The Genius Loci of St Mary & St Barlok.

I took the long stroll to the church this afternoon and sat in the lea of its 13^th century south wall for a while. It’s a supremely quiet and peaceful place, being screened from the road and the outside world by lots of mature trees, and I began to get the sense that something was aware of me. My first thought was that I’d dropped into an MR James story, but then I settled to pondering a more likely explanation.

I decided it was none of the subterranean occupants; I’m sure they’ve long since moved on by now, and graveyards have never frightened me. Besides, the presence, for want of a better word, felt behind me. It was the church itself, or something in the church.

I reasoned, for want of yet another better word, that the genius loci might be an objective and sentient phenomenon, and that it was the spirit of the building that was taking notice of me. The feeling was slightly creepy but in no way malevolent, so I decided to enjoy it. I used to get a similar feeling in a wood close to another cottage in another village where I lived in the 1980s.

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So then I began to wonder just how many bodies are really buried there. The headstones only go back about 400 years, but there’s been a church on the spot for 12-1300 years. That suggests there are rather more people taking their final rest than have headstones to attest to their presence. And I paid my respects to the lady Isabella, as usual.

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By a strange coincidence, on the way back I missed HT54 by seconds. That’s the mystery in the tail.