A welcome at the door

If you live in the UK and imparticular England you are spoilt by the number of fine churches we have. Now I waffled on about this before and won't bore you all again.

My selection is the 1000 mentioned in Simon Jenkin's England's 1000 Best Parish Churches (I've visited 586 of these and my trip to Lincolnshire really should see me get near 600! oh yes another holiday!).

Other Church Crawlers take a more haphazard route other's like Simon Knott have chosen to "do" a county in Simon's case he has "done" Suffolk Churches and is embarking on Norfolk Churches.

Now in virtually all my visits I've either seen no one or been made to feel welcome. I got the feeling that the people at Stoke Sub Hamdon in Somerset wanted me to join the service! (I should state I try to avoid the Sunday club and don't like visiting Churches Sunday morning). The Vicars I have met have been informatitve and friendly.

I regularly read Simon's sites because it's interesting to read someone else opinions and because, of course, there are some gems that Jenkins strangely omits. As I visit Norfolk a lot its handy to seek these out.

Most of these visits are either quiet or friendly affairs but just occasionally Simon has a strange experience take Gaywood where he received a letter from a member of the congregation who was a solicitor saying his entry was libellous and contained the paragraph.

I feel it is unreasonable for you to expect to arrive at the parish, unannounced, and to request from the Rector immediate access to the Church. Had you researched the parish in advance, you would have known that there is a parish office, you would also know the times the parish office is open and you would have been able to ring the parish office to organise a visit. This is what other visitors do

Duh? Now ignoring the fact that some churches e.g. Blakeney in Norfolk, ENCOURAGE tourists (They don't demand you make an apppointment). The chap is missing fundamental points. A church is not the property of its parishioners they a) hold it in trust for future generations (and as a legacy of those who went before) b) it is a place of worship and pilgrimage for all, not just the Sunday club. I'm sure they will go on about the amount of money it costs but that is not the point. The act of faith is why it should be available to all. I do accept that it not always possible to leave a church unlocked, but handing the key out on production of suitable proof of identity is surely acceptable.

I have mentioned Little Sampford in Essex before. It has been burgled several times but the Wardens maintain it as there duty that the church is open for worship (I am not a worshipper but there devotion impresses me greatly).

And I give you Lingwood where a churchwarden asked why he was visiting the church and when Simon replied he was told

"well, that's all right then. Only I'm the churchwarden, and we get very suspicious when we see people in our church."

As Simon himself says this is only the second time this has happened in Norfolk, but he has similar stories in Suffolk.

It seems a sorry state of affairs that, at times, even a church doesn't make you feel welcome.