All Saints, Waterden, stands in splendid isolation in the middle of a field in a hidden valley 10 miles from the north Norfolk coast. It is a 1,000-year-old Anglo-Saxon village church without a village – but even if it has lost its original purpose, it remains picture postcard perfect, a Grade I-listed gem in a landscape that carries those who happen upon it back through the centuries.
They are few and far between, though, as the visitors’ book records. Certainly not enough to justify having someone on the door to collect ticket money, as happens in most of our great cathedrals and abbeys. Recently, though, All Saints required £50,000 of repairs to its roof and £10,000 to restore its ancient box pews. So who was going to pay?
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