Once upon a time, there were four Creetings - St Peter and St Mary will be familiar to regular visitors - but for different reasons, we are now reduced to just two. Yes, you can find Creeting Hills and the evocatively named Creeting Bottoms on maps, but they're just names to fill blank spaces.
Creeting All Saints lay between Needham Market and the core of modern day Creeting St Mary, although the two parishes were so intertwined that the parish churches shared a churchyard by all accounts. But All Saints Church blew down in a great storm in the early eighteenth century (no foundations, you see) and, rather than rebuild, it was easier to merge the two parishes into one.
Creeting St Olave is little known, and the church appears to have vanished by the end of the seventeenth century. There is a sign on the site, explaining a little of the history, but little easily unearthed information to take the story further.
However, I was reminded of this by an e-mail I received, notifying me of a road closure that affects our parish. Fen Lane, which runs along our south-eastern border, is to be closed during the day for a week in early December to allow BT to replace some of their equipment (and no, it hasn't been explained what sort of equipment needs thirty hours of road closure to be replaced).
Naturally, a diversionary route has to be announced and, amusingly, this route includes The Lord's Highway, which will take drivers past the former site of St Olave's Church.
I've also learnt something else which amuses me a bit, but I'll save that for another day...
No comments:
Post a Comment