Nottinghamshire Historic Churches Trust Ride and Stride
– September 8th 2007

Each year on the second Saturday in September, the Nottinghamshire Historic Churches Trust encourages churches in the county to open for the day. Cycle riders and walkers then collect sponsors to see how many churches they can visit between 10 am and 6pm and sponsorship money goes to the trust to allow them to give grants to churches needing repair or refurbishment.

My daughter Katie and I from St Mary’s church in Edwinstowe decided to “stride” this year as we only have one bicycle between us. We scoured the map for an area where open churches were clustered together and settled on the area around Eastwood. Neither of us had been to this part of Notts before so it would be an adventure and test of our map reading skills. We considered taking Nellie, our Jack Russell dog, but thought there might be problems with livestock in the fields so we left her at home.

Armed with little rucksacks, hiking boots and OS maps we were dropped off in Selston and marched off to the first church – St Helen’s, Selston. There we met Alan Spencer, a very friendly man who used to work for the police force with one of our church readers, Neil Jackson. Alan also introduced me to the church toilet which was in a heavily fortified shed at the bottom of the churchyard with ivy growing in through the roof!

Next we got a bit lost as we went to the wrong church in Westwood. Both churches were marked as plain crosses on the OS map. A dog- walking couple sent us a long way round by road to St Mary’s where we were given a very welcome mug of coffee. This church had beautiful rainbow curtains framing the chancel arch and behind the altar, made by a lady who also made soft furnishings for “the stars”. The church was set out as though for a rock concert with guitars and drum kit at the front. “Just our usual music group!” I was told.

We then walked along a shortish footpath which brought us out to exactly the place where we had met the dog-walking couple. We then cut through New Westwood to a lovely footpath through fields and woods following the Bagthorpe Brook for 2/3 miles to Underwood parish church – St Michaels.  Here we had a drink of squash and were warned about the choice of footpath by a very helpful lady trimming overgrown greenery – either A) across the field of cows which chase people or B) across the field of horses which knock people over. We got as far as the horse field then chickened out and walked along the main road into Brinsley.

Over tea and chocolate biscuits in St James Church, Brinsley, we sat and had a rest and chatted about all kinds of topics with three people who told us about the history of the area and introduced us to yet another strange organic toilet!

Lunch was sandwiches in the country park by the old Brinsley mining headstocks. We were now in DH Lawrence land and signposts began to appear describing his life and association with the area. It soon became a case of where hadn’t he been! Many of the male family members had worked in Brinsley mine and many of the places we visited were described in his novels. I don’t think the llama farm on the main road into Eastwood was though! We called to the llamas but couldn’t get them to come to the fence to be patted.

Once in Eastwood we walked around the DH Lawrence conservation area, past The White Peacock tea rooms and Katie took my photograph outside Lawrence’s childhood home. We then had an easy walk around the 6 churches in Eastwood.  We were given yet more tea in the United Reformed church where the notice on the toilet wall (no unusual features here) advised us that we must remember to turn the light off as it had previously been left on for a whole week, wasting huge amounts of electricity.

Unfortunately, not all the Eastwood churches were open but we were able to sign registers left outside as proof of our visit. We decided not to intrude into the wedding at the Catholic church where a double decker bus was waiting to take the guests on to the reception. Beauvale Methodist church was open (next door to DH Lawrence’s infant school) and here we were advised of the best route to Greasley.

By 3.30 pm we were trecking across fields to Greasley church. This church was beautifully kept with interesting old and new stained glass windows. I particularly liked the modern one showing Jesus the shepherd in magnificent turquoise robes. A very interesting lady showed us around the church and talked to us about its history. The church youth leader showed us the next part of the route towards the big blue and yellow shape of IKEA in the distance across the fields, so we set off in that direction to Newthorpe Baptist church. This next church had a colourful display of handprints of all the church members on the wall. We also had some cake here.

The final stretch of the walk took us through woods and cows (nice ones this time) past IKEA and the busy road system around junction 26 of the M1 towards Awsworth St Peters church. This was unfortunately closed so we had half an hour to see if we could make it as far as Cossall, St Catherine’s. We puffed uphill all the way and made it by 5.57 pm. although the church was closed.  We collapsed onto a bench under a sign telling us the house opposite had been the home of DH Lawrence’s fiancée, telephoned home to be picked up and sat finishing off an apple whilst I worked out that we had walked 15 miles and visited 14 churches.

When we arrived home, we treated ourselves to a take away curry whilst my son Joe took the dog out for a late walk. Unfortunately, 20 minutes later, we received a phone call from a distraught Joe saying that Nellie had got her revenge for being left  at home all day, had slipped her lead and run off along the railway embankment. It took about an hour before she was discovered lying exhausted in the long grass by which time no one felt like the curry. Next year we will take the dog with us!!

Julie Holmes