I would like to thank Janet Morris for bringing this article to my attention.

Moving Churches

St Peter's Saltfleetby and its changing place in the life of the village - Reflections on the Sacred Place 

Seen from the outside, St. Peter's Church at Saltfleetby appears to be a Victorian building, typical of the work of local architect, James Fowler, former diocesan architect and three times Mayor of Louth. Inside, the building is not so simple. 

The arches and pillars are much earlier than the Victorian era, and the face on the pillar in the north west corner is definitely mediaeval, though the three in the other corners of the church look much newer. 

The answer to this architectural puzzle can be found in a group of photographs on the west wall. One shows a building, very like the present one, but with a clerestory and in a very sad state of repair. Another shows a tower, looking like a church tower, but standing on its own in a graveyard. The two pictures tell the story of St. Peter's Church building. One hundred and forty years ago, the village church was an isolated one, in a sad state of repair. A new building would be too expensive, so the old one, minus the tower and the clerestory, was dismantled and rebuilt on its present site. 

Saltfleetby St Peter's is a linear village. All the present day amenities - shop, church, pub, school, village hall - and most of the housing are along the sides of the B1200, a straight road that connects Louth with the coast. Little has changed since the church was moved. There are more houses and fewer pubs, but the shape of the village has hardly changed, except for the position of the church. 

So, after 1877, St Peter's has an Anglican Church that is slightly more accessible and a lot safer than the old one. It seems that moving the old church of St. Peter's was a more viable proposition than building a new one - the expense being the main argument. 

The new site was found, nearer to the village, by exchanging some of the glebe land, and by a gift of more land. The legal work and the fund-raising began. A faculty had to be granted, and any comments of the parishioners had to be heard. For the fund raising the church seems to have relied largely on gifts, but a letter from the Archdeacon describing the state of the church was circulated, along with a photograph, and this seems to have added to the urgency of the giving. 

So in 1876, on the second Sunday after Easter, the last celebration of Holy Communion took place in the old church. Three weeks later the Bishop laid the foundation stone of the new church, and just over a year later the new church was consecrated. The original plans had to be altered, in that they had included the tower and the clerestory, but the timbers of the old roof were in such a sorry state that they could not be re-used. The tower was left on condition that it became the cemetery chapel, though now it is not used at all. 

The "new" church is almost identical to the old. The nave, aisles, porch and vestry are all exactly the same size, but the chancel is three feet longer. The arches and pillars had become distorted by the subsidence of the old building and were restored to their former shape. 

When the work had been completed the balance sheet was audited and the Rector, Revd. W. Watson wrote "...no debt remains on the building. The total expenditure, without including £1755 value of old materials and including the cost of a new bridge is £1,780." (A large drain, known as the Mardyke, runs along the side of the B1200 and all buildings on that side of the road have to have a bridge for access.) 

The "new" church is closer to the houses in the village, both as it was then and as it is now, but the new site has brought problems of a different nature. 

The "new" church was built on clay, and owing to changes in the way that the land has been drained, the height of the water table has changed and a few years ago the building had to be closed for major repairs. The Revd. Watson and his contemporaries could not have foreseen this. Subsidence still remains a problem and any cracks appearing in the plaster have to be carefully monitored.

The effort of the Rev. Watson and his colleagues may seem rather strange to us now. After all, there were two other Anglican churches very close by and three Methodist chapels. But the other two churches were in different parishes and although population in those parishes was low the idea of amalgamating does not seem to have occurred to anyone. As for working with the Methodists, there were times when they were not even speaking to one another, let alone praying together. Happily things are different now. 

St. Clements and All Saints churches are both redundant - St. Clements as a restaurant and All Saints in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. Of the three Methodist chapels, one has been demolished, one is a private house and the third is a snooker hall. St. Peter's is now the only place of worship in the village and is a Local Ecumenical Partnership between the Anglicans and the Methodists, with shared worship taking place every Sunday.

All local weddings, baptisms and funerals take place there, the service being conducted either by the Methodist minister or the Anglican priest. The Church is still an important part of life in Saltfleetby. The pews have been removed and Harvest Suppers take place there. The building and grounds are used for fund raising - a plant sale took place recently, and a garden party is planned. These events are well supported by people from the village, whether or not they are members of the church. Recently alterations were made inside the church so that a kitchen and toilet could be installed, and Saltfleetby Millennium Committee are paying for new storm doors to be fitted to the porch. 

So St. Peter's still has an important place in the life of the village, as a place for social events to take place and as a place to celebrate the important events in people's lives. The children of the village visit regularly too. Saltfleetby Primary School is a church school and every year harvest and Christingle services are held there. The church is also an important resource for the new R.E. syllabus. 

When I asked the children why the Church should be thought of as a special place they recognised its importance to mark special events in people's lives, particularly baptisms and weddings. They also suggested that it is a peaceful place.

But being special and being sacred are not necessarily the same thing, though for many people the two are interchangeable. Sacred I think means being aware of one's closeness to God. For many people this means that a hilltop, beach, or by the side of a river is a sacred place. This is for individuals. When a place becomes sacred to a group then it might become a place of pilgrimage or shrine. It then becomes sacred to a community, perhaps a religious community, or perhaps a village community. It is then that structures start to appear. First a cross, signifying that this is where itinerant preachers will preach, then maybe a small building, which grows in size and ornateness as it receives donations from pilgrims. Eventually it can become the size and have the splendour of a Cathedral. But not all sacred sites develop in this way. There are still standing crosses in places, and many English towns have crosses at their centre. And there are small chapels and shrines, often, though not always beside holy wells or springs.

And sometimes the chapel or shrine becomes the centre of a small village and in time becomes the village church. St. Chad's at Stowe near Lichfield is an example of this: a holy well became the site for pilgrimage and is now a thriving church involved in local and international ministry.

David Bellamy in his book "Sacred Britain" writes:

"Each and every one of us knows what the sacred means to us, that tingle of something special, an aura of peace and tranquillity, a sense of being safe. The Welsh have a word for it - cynefin - which means the place where I am at ease, the place where I want to be." 
He goes on to say:
"Then there are all those sacred places which you can share or have shared with others: Glastonbury Tor, the great stone henges, a city cathedral, your local parish church or chapel. Our parish church was built in the fourteenth century and so for over five hundred years has not only been a place of worship, but a sanctuary where local people have shared their griefs and woes and celebrated the sanctities of life - birth, marriage, death and rebirth." 

St. Peter's was at one time a fine mediaeval building, but because of subsidence it fell into disrepair; but because it held so many memories of local and personal events it could not be completely abandoned. Apart from financial considerations the people wanted to hold on to their past. Their roots went deep and one of the things holding those roots in place was the local church. Continuity matters to people; it mattered to the people of Saltfleetby one hundred and thirty years ago. 

The continuity of prayer in one place throughout many years seems to endow sacredness on a place. Even the redundant churches in my parish are still sacred and people will attend the rare special occasion services that we hold there who would not think of attending other churches. In spite of the size of the buildings, the impossibility of heating or maintaining them, there are still those who think that we have let God down by ending our financial struggles with the buildings so that we can use more of our energy in being the people of God, not caretakers of huge buildings. 

St. Peter's church is a special place for many people, people who would not use the word sacred in their every day conversation. People who have grown up in the village want to return for their weddings, and those who have moved into Louth (all of ten miles) often want to return to have their children baptised. Partly this is because of family connections, and partly because St. Peter's is "their" church. It matters to them that the special events in their lives take place in a church that belongs not just to them, but also to their families, to their village. 

St. Peter's is a sacred place because of its history, but there is more to it than that. Part of what makes it sacred is the nature of the events that take place there too, and part of it is that it is the place where many make their connection with God, and where they feel that that link is at its strongest. 
Bridget Hill