NEWS
A rich feast and excellent company in beautiful surroundings and mercifully mild temperatures made for a perfect annual Summer Lunch in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Shipmeadow on Wednesday 1st July. We are grateful to Nick and Jenny Caddick for hosting the event and for kindly showing guests the restored panels of the east window. Huge thanks to the chefs who prepared such delicious dishes (not all of whom are in the front cover photo), and whose dedication is so often evident in the splendid fare we enjoy at church events. Thanks too to Sarah Jane for organising a very successful raffle, which raised £269.00. The event raised £1,121.00 for the Fabric Fund, with the re-thatching of the nave roof the priority.
On Wednesday 24th June the Community Payback team tidied the car parking area, weeded and trimmed the path from lychgate to porch, mowed paths through the churchyard and cleared the area around the tin shed. It was one of the hottest days of the year and the team worked tirelessly through the heat without fuss or complaint and finished the day in good spirits having done a magnificent job.
The Community Payback team is booked again for the churchyard haymaking from Monday 17th August. They will undertake the heavy labour, but all helpers are welcome to support the team, for instance by raking the cut grass. If you can, please bring your own rake (and gloves). As ever, Chris Bardsley will kindly provide a lovely ploughman’s lunch.
Cheryl invites anyone who can help wrap shoeboxes for this winter’s Lovebox campaign to come to a shoebox wrapping session at the church on Thursday 13th August at 2pm. The session is always a good ‘social’. The shoeboxes are to be blessed at Sunday service on 25th October.
The PCC met for routine business on Thursday 9th July.
The sales table organised by Jenny raised £100.00.
Amy reports that the Foodbank was grateful to receive 138 items in June.
FORWARD PLANNING
Suffolk Historic Churches Trust Ride & Stride, Saturday 12th September,9am-5pm. This event raises funds for the repair and restoration of churches and chapels. Participants are sponsored to walk, ride or drive around participating churches in the area. Half the money raised comes to Holy Trinity Barsham and the other half to a central fund, from which grants are made. Cheryl is the Barsham organiser and Beccles area coordinator, and participants may collect sponsorship forms from her in August. There will be a sign-up sheet in the church for those willing to volunteer to staff the church on a rota basis on the day to register participants as they check in.
Harvest Festival, Sunday 27th September – Choral Evensong at 5.30pm will be followed as usual by Harvest Supper in the village hall at 7pm. Tickets, costing£12.50, will be on sale from Bridget in due course.
SNIPPETS – Barsham’s thatched nave in context
The architect’s Quinquennial Inspection Report identified some significant deterioration of the nave thatch, especially in the ridge and south side, where there are areas of slippage and a build-up of moss and lichen. With an estimated five to seven years of life left in the thatch, the PCC is arranging for several master thatchers to offer their opinion on the nature and cost of the remedial work required and is simultaneously directing fundraising efforts towards the Fabric Fund for this purpose.
It is generally accepted that the life expectancy of a thatched roof is anything from 40 to 70 years, with ridge replacements perhaps every two or three decades. Longevity depends on the materials used, environmental conditions, and the skill of the craftsmen. Water reed has better durability than long straw thatch, and at Barsham we are lucky to have Norfolk water reed. Exposure to wind, rain and sun plays a part in the deterioration of thatch, as do pollutants and poor ventilation. It helps that the church is not entirely hemmed in by trees, and that Barsham is in one of the drier parts of Britain and some distance from sources of urban airborne pollution. Records show that the nave was completely re-thatched in 1906 and again in 1980, and it may have been rethatched at some point in between. The ridge would have been renewed more frequently, most recently in 2011.
Today, most of the UK’s surviving thatched churches are in East Anglia, with approximately 100 in Norfolk, and Barsham being one of 30 in Suffolk. This distribution is no accident, bearing in mind the ready availability of Norfolk water reed. The nave at Barsham has almost certainly always been thatched since it was built a thousand years ago. Indeed, in Saxon and Norman times most village churches throughout the land would have been thatched. The use of thatch in domestic as well as ecclesiastical architecture was well established by the Norman era: the first written record of thatching dates from c.700 AD and archaeological evidence suggests its common use at least as far back as the Bronze Age. In some parts of the country, where water reed was not readily available, long-straw thatch was used, usually a wheat and rye combination, or sometimes barley and oats. Sedge was another possibility, and other variations included gorse in parts of Southeast England, bracken on the moors of the Southwest, and heather in the Northeast and Scotland.
By the late 13th century, the use of thatch was dying out in urban centres, where the risk of fire spreading amongst tightly packed houses was all too real. In 1212 London banned the use of thatch and other cities followed. In the countryside, thatch survived as the principal roofing material until the industrial revolution, when the canals and the railways enabled cheaper and easier transportation of the more durable slate and tile.
Here at Barsham in 2026, we await with interest the recommendations of the master thatchers, and in due course it will be fascinating to watch the craftsmen at work.
AUGUST DIARY
Sunday 2nd August – Ninth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP), Barsham. Revd Jonathan Olanczuk SSC.
Sunday 9th August – Tenth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Canon John Fellows.
Sunday 16th August – Eleventh Sunday after Trinity. 11.15am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Desmond Banister SSC.
Sunday 23rd August – Twelfth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Graham Naylor.
Sunday 30th August – Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. 11am Sung Eucharist (BCP). Revd Graham Naylor.
Church correspondent: Robert Bacon 07867 306016, [email protected]