Country churches pop up in the landscape. No town around them, just the little church like a beacon for the farming families that built them. Sometimes lovely in stone, sometimes timber and sometimes corrigated iron. Some well kept, some turned into homes, some disused and some roofless and dilapidated.
Musing:
From Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Musing:
From Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
It shows how our society has changed: that churches throughout the country are being decommissioned and totally unattended. People are desperate to belong: yet being part of a fold is not attractive to them.
ReplyDeleteOver the weekend we went looking for the pigeon pair: the Anglican church and the Roman Catholic church. We invariably found them.
What I find so interesting -beyond the fact that it looks so substantial - is that it appears to stand alone. So, when there's an event in the life of the church other than a service, they create the needed space and when they leave, it's gone.
ReplyDelete