This was added about 1498 (when 40s. was bequeathed by William Carter to the building of the tower) to a church partly Norman, partly C14 and partly C15. The chancel has a blocked C13 N window; the other windows are early C14. The five-light E window is specially interesting. The tracery is of a rare (early) variety of reticulation, where the net pattern is arrived at by simply placing arches on top of the apexes of other arches. The Sedilia inside the chancel have simple ogee arches. The S arcade of the nave was rebuilt in the C19. The W tower is of brick with blue brick diapering. It has angle buttresses, stepped battlements and short pinnacles.The W doorway and the W window are also of brick. The bell-openings are of three lights with one transome and have depressed pointed heads with intersecting tracery. About the time when the tower was built, the nave received a roof uncommonly splendid for Essex. It is of the double-hammerbeam type of which there are only a few examples in the county. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, with traceried stem and a bowl decorated by shields and the symbols of the four Evangelists. - SCREEN. With one-light divisions. The heads are quite richly decorated; crocketed ogee arches and panel tracery above them. - STAINED GLASS. Seated Virgin in a N window, much restored. - MONUMENT. John Sparrow d. 1626, alabaster, with small kneeling figure.

Arthur was more fulsome but mostly due to it being the home of Lawrence Oates.

GESTINGTHORPE. Here lived a very gallant gentleman, though who could have imagined, seeing him as a little delicate boy walking in this pleasant wooded country, that he would live for ever as the matchless hero of Antarctica?

Three English explorers have passed mysteriously from the sight of men in our time: Irvine and Mallory were seen mounting up Everest and were lost in the clouds, Captain Oates walked out into the blizzard to give a better chance of life to Scott and his comrades. He was born in London while his mother was on holiday there, but this was the home of his boyhood, and the little 14th century church of flint and red bricks, with a few Roman tiles in its walls, has a brass plate in the nave which says:

In memory of a very gallant gentleman. Died March 17, 1912, on the return journey from the South Pole of the Scott Antarctic Expedition.

When all were beset by hardship he, being gravely injured, went out into the blizzard to die in the hope that by so doing he might enable his comrades to reach safety.

Every week, we were told, an old lady, her years running close to the nineties, walked to the church to polish this brass in memory of her son. Well she remembered the time when he was so delicate that he was sent to South Africa for three winters. He knew this place well as a boy and his home is by the church, the 17th century house called Over Hall, which we see through the lime trees. It was faced with brick and partly made new in the 18th century, and has a dovecot 300 years old with a pyramid roof, four gables, and nesting holes for 500 birds. There is another dovecot at Moat Farm a mile away, a medieval house with its original doorway. The countryside of Captain Oates’s boyhood is dotted with timbered and plastered farm houses—Park Farm with two original doorways and a 16th century chimney stack; Parkgate Farm, with the original roof of the hall; Edye’s Farm, with its old doorway and the roof of the old hall still in its upper storey.

They are peeps of old England to stir the imagination of any boy, and we do not doubt that Captain Oates would often think of them in those last bitter days of his life. Like the farmhouses, the church has doors which have been swinging on their hinges for centuries, its west door and the door of the tower turret being both 400 years old. The magnificent hammerbeam roof of the nave has been as we see it for 500 years; so has the roof of the south aisle. The beams and wall-plates of the nave roof are carved with foliage and the names of Peter Barnard, Marget his wyf ; and Thomas Loveday and Alys his wyf. Their children may have been christened at the medieval font, carved with an eagle, a bull, and a lion, all with wings.

From these medieval days comes a little glass in a window in the nave, showing a small crowned Madonna with her little Son on her knee, and the two richly traceried old bays worked into the oak chancel screen. There is an extraordinarily long dug-out chest with five locks, old paintings of Moses and Aaron, and a 17th century tomb on which John Sparrow kneels at a table in the armour of Charles Stuart’s day. He wears a ruff and baggy breeches, and all about him are the weapons of war of his time, pikes and spears and muskets, helmets and a suit of armour, a red standard, and a drum.

Here Died a Very Gallant Gentleman

ALL the life of Lawrence Edward Oates would seem to have been a preparation for those hours in the Antarctic when he walked to his death in a blizzard to try to save his companions beset by hardship. Never was a greater example of the truth that no man can tell till the end of his life what has been the most important hour in it.

He was only 32 when he died, and up till the years of his Antarctic Expedition his chief expedition had been in the South African War, where he just missed the Victoria Cross. He was with the Inniskilling Dragoons in India when he wrote to Scott begging to be taken as one of his party on the Terra Nova. He was asked to come to London to talk it over, and, the two men recognising in one another a kindred spirit, the sailor took the soldier, who was to have charge of the ponies. Oates, rather shyly, asked Scott whether he would have a chance of going on the actual sledge party to the Pole. The Commander replied briefly that he intended to take the four fittest men, and if Oates proved to be one of these he would certainly go on with him. With this conditional promise Oates joyfully embarked. The record of the 900-mile sledge journey to the Pole is best told in the diaries of Captain Scott, found near the dead bodies of himself and his last companions. The most heartrending sentence in it is in the message Scott penned to England:

Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman.

That hardihood and courage belonged to Lawrence Oates in full measure. He added to them an act of sacrifice which raised this simple soldier to a height at which he shines as an inspiration to the world.

Almost from the beginning the sledge journey to the Pole was dogged with mishap. The preparations were long and difficult after the party had reached their starting base. One of the questions hard to decide was whether to take ponies or dogs or both, and the decision to take ponies involved a delay of some weeks, because they could not stand the winter climate. The delay also caused another entirely unexpected misfortune, the character of which was only learned when it was too late. All unknown to Scott, while he delayed, Amundsen with his Antarctic party was starting on the same journey by a shorter route, and with more fitting equipment. Fortune favoured the Norwegian, and seemed to set its face against the English party from the first. They were behind their scheduled time and dared not pause for rest lest their food rations should not last. There was nothing but to go trudging on, hauling their sledges with agonising effort.

In spite of the heavy going over soft snow or crumbling ice they contrived to keep to nearly ten miles a day, but it was at terrible cost to themselves, and each began to ask himself how long he could keep the pace, and each to fear that his weakness might betray the others. What their nights were when they shivered, half-frozen and half-thawed, through brief hours of exhaustion, and when they seemed neither asleep nor awake, we hardly find it possible to think.

At last, when the lessening stock of food had lightened the sledges, they had only 27 miles to go; another two good marches would l take them to their goal. On January 16 they had been marching about two hours when the seaman’s eyes of Lieutenant Bowers saw something like a cairn of stones. But how could it be a cairn? Were they not the first to cross this untracked solitude? They marched on. Another half hour and there was a black speck far ahead. The bitter truth burst on them. With sinking hearts they came to a black flag tied to part of a sledge, and, drawing nearer, saw sledge tracks, marks of skis, and the footprints of many dogs pointing to and from the Pole. Amundsen had beaten them; the intrepid Norwegian had come and gone.

0ur own hearts sink as we try to realise the bitter shock of disappointment to these worn and bewildered men. Had they indeed been the first to set their feet at the South Pole the exultation might have so raised their spirits that they would have set out on the return journey with bounding pulses and renewed vigour. It was not to be. They must face the miles back with the bitter consciousness that, though they had done their duty, it was not enough.

It was on the merciless journey back that Captain Oates broke down in body though his spirit triumphed to the end. His feet had been frost-bitten; he could scarcely stumble along; his iron will could not keep him in the traces of the sledge. He was left to sit on it while the others searched for tracks, and then to plod behind alone with his thoughts. He asked his nearest friend among them what he should do, and all the friend could say was "Slog on—just slog on," though both knew death was certain.

So Oates tried to battle to the end, though doubts came with every dawn and lasted through every agonising day. His hands were useless; his feet would barely support him. Try as he would he kept the party waiting. He came to the end of his endurance. He could not go on. He asked them to leave him behind in his sleeping-bag. But they would not leave him, though they knew his hours were numbered, and he struggled on a few miles more, when they camped. He awoke in the morning after a little sleep, and as he woke he knew what he must do. He struggled to his feet and limped out into the blizzard. He bade no goodbye; he said only: I am just going outside; I may be some time.

He was going out so that his companions should not be burdened with his company. The chance was faint, but his going might give them some hope of life denied to him.

Long afterwards, when the bodies of the others were found, a service was read over them beginning with the words: "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Over the body of Oates no service could be read, for the snow of the blizzard had enfolded it forever; but near the camp where he went forth into the swirling snowstorm a rude cross has been set up, and on it are the words: Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman.

Simon K -

Pleasantly situated church between Sudbury and Castle Hedingham, with a handsome red brick tower. It is best known as the home parish of the Oates family, explorers extraordinaire, the most famous of whom was Captain Oates who was immortalised as a great English hero after walking into a snow storm to help ensure the survival of the rest of Captain Scott's Antarctic expedition. He is commemorated inside the church.

Flickr set.