Steeple Gidding was a few miles off the A1 but it could have been 100 miles away and 100 years ago from life as we know it (Jim). It was another reminder of the agricultural heart and backbone of England that still exists even though it is machines, rather than men, that work it.
.
It was totally peaceful and T.S Elliott's verse relating to adjacent Little Gidding still holds:
"If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always."
.
"Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start."
.
My next call was at Long Stanton, which I had visited before, but had forgotten that I had done so.
.
The Churches Conservation Trust website describes it as "typically and appealingly English", probably because of the thatched roof.
http://www.visitchurches.org.uk/Ourchurches/Completelistofchurches/St-Michaels-Church-Long-Stanton-Cambridgeshire/
.
.
The best of this trio was Stonam Parva. The first detail I noticed was a buttress over a doorway, which must have given the master mason a few sleepless nights.
.
.
The medieval grandeur was offset by a large dose of Victorian brownness.
.
.
The double hammer beam roof, with angels, was simply wonderful
.
And every detail seemed to be perfect.
.
.
.
Before signing in to my rather soulless B&B in Aldringham I fulfilled a long felt want to visit the Red House (home of Benjamin Brittain and Peter Pears) which was open on the final day of the festival.
.
.
Visiting The Studio was a great experience, especially as I was alone; the final visitor of the festival.
.
.
.
