I’m standing outside the octagonal tower of Ilchester church. A huge star has been attached above the arch of the door.
The vicar looks up at it and then turns back to me. ‘It looks great when it’s lit up at night’.
Bruce is a robust looking man. He’s broad. He wears a Karrimor waterproof over his dog collar and walking boots. He has a direct look. He is the sort of muscular priest my dad would have liked. I wonder if he might have been a padre in the army.
‘The octagonal tower is only in this part of Somerset. ‘There were three others designed by the same person.’
‘Apparently they chose octagonal because it was halfway between the circle and the square. A circle symbolised perfection and the square symbolised reality (or something similar).’
The Fosse Way goes through Ilchester and turns into the A37 that goes down to Dorchester. It’s only a few hundred yards from where we are standing outside the church porch.
Bruce tells me how the gateway to the town would have been just beyond the last house before the roundabout and the the long, straight section of the Fosse Way that heads up the hill to Yeovil.
He also says there are stones in the church tower that came from the Roman road where ‘you can still see grooves from where cart tracks have been driven along them’.
There is another church in Ilchester which is Victorian. It’s the church for Northover. ‘The original church would have been a minster, a place where monks would go from to evangelise and convert the pagans in the dark ages.’
It’s the Christmas tree festival so Bruce apologies. ‘I’ve been trying to find a tree.’ When I look in the church there are four trees and I think there are more to come. It was his idea. He’s been vicar here now 10 years and lives in Ilchester.
I ask him about dwindling congregations. He quotes me figures recently published in The Church Times. Half of Somerset have less than 30 people coming to church.
‘But it’s a rural community and often the church might be in a village with a small population.’
‘Someone I know had done some research and found evidence of many people making excuses to get out of going to church in medieval times but we think of people then were all going to church.’
‘I’d love to have 300 people coming to my services but I know it’s not going to happen.
Most are over 55 but I have a woman in her thirties who comes regularly with her daughter.
Other churches have seen their congregations getting less because of online services. People got used to being at home and being able to choose when they can have their service.
Bruce takes me to see if the museum is open. On the way he points out a square stone placed in the pavement with a narrow trough running across its middle.
‘There’s an old piece of the road with a cart wheel track.’
Just behind the main square where traffic rushes by the museum looks like it could exist in a an old sweet shop. It’s closed but I can see a section of Roman mosaic.
When I tell him I’m doing the Monarch’s Way, he tells me to look in at Limington church.
‘A certain Thomas Wolsey was vicar there from 1500 to 1509 before Henry got him to start up the Church of England. It’s recorded that while he was here he was charged with drunken and lewd behaviour after the Merriott Fair.’
I could ask Bruce questions all day but it’s past midday (as indicated by the church bell striking 12 times when we first started talking). I wa
lk out of the town south towards Yeovil past a big chunk of hamstone on which the town name is carved above its Roman name Lendiniae AD60. I cross the A37 onto a footbridge, pass through a little foot gate and onto a meadow that looks up towards the ridge and St Michael’s Hill outside Montacute. The time is 12.26.
The path takes me in a straight line almost to Montacute. Does the Monarch’s Way follow a Roman road?
I have a moment when I’m stopped by the shape of the land: curves, lines and slopes often capture me.
A small ridge has a few trees on its horizon. The sun is south and shines from behind them the shadows are cast so delicately down the ridge. It is always the wind that stirs me.The shadows are like ballet dancers floating in the light.
I start to feel alone again. And the quote, the timing is near perfect.
The Slow Walker 