The Yare Valley's mysterious deserted churches

FOLLOWING on from Monday's post on the ruins of St Saviour's Church, Surlingham, the obvious question is why? Why does Surlingham have two churches? And why did St Mary's prosper while St Saviour's perished?

St Mary the Virgin (pictured) is actually the older church in the village, dating back to 900 or 1000AD, while St Saviour's is probably 12th century.

Surlingham's late historian Jack Points suggests two possible answers - the Black Death of 1348 or a "Great Flood" of 1607. The Black Death killed one in three people in this part of the world and had a huge impact. Perhaps there were two villages and St Saviour's was hit hardest, leaving the survivors to regroup in one parish? Perhaps the 1607 flood washed away low-lying houses surrounding St Saviour's, again leading to a slow abandoment? The honest answer is that no-one really knows.
But intriguingly Surlingham is far from alone in this regard - even along the Wherryman's Way. St Andrew's Whitlingham has been mentioned in an earlier post while upriver from here, Kirby Bedon has two churches almost opposite each other - one intact the other in ruins. Downriver, the remains of St Margaret's Rockland lie in the very churchyard of Rockland St Mary. When it comes to churches, the Yare Valley holds a lot of secrets which History seems unwilling to relinquish.

* For more on Norfolk's ruined churches - click here and follow the links.

St Saviour's Church on a frosty morning

THE NATURALIST Ted Ellis chose his final resting place well. Both he and his wife Phyllis are buried next to the ruins of St Saviour's church, Surlingham.
The building's remains sit out on a limb beyond the village and overlooking the marshes. At 7am today on a windless, cloudless, frosty morning it looked beautiful. Somehow my photos never quite do the place justice. Even with near perfect conditions I still don't seem to have captured its eerie beauty. Maybe you have to be there.

*Read more about St Saviour's in The Guardian's country diary of January 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Whitlingham's Secret Church

THERE'S plenty of history on show these days for the thousands who flock to Whitlingham Country Park. From medieval times you can see the remains of Trowse Newton Hall; from the Victorian period there's the last of the lime kilns.

But as you head out on Whitlingham Lane and the start of the Wherryman's Way proper, there is a hidden gem which no-one will tell you about.

On the right hand side lie the ruins of a medieval church - St Andrew's Church, Whitlingham. The land rises steeply towards the roaring traffic of the nearby A47 and there on the top of the bank are the church's tumble-down remains.

The historians reckon it hadn’t been used since the 17th century. But its round tower survived until the mid-twentieth century. Man has put up barbed wire to keep you out; nature does the job more effectively with thousands of nettles. But look closely and you might just get a glint and a glimpse of a gothic window amid the flint and rubble.