In the steps of Uncle Palmer

I've written several times about Uncle Palmer, actually my uncle by marriage  and the husband of Great Aunt Nora.  So far as I know he spent all of his ministry in Lincolnshire and I've conducted worship in "his" churches at Thoresway,  and Walesby  Today I went to Cuxwold and I think this may have been his favourite for it is in this churchyard that Palmer and Nora are both buried.

This and Rothwell, the neighbouring village, formed the last benefice he held before retirement.  Cuxwold is a tiny blink-and-you-miss-it village and Rothwell rather larger so the vicarage was at Rothwell.  I remember visiting Rothwell Vicarage as a child and being fed the delicious crystallised fruit that Aunt Nora received each Christmas from a wealthy parishioner.  

The church is tiny, seating maybe fifty or sixty people but it has a spacious sanctuary.  The Book of Common Prayer is still used and the choice of hymns was rather old fashioned but it felt like true country worship.  I hope Uncle Palmer would have approved.  

 Those of you who know about these things will recognise this as a Saxon arch which is the entrance to the tower.  (The lettering is Victorian.)  The site has therefore been in use for worship for at least a thousand years even though most of the church dates only from the latter part of the eleventh century.