The Exhumation of Sir Henry Baxter

 

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The Exhumation of Sir Henry Baxter

Sir Henry Baxter was exhumed in the spring of 1841. Four decades have passed, yet the events of that year are an indelible stain upon my memory, and they retain a clarity which far outshines much that has occurred since. To say that I remember every detail is only a mild exaggeration.

At that time I was a country parson in the East Anglian village of Clottham—thirty-one years old, unmarried, and still happily so. The events which I am about to relate began with the long-overdue restoration of our dilapidated village church, the diocese having at last released the necessary funds after several years of petitioning. For this task I had engaged an eminent young architect by the name of Gilbert, whose work I had viewed in an adjacent parish, much admiring his subtlety and sensitivity. Mr Gilbert treated these ancient buildings with due veneration, taking care to renew and not revamp—the latter a fate suffered by too many of England’s medieval churches in this century at the hands of an overzealous architect.

A brief description of the old church, which is no longer standing, may be of minor interest to students of ecclesiastical architecture and local history. St Margaret’s was a somewhat perfunctory example of an East Anglian flint church, lacking aisles and transepts, with a square tower on the west end. The building’s fabric was ostensibly 14th century, but a charming Norman arch in the south porch told of an earlier phase. The nave was unusually short, giving the church a box-like appearance, and had been much too small for the congregation for as long as anyone could remember. Thus, as well as the necessary strengthening and refacing, one of Mr Gilbert’s tasks was to extend the nave eastward by twenty feet, increasing its length by a third.

This extension meant that the chancel would have to be demolished and rebuilt at the new east end. The only hindrance to Gilbert’s plan was an old tomb set in the floor just anterior to the altar. It belonged to one Sir Henry Baxter, who had lived a short life from 1574 to 1616 (possibly 1618—the last digit was badly worn). The Baxters were an old Norfolk family who once owned much of the land between Clottham and Sheringthorpe, dying out sometime after the Restoration. The foundations of their homestead are still visible in the field north of Clottham Wood when the grass is short, and over the centuries have been responsible for many a stubbed toe and blunted ploughshare.

As for Sir Henry, very little was ever known of his life or character—my own feeble attempts at research in later years turned up nothing—save for a vague notion held by the older folk that he was something of a rapscallion. But whether or no Sir Henry led a remarkable life, he was in death, without any shadow of doubt, the most extraordinary man I have ever encountered.

The location of his tomb posed a problem. The old chancel floor was twelve inches higher than the rest of the nave, and would have to be dug out and lowered, so the decision was made to exhume Sir Henry and rebury him in the churchyard. Thus, a week before Mr Gilbert and his workmen were due to arrive, I had the unhappy task of removing our obstruction. With some help from Mr Farrow, the parish sexton, and a few strong lads, a grave was dug and a coffin procured, and the mighty stone slab bearing the Baxter family crest that had sat unmolested for two hundred years, was lifted.

What we found underneath astonished us.

We had expected to see a skeleton, brown with age, desiccated skin and rotten fabric clinging to its bones. Instead we found a man of about forty, naked but for a few yellowed rags, with long black hair and a thick moustache giving him a handsome, Charles II cast. Two centuries he had lain in that stone cavity, and yet he might have been placed there the day before. He was dead, certainly, but there was nary a hint of decomposition in his flesh—not even an odour, save for a faint mustiness in the air around him.

We could not believe our eyes. We must have stood there for several minutes, staring with open mouths. ‘Someone is having a joke with us,’ said one of the boys.

‘Mr Farrow, have you ever seen anything like this?’ I asked when I had recovered the use of my voice.

‘No… no, I never…’ he muttered, unable to take his eyes from the corpse. ‘It defies all reason.’

Now as any Christian reader will know, ecclesiastical history records several incidents of caskets being opened and the corpses within being found in a remarkable state of preservation. These strange discoveries have led to many a canonisation, and I did, albeit briefly, consider these cases as I racked my brains for an explanation. However, as a good Anglican clergyman I was taught to eschew the uncouth and idolatrous worship of the Catholic Martyrs, and that besides, what little we knew of Sir Henry Baxter, coupled with the cruel sneer on his dead lips, bespoke a reprobate and a ne’er-do-well—not a saint!

I made the decision to postpone Sir Henry’s reburial, on the grounds that such extraordinary circumstances warranted investigation. It was, I decided, a scientific matter and not a clerical one, and thus dispatched a message to my dear friend Dr Wickford, who then practiced in Norwich in the shadow of that beautiful Norman cathedral—the finest example of its kind in Britain. Those of a less romantic inclination might say Durham, but I find that the spire of Norwich, although post-Norman, affords it an elegance which Durham, with its squat and dumpy tower, cannot equal.

My friend promptly wrote back to say that he would come to view the body the very next day, and that I was to put Sir Henry back in his tomb, with the stone over the top, and under no account open it until he arrived. This I had already done.

The doctor arrived at noon in a dogcart, as promised (two days after the grave had been opened), and after a brief luncheon we proceeded to St Margaret’s. Geoffrey Wickford was a decade older than myself, and a large man, though not in the connotation that he was at all overweight. He was tall and stocky, but with a gentle nature that allayed any sense of imposingness, fond of his sherry and a hearty laugh. In later years he showed me the greatest kindness I have ever received from any other human being in allowing me to wed his daughter. To my dear Geoffrey I owe many years of domestic bliss.

When we reopened the tomb the cadaver was unchanged. Geoffrey had been concerned that exposure to the air would perhaps cause the much delayed putrefaction to set in with a vengeance, but it had not. Sir Henry was in fine shape, as before.

The doctor began his assessment with a close inspection of the tomb itself—checking for a false bottom, signs of tampering, or any indication that its occupant might not be as ancient as he purported to be. Discovering nothing amiss, he then turned his attention to Sir Henry, and subjected him to a painstaking scrutiny that even included a careful study of the bumps on his cranium. A dabbler in the now discredited science of Phrenology, Wickford concluded that he had been proud, wilful, and highly intelligent in life, as well as something of a Don Juan.

‘Well well, this is absolutely incredible,’ he said when he had finished his examination. ‘Of course we have all read of such cases, but I never thought I would actually see one. And two hundred years! The oldest I have ever heard of that could be verified was eighty. Astonishing. The fact that his clothing has rotted and his skin has not is most curious. Ah,’ and here he sighed, ‘if only you would allow me to conduct a full analysis.’

The doctor had pressed for an autopsy, but this I could not, in all conscience, permit.

‘So how do you explain it, Geoffrey?’ I asked him. ‘What is your professional opinion?’

‘Well, I do believe this is what we in the medical profession refer to as a conundrum.’ He smiled. ‘Simply put, my friend, there is no explanation. Oh there are several theories as to what causes it—temperature, air flow, certain dyes in the clothing or even diet—but nothing proven. Who can say? Perhaps it is a miracle!’ He winked—Dr Wickford’s views on theology were rather in contrast to my own, but our disagreements never went beyond the occasional good-natured jibe. ‘I am sorry that I can not give you the answers you seek, but nevertheless am extremely grateful for the privilege of having seen him. Astonishing. That is all I can say.’

Late afternoon we buried Sir Henry in the shade of a tall cedar. The inscribed block that had covered his tomb (which took four strong men to carry from the church) was placed atop the grave in lieu of a headstone. I spoke a few fitting words, though only Dr Wickford and Mr Farrow remained to hear them, a small bouquet was laid, and Sir Henry Baxter, wrapped in a white shroud, was left to resume his long sleep.

The doctor remained in Clottham that evening, hoping to return home the day after, and we sat up playing chess and theorising over Sir Henry’s remarkable preservation long into the night. The following morning I arose at six (as I always did), and headed down the lane to open the church. I say open, though it was never locked in those days—I merely thrust apart the doors and made sure everything was in order. When I walked down to the chancel I received a terrible shock.

Sir Henry was back in his tomb.

‘It is a trick—a cruel trick!’ I said aloud, shaking my fist. I stormed back to the parsonage, hot with anger, and my hand shook as I ate my breakfast. When my friend came downstairs he told me I looked as if I had seen a ghost.

‘Someone has dug up Sir Henry,’ I said.

‘What? Who would do such a thing?’ Dumbfounded, he sat opposite and poured himself a cup of tea.

‘I don’t know. Some young rascals, I should imagine, having a bit of sport. There must have been several of them, to have lifted that stone.’

‘Scoundrels. What a horrible prank to play!’

After breakfast we returned to the church and inspected the grave, which, in my anger, I had neglected to do on my first visit. Remarkably, the slab was still in its place. We informed Mr Farrow, who was most furious, and made inquiries around the village, but no one had seen or heard a thing. So once again the grave was dug out, and Sir Henry was put back in his casket. This time however, Mr Farrow was able to procure a thick length of chain, which we coiled around the coffin and made fast with a sturdy padlock. As a further precaution we enlisted the help of the local bricklayer, who, once Sir Henry was reburied, set the gravestone in mortar. ‘They’ll need a derrick to get him out this time!’ he told us.

That day Dr Wickford did not return to Norwich as planned, and decided we should hold a night vigil in the churchyard in order to prevent any further attempt to exhume Sir Henry Baxter, and perhaps even catch those responsible. I myself did not think it likely that these nocturnal tricksters would strike twice, and only agreed after some persuasion.

‘Come my friend, it will be a great lark!’ Geoffrey said.

Thus, with a bottle of sherry to warm our innards and a basket of carefully chosen victuals, we made camp under the cedar, invisible to all the world. I took with me a short, stout, walking-cane which could double as a baton if the need arose, and the doctor (much to my alarm) took a small handgun. ‘Just to frighten them,’ he explained. ‘I always carry it with me when I travel—you never know when some ruffian will try to detain you on the road.’ I told him he had been reading too many of those gruesome Newgate novels.

Our vigil proved uneventful. Unable to speak for fear of alerting any potential interlopers to our presence, we sat in complete silence—aside from the occasional whisper—with nothing to do but stare at the shadows. Though I have known many men who would not spend a night in a cemetery for any amount of wealth, neither one of us held any belief in ghosts or the paranormal, so our only discomfort was the monotony. I imagine I may have fallen asleep at one point, and Geoffrey too, though he swore to his dying day that he did not.

At long last, when the sun arose and no one had come to disturb the grave, we made ready to leave—dog-tired, and a little disappointed that although Sir Henry was apparently still below ground, we had not caught our band of troublemakers.

I do not know what made me look inside the church before we headed home, but when I did my blood ran cold. I believe Dr Wickford uttered an expletive.

Sir Henry Baxter had returned to his old place under the chancel!

We were utterly confounded, but as Geoffrey said, there was no sense in trying to puzzle it out in our drowsiness. I locked the church, and we agreed to sleep awhile before tackling the problem. When we arose at noon I do not suppose we had managed an hour between us. After a hasty dinner and a foolish argument over which of us had fallen asleep, we ordered the grave re-dug. It did not, as our friend the bricklayer had suggested, require a crane to remove the great stone, but did take a team of men over an hour to break up the cement. When the coffin was finally unearthed, and the heavy chain and padlock found to be intact, the air seemed to grow cold.

‘It was no mortal hand removed this corpse,’ said Mr Farrow. He shivered. ‘There is some devilry at work here!’

Later, when he and the men had departed (which they seemed in a great hurry to do), Dr Wickford said to me, ‘I am afraid Farrow may be right. Logic fails me. There is no other answer.’ He looked quite upset as he said it—his scientific view of the world had been fiercely challenged. ‘Someone, whether God or some other power, does not want him moved. Either that or he has been sneaking back of his own accord.’

I felt ill. The possibility that Sir Henry had left his grave by unnatural means frightened me, a simple parochial churchman. Divorced as we Anglicans are from papist mysticism, it is that much harder for us to come to terms with these incidents of a seeming divine or supernatural kind. I did not know what to think, except perhaps, for an egotistical fear that I was being punished by God for some unwitting transgression.

‘But he cannot stay!’ I cried, lamely. ‘The entire chancel is to be demolished next week—the bottom of his tomb will be level with the new floor!’

‘He might have to, my friend.’

‘No. We shall rebury him, and tonight I will pray to God. It may be that Sir Henry was not exhumed with the proper reverence—He is displeased, and foils all our efforts as a punishment.’

This to me seemed the only sensible explanation.

‘Very well,’ Geoffrey said, though his expression was dubious. ‘But afterwards, might I suggest another vigil? I believe last night we were watching the wrong area. Tonight we will sit in the chancel, and observe the tomb.’

For the third time, Sir Henry was placed in the ground. By now I had begun to hate that cold, sneering face. It seemed mocking and malevolent, as though fully aware of the bother he was causing us, but setting my odium to one side I gave him as stately a funeral as any Christian man ever received. The eulogy was perhaps the finest and most eloquent I delivered in all my years as a clergyman, and even Dr Wickford (this time the sole mourner—Farrow would have no part) stood throughout the service with his head bowed and his arms behind his back.

In the evening, after a few precious hours of sleep, I made my supplication to our Lord, begging his forgiveness for any insult I might have caused, and praying that He, in His mercy, no longer inhibit our plans to refurbish one of His sacred houses.

Darkness fell. Supplied with food, candles, blankets, several of my good cushions and the chess set, we ensconced ourselves in the chancel and waited. This time, unlike the night before, an acute sense of unease permeated the air. At every imagined sound we glanced anxiously toward the door, expecting to see the pale figure of Sir Henry Baxter creeping back to his former resting place.

After imperilling my poor king for the sixth consecutive time, Geoffrey said, in hushed tones, ‘I have been trying to get my head around this all day, and I think I may have come up with an answer.’

‘Oh? And what is that?’

‘Well, if one seeks a precedent for a dead man leaving his grave, one need only look to folklore—’

‘Folklore? Geoffrey, honestly!’

‘Please, hear me out. The phenomenon is well-documented, and was widely believed once upon a time. The revenant, the vampyre, the draugr, wiedergä nger, zombie—every culture has its own version of what is essentially the same myth. Well what if it is not a myth? Here we have what seems to be empirical evidence that such a thing can occur, and why should it be considered supernatural in quality? Could it not be medical? Who knows what the human body is capable of. This “science” which we men of learning revere has not yet found all the answers. We are only scratching at the surface.’

‘How you cling to your science like a foundering barque!’ I cried. ‘I still say it is an act of God. And supposing he were leaving his coffin of his own accord, I would like to know how he managed it without removing the chain.’

At this moment my friend gave a terrible cry. I leapt from my cushion, scattering chess pieces left and right, and stared at the western doors in unqualified dread.

‘No no!’ he wailed. ‘The tomb! The tomb!’

My heart stopped.

There it was; that arrogant face. Sir Henry was back, comfortable as ever in his stone cavity, and neither one of us had noticed his arrival!

‘Impossible!’ His voice trembled. I had never seen my friend so distraught.

‘This is no walking corpse,’ I said. ‘This is a corpse that can dissolve and reassemble itself at will. If that is not a thing supernatural, then I don’t know what is!’

I locked the church and we returned to the parsonage. After a stiff brandy, swallowed in silence, we sought our respective beds. That night I slept poorly, my dreams troubled by a dark and brooding menace. I awoke several times thinking that a malevolent form stood over me, crushing my soul with its evil will. The next morning I was pale and feverish—Dr Wickford at once observed my malaise, and insisted on examining me.

‘You have a fever,’ he declared. ‘Too much excitement, I deem, and too many late nights. You would do well to stay in bed.’

But this I could not do, for there was work to be done. I knew now—or felt I knew—that these inexplicable events were not the workings of God, but of something darker. Something wicked and unholy, and as a true servant of the Lord I would not let it defeat us.

‘We must destroy it,’ I said. Brimming with righteous fury, as I was, I could no longer conceive of Sir Henry as a man. He was a thing. A fiend, to be banished from this world—absurd as this may seem, when the ‘fiend’ had given no indication of consciousness.

‘Fire,’ Geoffrey at once replied. ‘We burn the thing. I should like to see him return to his coffin if he is dust and ash.’

His readiness to comply with my wish surprised me, though by now I think he had grown to hate Sir Henry as much as I. We chose a secluded area of Clottham Wood, not far from the old Baxter homestead. St Margaret’s being adjacent to the wood, separated by a narrow, seldom-used lane, we were able to carry the body (in the groundsman’s red wheelbarrow) into the trees unseen.

I sat on a log, wrapped in my greatcoat, while the doctor built a pyre out of fallen branches, with dry leaves packed between. Sir Henry was set on top, wrapped in his shroud, and a volatile mixture of brandy, surgical spirits, and even some of Geoffrey’s gunpowder was poured thereon. This done, the doctor stood back, wiping the sweat from his forehead, and with a glance, asked me if he ought set our bonfire alight.

I nodded the affirmative, and so Geoffrey took out his matchbook and lit Sir Henry’s pyre.

This time there was no eulogy. We watched the blaze in silence, with a strange satisfaction on our faces—as children watching an effigy of Guy Fawkes on a November’s eve. The thin cotton shroud quickly shrivelled and burned, revealing the white skin beneath. For an awful moment it seemed his flesh would not catch fire—as though whatever power had preserved him from decay had also rendered him impervious to heat—but after a time, with a great hiss, the skin began to blacken and sear. We looked away.

I will never forget the smell. Even as I sit here now, forty years on, I can almost taste it. Dear God! When the body caught fire, it sent up a hideous pall of black smoke. And when I say black, I do not mean the colour of charcoal or soot, which is in actuality a dark shade of grey. I speak of true black. As a tear in the very fabric of the sky, exposing an endless, lightless void. And the stench! How can I describe such an ungodly odour? It reeked of every acrid, putrid aroma man has ever had the displeasure of inhaling. Of sulphur and ammonia; of the septic lesion, and the rancid carcass. The stinking breath of Lucifer himself.

For two full hours the pyre burned, until at last even the bones dissolved into ash. Geoffrey spread the cinders with his boot, and we headed for home. I confess that there was a sense of triumph which enveloped us as we walked down the lane. The doctor had a spring in his step, and I myself felt lighter in mood and sounder in health. A weariness remained, but the fever had lessened and there was colour again in my cheeks—or so Geoffrey told me. ‘It is over! We have conquered!’ he declared when we reached the parsonage. Yet still there was a trace of unease in his eyes, which his celebratory manner could not hide. Was it over? After all I had witnessed of Sir Henry’s uncanny, unholy powers, I wondered if we were truly rid of him, or whether, like a perverted phoenix, he might rise from the ashes and return once more to his tomb.

On Geoffrey’s advice I spent the remainder of the day in bed, sipping tea and chicken broth, and reading a little Milton. The doctor stayed another night to monitor my health, and of course, to ensure that our foe had indeed been vanquished once and for all.

That night, as before, my slumber was disturbed by an horrific nightmare. I dreamed that I lay upon a bed of embers, my naked flesh licked by rising flames, while a cacophony of daemonic laughter rang out from a high place. When I awoke in the morning my limbs were stiff as though from a great exertion, and there was a banging in my head such as I had never experienced before nor since.

Just after nine o’clock Geoffrey knocked on my door to tell me that the young architect, Mr Gilbert, had arrived—three days ahead of schedule. There was also another matter. While I dozed, Geoffrey had already paid a visit to St Margaret’s, and it would be superfluous for me to relay what he had discovered there. By this time, it came as no great surprise.

Mr Gilbert was a slight, pensive young man, and with his red hair and blue eyes, somewhat Nordic in appearance. Though barely out of his teens he had already overseen the restoration of several parish churches, as well as a number of college buildings in his native Cambridge. There, high on the slated rooftops of Gothic halls he had learned his trade as an apprentice stonecutter, and perhaps also acquired his healthy regard for those early forms—the very reason for which I had engaged his services. I had made his acquaintance some months earlier, when he had first visited Clottham in order to survey the church—taking measurements, and making sketches of the nave and chancel area, where the majority of the restoration work was to occur.

Dr Wickford had already laid a breakfast, and when I came downstairs was just setting a pot of coffee for our guest. Gilbert apologised profusely for arriving thus, unannounced, the reason being that his previous job in nearby Testerton was finished much sooner than anticipated, and it would have made little sense to return to Cambridge in the interim.

I must give the young man credit for the way he conducted himself when I, with some assistance from Geoffrey, explained the obstacle which now stood in the way of the planned restoration. It was plain that he did not or could not believe a word, but he did his utmost to conceal any distrust or ridicule, and listened politely to the entire sordid tale. I cannot fault his courtesy. A cursory inspection of the undisturbed grave and the corpse in the chancel—unblemished by the previous day’s attempt at cremation—lent some credence to our story, and Mr Gilbert agreed to accompany us to St Margaret’s later that evening, and watch the miracle repeat itself with his own eyes.

We did not deem it necessary to inhume Sir Henry for a third time, Geoffrey proposing that it would be sufficient to merely remove him from the church. The heaviness of my limbs and the ache in my head rendered me helpless to assist in such an enterprise, so with the aid of the young Gilbert, Geoffrey once again hoisted the body onto the red wheelbarrow and trundled off into Clottham Wood. Their cargo was unloaded at the foot of an oak, and a great mound of last autumn’s leaves strewn overtop to conceal him.

After much persuading, we managed to enlist a fourth man for the evening’s observation. To say that Mr Farrow was a reluctant participant would be a gross understatement, but as Geoffrey and I wished to have two sets of eyes fixed on the tomb at all times, an extra watcher was essential. This way we might observe in shifts. At sundown the four of us assembled at St Margaret’s, well provisioned, and each man took his place on a cushion in a corner of the chancel. Mr Gilbert, no doubt owing to his healthy scepticism, was the most talkative of the party, regaling us with amusing anecdotes of his trade. Later, he shared his thoughts on the so-called ‘Gothic Revival’, and how the Cambridge Camden Society’s ideas on church restoration were quite wrong. Gilbert was of the opinion that their obsession with uniformity would inevitably lead to the obliteration of many unique historical features, such as our own Norman door arch—a view with which I heartily agreed. During this time Mr Farrow, as I recall, hardly spoke a word.

At the stroke of midnight our vigilance was rewarded. An exclamation from Mr Farrow drew our attention to the stone cavity, and raising our candles, we peered into the hole. At the very bottom, a shadow had appeared in the outline of a human figure. In the silence that followed one might have heard a pin drop, and what we saw next I will now do my very best to describe.

A human skeleton began to fade into view—transparent at first, as though formed of mist, yet very quickly becoming opaque. The bones taking shape, dozens of tiny pink buds appeared on their surface, now blooming into muscle and sinew. Purple veins, moving like tiny worms, threaded through the tissue, and a milky fluid seemed to bubble in the eye-sockets, hardening to form the sclera, with irises emerging in the centre. Then, as if suddenly immersed in wax, white skin rushed over the body and enveloped the naked muscle. I distinctly remember the face being completely covered at first, like that of an unpainted statuette, and the holes for the eyes and nostrils forming a second later; the lips shrinking back from the teeth before settling into position. At the last, thick black hair sprouted from the scalp, the brow ridge, upper lip, and genitals, and yellowed nails burst from the tips of the fingers and toes. All of this occurred within the space of ten seconds—less time, perhaps, than it will have taken you to read this paragraph.

Little was said in the aftermath. Mr Farrow, after depositing the contents of his stomach on the floor of the nave, hurried away without a word. Only a month later he and his wife removed to Lincolnshire, and I do not know what became of him after that. Mr Gilbert, visibly shaken, hastily bid us goodnight and retired to his lodgings. Back at the parsonage Geoffrey and I took a tumbler of brandy each, and I made up a bed for him on the floor beside mine, neither one of us having the inclination to spend the night alone.

The next morning the young architect joined us at breakfast. A miserable lot we must have appeared, bags under our eyes for want of sleep, our nerves quite shattered, like the sole survivors of some terrible calamity. I asked Mr Gilbert whether he still wished to proceed with the restoration, and whether it might not be better to abandon our plan to lengthen the nave. He assured me that the work could still go ahead with one alteration. Instead of lowering the chancel floor to the level of the nave, he suggested the reverse: raising the floor of the nave so that Sir Henry could remain where he was. To this proposal I readily assented.

‘What a lot of bother for one obstinate corpse!’ Geoffrey remarked. ‘But I dare say the old devil will be happy with the compromise.’

Dr Wickford departed for Norwich at noon, and later in the day Gilbert’s team of workmen arrived. Their first task was to retrieve the stone slab from the cemetery and place it over Sir Henry, where it was to remain. This done, the restoration of St Margaret’s proceeded without further complication, and in early December we celebrated our first Mass in the new nave.

After all the trouble caused by Sir Henry it seems to me a sad irony that Mr Gilbert’s fine work was ultimately for nothing. Subsequent years saw a steady decline in the population of Clottham and many other villages like it—a result of that inexorable drift from the rural areas into the towns and cities which characterised the early part of this century. An unfortunate symptom of this new, industrial age! Only a decade later, my congregation had dwindled to such a degree as to make the enlarged nave appear quite extravagant, when the original would have been more than sufficient to accommodate them.

In 1858 St Margaret’s closed its doors for good when the Diocese of Norwich merged the parish of Clottham with that of neighbouring Sheringthorpe. Sheringthorpe’s Church of St Andrew, being the most central of the two, was chosen over St Margaret’s to serve both villages. As a consequence of this I too was rendered superfluous, and thus relocated to a new parish on the Suffolk coast, and did not return to Clottham for many years.

Three summers past I once again found myself in my old haunt, walking those familiar lanes with a step rather less sprightly than that of twenty-five years earlier. The village was much the same—the trees somewhat taller, and the handful of familiar faces more wizened—but for one startling difference. The old church was gone: demolished to make way for a branch of the Great Eastern Railway which bisects the former churchyard. Hulking engines of steam and iron rumble daily over the graves, rattling the bones of those unfortunates beneath, whose rest is surely anything but peaceful!

At the village pub, quite by chance, I shared a round of beer with a young gentleman who had been a part of the demolition crew, and he informed me that much of the stonework had been reused to build a small rail bridge over the Wensum. He believed the font and some of the stained glass had made its way to a Methodist chapel in Cambridgeshire, while the lid of an old tomb from the floor of the nave was now in use as a paving slab in a nearby garden. I asked him what had become of the tomb’s occupant.

‘Well that’s the funny thing,’ he said with a laugh. ‘When we lifted the stone there was nobody under it!’

It will not surprise you, reader, if I say that have lain awake many nights since wondering where he went.

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