Sunday 21st July 2024

A couple of years ago, a picture of an ivy-covered Norman two cell church appeared in the GWUK group.

Nice, I thought.

So, imagine my surprise to find it was in Kent.

This was Dode, a little known place, whose village was erased during the Black Death, and the church is all that remains.

Good news is that the owner has started to have open days, or afternoons, and the last one this year was on Sunday. I decided we should go.

After breakfast and coffee, we left before nine as we had chores to run in Folkestone, but then had two hours to kill.

I won't lie, this year has been a nightmare as far as my health is concerned, but am now feeling better, so thought I could handle a visit to The Larches near Detling.

We drove up the M20. Again, turning off and going up the hill, parking on Pilgrim's Way, grabbing the camera and setting off.

It is a large clearing surrounded by woods, all a reserve, but in the cleared area, sometime hundreds of Broad Leaved Helleborines spikes can be found. And good news is that this is a bumper year.

Spikes of all sizes, shapes, spike density and colours seen and photographed. We walked up the glad to the two large trees, and the multitude of orchid spikes that grow around them.

I have snapped so many of them over the years, I take maybe a hundred, one fifty or so shots this time, but I could have snapped every one.

Back to the car where we still had an hour to kill, but just up the hill is a diner, so we drive up and find they were serving from a cabin with picnic tables out in the now overcast skies. So we order breakfasts, and admire the stream of shing Harleys that were being rode in mostly by men of a certain age.

They seemed happy with their lot, parking up and getting cups of strong tea.

Back then onto the road, where at Stockbury the new junction is just about complete, meaning we turn onto the London-bound carriageway without having to stop at three sets of traffic lights, now the A249 has a flyover of its own.

We followed the sat nav to Cobham, but found our way was blocked by roadworks, and driving round meant the sat nav took us back to the same place.

Finally we see the diversion signs, follow those back to the A2 down to the junction at Cuxton, then up the hill.

Dode has been "lost" for so long as a place where people lived, that the dedication of the church is lost in the mists of time.

Dode died as a village in the Plague of the 14th century, the church itself fell into ruin, and by the time our old friend, Hasted, came along, it didn't get a mention.

Today, it is a place of celebration, non-religious, with celebrants to help people through some of the happiest and saddest days of their lives.

Today, Dode is set among the narrow lanes north of the Medway. My friend in New Zealand says they call narrow lanes as six-foot sixers, well, these lanes are narrower than that, and for the last two miles, along a dead end lane, where stones and mud swept down from the downs above cover the road and doubt the traveller they are on the right road.

At the end, is Dode, or TheLost Village of Dode as it is now called. A church, some stones and a space for celebration.

Dode has three open days a year, and today was the last of 2024. You can hire Dode out, for celebration or for remembrance. It is carpeted with straw, lit with dozens of candles. It seems ancient, and certainly parts are, but a lot is something of a modern construct.

But it works.

I was made welcome, as were all visitors, with no expectation of payment, just friendship, the sharing of knowledge and warmth.

After twenty minutes of snapping and chatting, we were done, so walked back to the car, retraced our way down the narrow lanes to Cuxton, and from there back to the motorway to head back east to Dover and home

We needed no lunch, nor dinner either, really, but had a brew, while I pondered whether to watch the last day of Le Tour. In the end, I decided not to, it was clear who was going to win, and a time trial does nothing for me. So instead I edited shots, wrote, listened to the radio and so the day passed.

I made garlic bread with the baton we normally have bacon butties in, and I prepared Caprese, which we ate listening to Desert Island Discs.

And like that, the weekend was over. Time to draw breath before the comedown that Monday morning would bring.