Saltfleetby has just such serendipity. A mile from the enigmatically named “Prussian Queen” pub, a wooden finger-post points cryptically up a sombre green lane towards “The Stump ¼ mile.” The sign seemed to us an imperative, so we dutifully followed the grassy and rutted track.
After a short distance, the path suddenly opened onto a large enclosure in a sun-mottled glade. Passing through a wooden gate, we arrived in an old graveyard, once attached to a church. In the middle of the hallowed patch, a stumpy stone tower leaned at a crazy angle as if disturbed in the act of settling down to rest. This, we learned, is the last remnant of the original St Peter’s church of Saltfleetby.
The relic stands in a shaded corner of the Lincolnshire northern flatlands and is reached by crossing a short wooden bridge over a shallow ditch. A narrow, almost deserted, country lane snakes quietly by. The tower’s large stones are weathered and eroded. The doors are sealed. One corner has sunk into the soft sub-soils of the farmland on which it was built.
At first sight, the scene could be one of abandonment to the powerful elements of nature. The cemetery surrounding the tower is rustic and uncultivated. No attempt is made to groom verges or walkways. Instead, the woods’ claim is staked and granted; the ground could have been a forest floor. Tombstones lay where they fell. Yet this is not a forsaken burial ground.
Far from it – the cemetery has tended gravestones, old and new. Some are eroded and scarcely legible now, but a few gleam in dark marble and stand testament to recent interments. The old graveyard is still very much in use. And then we found the stone plaque hoisted high onto the tower’s time-darkened wall. The old St Peter’s Church has friends.
To be precise, The Friends of Friendless Churches has adopted the tower. Apparently, the organisation accepts responsibility for some 40 disused churches throughout England and Wales. Essential maintenance is carried out to ensure that the old church continues to be accessible to the public, even if services are no longer held within the precincts.
St Peter’s Church at Saltfleetby started to subside sometime between the 14th century and 1875. A faculty was granted to allow the church to be demolished, the stones subsequently being removed to a nearby field known as Willoughby’s Close, and the new (and existing) St Peter’s Church was built from salvaged materials. The tower was to serve as a cemetery chapel until such time as “funds were available” for it to be demolished. Fortunately for the curious visitor, the money was never found. The tower remains as a monument to philanthropy.
In 1976, the decrepit tower was taken into the avuncular custodianship of the evocatively named organisation – The Friends of Friendless Churches. And so it remains - a sequestered fastness hidden away and available to be seen only by those willing to see. I’m not into contemplation, but if I were, here is where I could do it very effectively: TF 43592 89941.
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