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St Peter on the Wall, Bradwell on Sea

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A short bike ride from Southminster railway station brings us to the oldest church in England. A church in Sunderland vies for the title, but St Peter on the Wall was certainly here by the end of the 7th Century. In common with other missionaries to the English, St Cedd built his mission church on the wall of the old Roman sea fort (St Felix did the same at Walton in Suffolk, and St Fursey at Burgh Castle, today in Norfolk). A haunting place, like a barn (which indeed it was used for from the 17th to the early 20th Centuries) and left open all the time. It is a remarkable, moving place, the wide Blackwater spilling out into the North Sea with Mersea Island a couple of miles across the water. However, it has become a popular spot for both pilgrims and tourists, its remoteness giving a visit here some kudos I imagine. Half a dozen other people were pottering about on the head and in the church, and I think it would be hard to be alone here. You step out of sunshine into near gloom, the earthy shadows sprawling within the stone walls, a crucifix on the far wall with St Cedd at its feet. It would be hard to say that the centuries fall away, because this building has known so much of its life without being a church, but It is most certainly a place where, as T S Eliot observed, prayer has been valid. Simon Knott, April 2018 Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England Twitter.

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home - index - latest - e-mail
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Norfolk churches - Suffolk churches
www.simonknott.co.uk