St Thomas Becket Church ,Fairfield .kent . England

A visit to the Church of St Thomas Becket, Fairfield, in Kent. This is a tiny church in a beautiful but slightly strange setting: down an unsignposted country lane, in the middle of a field in Romney Marsh, surrounded by sheep, and miles from anywhere. To gain access, I had to park on the lane, find the key hanging by the back door of a nearby farmhouse, and then cross the marsh by a footpath, past grazing sheep 

At the back of the church is a poem by Joan Warburg, published in Country Life in 1966. This captures the spirit of the place perfectly (and also refers to the floods in November 1960, when the church was, like Piglet, “Completely Surrounded by Water

St Thomas Becket, FairfieldMy parish is the lonely marsh,My service at the water’s edge;Wailing of sea-birds, sweet and harsh,

St Thomas Becket, Fairfield

The susurration of the sedge.Bleating of a hundred sheep,Where pilgrims and crusaders sleep.I was too small a church to preachThe gospel to such mighty men;I’d little Latin and could teachBut simple shepherds; now as thenI loved the frailest and the least,Scattering words for bird and beast.The humble hands that built meOf solid wood and stoneTo last throughout Eternity,

https://framemeplease19.wixsite.com/trackbedwalker

Eight hundred years are gone:Buried beneath the Kentish sod,And I must intercede with God.One winter as I watched aloneThe whole marsh lay in flood,Salt waters lapped against my stoneLeaving great waves of mud.Strange creatures swam for sanctuary,As ark-like I withstood that sea.So still I guard the coast and lookBeyond the sea, across the Downs.I that was writ in Domesday book,

https://framemeplease19.wixsite.com/trackbedwalker

Have watched tall ships and townsSpring up as flowers, and pass awayWithin the fading of a day.No-one comes to worship, yetThe feathery fronds of water weedsWave ghostly hands through grey sea fret:The sedges and the singing reedsSeem, as they supplicate and sway,Murmorous spirits come to pray.

https://framemeplease19.wixsite.com/trackbedwalker

I am nothing but Thy house,Empty stands the sacred porch;Yet I can shelter shrew and mouse,Light a glow-worm for Thy torch.From a spider’s tapestryWeave a splendour fit for Three