CHURCH OF ENGLAND SURVEY HAUNTS A TOURIST ... Bot if England’s villages are sinking, they are going down in splendour

Press, 20 December 1986, Page 21

CHURCH OF ENGLAND SURVEY HAUNTS A TOURIST ... Bot if England’s villages are sinking, they are going down in splendour

By DERRICK MANSBRIDGE, who was a guest of British Airways and the British Tourist Authority on the recent inaugural flight from Christchurch to London and Perth.

A bieak picture of life in rural England, with poor public transport, dwindling employment opportunities, high prices in shops, and the elderly living in miserable isolation, has been painted in a recently-published Church of England report. “A Rural Strategy for the Church of England” is a message of doom, whether it sees some villages sinking way below the poverty line and deserted but for the elderly, or whether it envisages village life as known for hundreds of years dying out and being taken over by wealthy communters from the urban suburbs.

The report calls for a full-scale inquiry into conditions in rural areas similar to the controversial survey of England’s inner suburban areas published last year. The setting up of such a commission is likely to be delayed for at least one year because of the cost, which could be up to the equivalent of $300,000. Travelling along the narrow, hedge-bound minor roads of England the Church of England report is the last thing tourists want to be shown. They have come to stare and to wonder; and there is still much beauty to gloat over and history to be dumbfounded by. England in these idyllic circumstances, away from the visibly depressed and disillusioned cities of the industrial centres, seem just as much a delight now as they were 25 years ago, 125 years ago, and 325 years ago.

Even though the conclusions of the Church of England report regularly come back to haunt the tourist who has studied it, there is little evidence of such grim forebodings along the highways and byways of what is still an incomparable countryside.

Turn a corner and a line of thatched-roofed cottages appear that must be photographed. Breast a hill and another delightful village appears, the church tower or steeple always seeming to catch the eye first. Usually, it is a fairly copybook building, one of hundreds that have done their duties for centuries and that after a week or so become just another church — just as it is possible for their larger relatives to become just another cathedral. But every so often, a church stands out even to those glutted by them. Such a one is at Fifield Bavant, a stark, no-frills Saxon stone building, approached only through the muddy yards of a farm, standing on a rise as if a sentry for the valley stretching out below. It claims to be the second smallest church in England still holding regular services. A look inside convinces one it could just as easily be first — 18 seats on

the right from the door in six sets of three, and 15 on the left in five sets of three.

© Many, smaller villages have no shops or services; and the closure of many village schools has caused the long-distance bussing of pupils — Church of England report. But they certainly all have pubs and inns, for these beckon the tourists along every road. They have set the fashion worldwide in ploughman’s lunches and in the kind of gossip and storytelling that makes all ears lean closer.

Legend of the Silent Pool

The Black Horse Inn at Gomshall, for instance, just outside Guildford, in Surrey, a village on the Pilgrim’s Way and mentioned in the Domesday Book. It began life, probably, as Guma’s Scylf from the Old English, meaning ledge on a slope, upon which the village is built. The history of the village’s name has been traced from 1086 when it was Gomeselle through to Gumshull in 1609 before it took on its present spelling. The derivations had more to do with the spoken word, going through Gumesele (1156), Gumesselve

(1202), Gumeshelf (1241), and Gumshylne (1342).

The Black Horse dates back to 1683, but much older is the tannery factory. It has been claimed that the district is the most ancient site of a leatherworks in Britain, dating back at least nine centuries. In the nineteenth century all the leather produced in Britain was manufactured and processed in Surrey. Nowadays the sole factory in Gomshall is tucked away out of sight and most visitors do not know it is there.

But they should not miss the Silent Pool; it is prominently sign-posted. Its legend is a village story, told with relish.. King John, it is said, was well known for his lechery. Apparently, he took a fancy to a young girl swimming in the pool, while he was passing through the village. Her brother dived in to join her and together they drowned. “From that day to this there has never been a sound heard from the pool or around it,” they tell you in the village, in suitably hushed voices.

© Special problems are faced by young people and those starting families because of a lack of employment opportunities and a shortage of suitable cheaper housing — Church of England report.

History from the same era surrounds the strangely-named Wallops in Hampshire — Nether Wallop, leading to Middle Wal-

lop, ending at Over Wallop. It was Wallope in the Domesday Book in 1086, five centuries after Saxon invaders had named it Weala-hop — the hidden valley of the ancient Britons.

Nether Wallop was once part of the vast estates of the Saxon, Earl Godwin, whose son, Harold, killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066, owned Over Wallop.

“Mine Host,” the Lord

The Manor of Wallop Fifhide — so called because five hides (about 600 acres of land) was the payment to a knight for his pledge to provide men to fight for the king — was part of King Henry’s gift in 1177 of Nether Wallop to the Princess of. Amesbury.

The Manor House is now the Fifehead Manor Hotel. Of course, it has its legend — Lady Godiva once lived there. Visitors are said to have searched for her ghost without any luck. Its medieval hall is a dining room, and a ledge inside the Elizabethan chimney stack hid many a priest in difficult times. Its mullioned windows are midfifteenth century and the small fireplace Jacobean. Incredibly, its owner still retains the right to be called “The Lord of the Manor.”

© Poor mobility; 30 per cent of people are without cars, particularly the elderly, and are forced to travel long distances for doctors’ surgeries, shops, banks, social services — Church of England report.

A few miles south, at Bosham (pronounced Bozzum), lies one of the most idyllic villages in Sussex, with its own historial chapters — Saxon church, the site where King Canute reputedly attempted to turn back the tide, Roman connections and its proud place in the Bayeaux Tapestry made soon after the Norman Conquest of 1066 to record the event. The beaten King Harold and a companion are shown entering Bosham Church before sailing, in 1064, to Normandy. Bosham is spelt on the Tapestry the same as today. Southampton bitterly disputes the King Canute story, but cannot counterclaim Bosham’s possession of the burial place of Canute’s daughter. In 1865, a coffin was uncovered in the church containing the bones of a child of about eight years of age. The Holy Trinity Church stands on the oldest site of Christianity in Sussex; for over 1600 years Christians have worshipped there. The tower may. even have been built as a watch tower and the women and children taken up there during raids by the Danes.

Historical associations fall over one another inside the church. Crosses on the doorway of the inner porch — said to be put there by Crusaders, whose custom it was on leaving their ships to enter the nearest church and blunt their sword points in a dedication to peace. The crypt — when St Wilfred came to convert the South Saxons to Christianity in 681 he found an Irish monk called Dicul and five brethren already there. They are mentioned by the Venerable Bede (673-735).

The chancel arch — at the feet of the two arch-columns are stones of the original Roman basilica that occupied the site. The chancel is one-third Saxon, one-third Norman (herring bone masonry), and one-third early English (twelfth century). Today, Bosham is a haven for yachtsmen and artists, and its mud-flats home for hundreds of sea birds.

© “Unequal competition” for housing between poorer local people and the better off moving from the cities, and village shop prices up to 20 per cent above urban supermarkets — Church of England report.

If Bosham’s history lies mainly along ecclesiastical lines, Arundel’s at inland Sussex revolves around its castle, the home of the Duke of Norfolk. Arundel since Norman times has guarded the gap made through the South Downs by the River Arun. It was a river port of some standing and the name is said to have been derived from the Horehound plant which grew profusely there. Arundel is mentioned as early as 887, and again in the will of King Alfred the Great in 901, Although the village is beautifully laid out, with houses rising one above the other

on the slope of the hill, the castle dominates all. As late as the Second World War its battlements have been filled by military. The east, wing was taken over by the British army in 1940 and the Americans were the last to leave in 1944.

Roger de Montgomery, first Earl of Arundel, built the castle in the twelfth century but it is now mainly of nineteenth century origins. It was seized by the Commonwealth troops of Cromwell during the Civil War. They hauled their cannons up the massive tower of the parish church and wreaked havoc on the castle. When the well was cleared in 1876 it revealed dozens of cannon balls, broken helmets, and various relics of historical interest.

Equally imposing is the park around Arundel Castel, of nearly 1000 acres, and its superb Swanbourne Lake. Its waters once turned a mill, which stood on its banks from Saxon times.

Ironically, as conservationists ensure that the public walks on common land at least once a year to retain the people’s rights, so the Duke of Norfolk closes the castle park at least once year, “lest what is now a privilege should become a legal right.” ® Population shift, with less wealthy families rooted in the community moving out and the more prosperous, with lifestyles centred on the city, moving in — Church of England report.

Seduced by

big prices

“Of course that is happening,” one villager admitted. “But don’t blame the villagers. They are being seduced away with the lure of big prices for their houses by those who are making living in the village, today’s inthing. If anyone thinks what is

happening now is bad, imagine the effects when these classy folks decide it’s time to return to the cities and their suburbs. Then they will see the death of England’s villages.” Another villager professed total ignorance of the Church of England report or its conclusions. “It bears no resemblance to our village, or to our neighbours. Sure, some people have come in from outside. So what? They always have. But the core of the village and its life remains unchanged. That’s my experience, anyway.” Meanwhile, tourists will see what they want to see — and what they see will be beauty and splendour and magnificence. It is not the “real England,” of course. Nor the “unreal.” It is just one side of the many that makes up the whole. But every villager tourists speak to expresses the same fervent hope — that what is still unspoilt will remain so.