At the sign of the Barking lion...

St Andrew, Timworth

At the sign of the Barking lion...

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Timworth

Timworth Timworth Timworth
Timworth Timworth Timworth

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Timworth church is visible off in the fields long before you reach it. You cycle out of Ingham on the back road to Ampton, and soon the lane curves widely through the meadows towards rising ground and woodlands. Beyond them, unseen, is Ampton Water, and ahead is Timworth church standing in splendid isolation a good half a mile from the nearest other building. You freewheel down to it on a narrow track beside hilly fields, and when I first came here, on one of the hottest days of 1999, it was like being in some backwater of the Loire Valley. Coming back on a crisp winter day in early 2008, an afternoon mist beginning to condense out in the fields, the mood was quite different, but no less beautiful. In later visits I've always found the setting a delight. You reach the churchyard which is sheltered by trees and rising towards the north. There is a silence here which is difficult to find in the southern half of England these days.

It is said that parish churches are often found a long way from their village centres because inhabitants died, or moved away, at the time of the Black Death. Of course, there are a hundred and one reasons why a village church should be remote, most of them economic, and these can have just as dramatic an effect on people's lives as pestilence does. Certainly, old photographs of the church show buildings to the south of it, but no trace of them remains. In fact, there is no village centre anymore.

St Andrew has one of Suffolk's south towers, and as in many cases the porch serves as the bell-ringing chamber, so you walk in through hanging ropes. On the western door jamb there is an interesting collection of 18th Century graffiti. You step into the deep silence of a building which is, to all intents and purposes, a Victorian church within a medieval shell. The reredos is identical to the one at Culford a couple of miles off. The pulpit is huge, with an ornate staircase looking like something out of a French cathedral.

Perhaps it is the resonances of the early 20th Century which are strongest, though. The war memorial has a terrifying number of names on it for such a tiny parish. A small plaque commemorates a fondly-remembered rector from later in that century. The royal arms of William IV survive from a hundred years or so before.

This is exactly the kind of church which should be open all the time. Almost everything that was not not nailed down has been taken by vandals and thieves decades ago anyway. But what an act of witness to strangers and pilgrims this building would be if it was always accessible to pilgrims and strangers. The parish population is tiny, and when I looked at the parish roll in 2008 I found that only two local residents still attended services here, other members of the congregation coming in from elsewhere. And the Church of England has begun to understand that the primary purpose of its existence is not to serve the Sunday Club, but to be a presence for all people. Now, increasing numbers of remote, rural churches with tiny congregations are altering their priorities to be such a presence. How beautiful it would be if that could happen here.

       

Simon Knott, March 2021

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looking east altar looking west
pulpit lancet window the common run of duty made you wise

               
                 

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