We wake up to seven chimes of the church bell in the sleepy Lincolnshire village of Skendleby. A pleasant gentle rain soaks the fields behind the cottage next to the church. The bell has a quaint flatness to it.
There is no hurry to the day. No pressing need to get up and get on with it. Enforced slowness. Thou shalt take your time.
The bemusing thing about the church clock, apart from the fact that it is about a minute fast, is that it sounds out the time every hour, even overnight. I guess in the countryside farmers get up very early to do the milking n stuff like that.
Associated, as the church was with Bardney Abbey, the 24 x 7 nature of the chimes is probably also intended to help local monks tell when they need to attend to their devotions. Not seen a monk yet mind you but we only got here yesterday afternoon. Will ave a look today when we visit the church. St Peter and St Paul. Double bubble. Interestingly the church was restored by Gilbert Scott in the eighteen seventies. He got around dinnee.
Skendleby has never been a very big village being mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Book as having a church and 36 households, with Lord of the Manor being Gilbert de Gant. In the reign of Elizabeth I wikipedia tells us Skendleby was recorded as having 27 households. Must have a few more now as it still has a pub, The Blacksmith’s Arms. Our cottage is at the end of the pub’s large car park.
The Sunday lunch at the pub is meant to be v good. Will let you know.
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Ten thirty seven and the other inhabitants are showing signs of life. They were a couple of hours later than us getting back from the campsite and not in any case known as early risers.
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Visited the aforementioned Skendleby church. Very much an impoverished small country place of worship. The only board that might have displayed hymn numbers could only have had one hymn. Furthermore there was no list of past vicars which was a disappointment. Did find one online but it only covered between 1549 and 1853. That’s a lot of missing vicars.
I did consider emailing the current Rector the Rev Fran Jeffries to see if she had the list but really I am not so interested as to go to any lengths to find out. The church notice board does provide some interesting detail such as the cleaning and flower rota for 2024 and a list of graveyard plots since 1960. No evidence of any flowers inside the church though.
There was a visitors book which I was invited to sign and did so: Tref of Lincoln.
Blessed be the dead which die in the Lord. Yea saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labours. Just sayin’. Stained glass window.