The Northern Vicar Blog

Cockfield is a village with eight greens. There’s a lot going on – see the village website. There is a lane from the war memorial, past the school, and up to the church – with beautiful Suffolk houses on either side. It is a stunning church – there would have been a Saxon village and church, and the village is mentioned in Domesday, as a prosperous manor held by the Abbot of St Edmundsbury until the Dissolution. Since then land has changed hands,  but there is at least one family still farming where their ancestors farmed 400 years ago. The first Rector whose...

Felsham is a village with the church in the centre, opposite the Six Bells pub, next to the shop and post office, with the village hall next to that. It had, and still has, a good community – we all appeared on stage with Fagends (Felsham and Gedding Extremely Nervous Dramatic Society). So 12 years after I left I walked in through the stunning porch and recognised Lesley, sorting out the flowers. She has aged far better than me – I baptised her children. It is lovely seeing her involved in church, and she brought me up to date with...

I was Rector of Bradfield St Clare, Cockfield, Felsham and Gedding for four years from 1997. Gedding is a small village, the church and the phone box are the only public buildings in the village, and Felsham church is not much more than a mile away. We needed to raise tens of thousands to repair the church. I dared to point out that for that price we could afford a chauffeur-driven limousine every Sunday to take all the congregation to Felsham … . We held a Festival “Gedding Church – too good to loose?” and the money came in....