Wednesday 21st October 2026

My stupid brain had me awake at three in the morning, and I knew there was no going back to sleep.

So, I got up and began to write the blog for Tuesday, with brief descriptions of each church.

That took 90 minutes.

I also had a brew and ate the pack of two salted caramel cookies beside the kettle.

Before breakfast, I had a shower so was all nice and clean, so that come seven I could go down and be one of the first to eat, as I was hungry.

Fruit followed by sausages and bacon went down well, but the three cups of coffee went down well too, and would keep me awake!

We were all ready for the coach at half nine, with the sun shining from a cloudless sky, turning the autumnal leaves on the trees on campus into vivid yellows and reds.

First church was Edwalton. A small church, with Saxon roots, especially in the nave, with the walls leaning out at a remarkable angle, needing buttresses to keep them up.

We only needed twenty minutes there in order to see and snap the details. Outside it has possibly the ugliest buttress I have seen!

We stayed half an hour, then trapsed outside to the coach for the short drive to the next church.

Tollerton was once a small and rural village. A second more modern part was built half a mile away, meaning the new homes are not really connected with the church. Possibly, 4,000 new homes are to be built on a former air base, on the other side of the church, that might recentre the church in the centre of village life.

That being said, some churches were built beautiful, other grew old gracefully. Some, were mutilated by those who had the building in their care.

And St Peter has been mutilated on several occasions, by the owners of the large house next door. As fashions in house changed, so the house was rebuilt, and the church gutted to match.

The result is a church only the parishners could really love. At least from the gallery, it hides the worse excesses of the rebuilds and renovations.

We were treated to tea and biscuits here, and had an informative introduction.

Which was nice.

Highlight here is the collection of funerary hatchments, which were all over the walls.

The sky had clouded over, and rain began to fall, as forecasted. At least the heavy rain expected later didn't materialise.

St Mary is in the wonderfully name village of Plumtree. We scuttled from the coach to the porch, and were met my a stunning interior: painted and stencilled in the late 19thC, and looking wonderful, as it was renovated in the last couple of decades.

The glass was of a high standard too, and as a whole was probably the most satisfying church of the first three days of the tour.

I went to town snapping all I could.

From Plumtree, we drove to Normanton, a few miles away, for lunch at the Plough.

Another buffet was laid on, with fresh cooked fries as a bonus. The local ale was welcome too.

That set us well for the three churches of the afternoon.

Cropwell Bishop sounds like a minor character actor from the forties Ealing studio, but is a fine church set in a small village.

We arrived and the rain was coming down. Hard.

We scamper to the unusual arched porch entrance, which unusually had no door.

Inside we found a rustic interior, with the mediaeval pews having been replaced, but not discarded, instead placed around the edge of the church so they're not lost.

Each has carvings on the end, and some with faces below the foliage.

The church has some forty slate grave stones, all of which are listed by English Heritage, three of which are in the church, so are untouched by the centuries since their carvings.

Some churches are notable for unusual reasons. Tythby is one such church, in that it is a single church, but with two parishes. And each parish had half of the Nave each.

One side had box pews, whilst the other had benches. Although both parishes attended the same services.

Nothing prepares you for this from the outside, but each side seems to have a pulpit, with the one on the north side a triple deck one.

Again we received a warm welcome. And more tea and biscuits.

Which was nice.

Tythly had only the second Royal coat of arms we had seen in the 14 churches thus far. Not sure if this is a Nottinghamshire thing, of just a coincidence, but coats of arms in only 1 in seven churches visited seems too much of one.

Final stop was a large barn of a church, Langar.

Langar was constructed on a grand scale, and yet there was so much space that successive generations couldn't fill it, so it looks partly desserted.

Its a cruciform church, with north and south transepts, and each contains chest tombs, two on one side, and one the other, all highly carved, and splendid works. Yet the north is now a store room, so the once wealthy and great lay for eternity with chairs and ladders stacked against their final resting places.

In the Nave, there were modern chairs set on a red carpet, but arranged on a semi-circle facing an altar table to the north. And it wasn't clear if this was for some event, or more with some kind of non-conformist lay-out.

Apparently this is the more common lay-out, one which rather surprised the Bishop when he first visited the church.

We were done at half four, so boarded the coach, and Bob drove us back to the campus, passing by a recently occurred accident at a crossroads, where several cars had struck each other, and the emergency services had just arrived, so blue flashing lights everywhere, and the walking wounded hugging each other in relief.

We drove on.

And back to the hotel, and dinner at seven, where we sat round two long tables, most talking about churches. At least I was away from the guy who talked politics all through lunch.

There's that.

And light relief came from Manchester United who lost 4-1 at Como in the CL.