Sacred Places: personal

Sacred places don’t just have to be associated with saints. Most of us probably have places which are special to us for other reasons, places which we associate with significant moments in our lives, or places which feel like “home” for some reason.

Many people enjoy tracing their family history, and that often leads to visits to places where their ancestors lived. My family has branches coming from Yorkshire, Ireland and Kent, but most of my ancestors came from Devon or nearby counties in the South West of England. The furthest back I can trace any of my family lines is 1673, on my mother’s side, to the wedding of Augustine Fletcher and Julian Tynam (Julian was a woman’s name at the time), in the village of Witheridge, between Exmoor and Dartmoor. My daughter and I made a personal pilgrimage (by bus from Exeter!) to this ancestral place, which is now very much off the beaten track, a quiet village of thatched cottages on a high plateau (the name of the village probably means “weather edge”) surrounded by valleys etched by the   Little Dart river and its tributaries.

The church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, where Augustine and Julian married, is still there.
Witheridge also serves a good (Devonshire) cream tea…

Witheridge’s only famous resident was a woman who managed to con high society that she was a princess from the South Seas, Princess Caraboo for several months in 1817,  during which time she became a noted celebrity. Eventually she was recognised her and she was unmasked as a cobbler’s daughter, Mary Willcocks, from Witheridge. I earnestly hope that she wasn’t a long-lost relative!

St John the Baptist church, Witheridge, where my ancestors married (and Ruth!)

Samuel Shebbeare married my ancestors

The statues on the pulpit were literally defaced at the Reformation. A later restoration gave them new heads...

...but the restorers didn't realise that this figure had originally been a woman - somehow that possibility didn't occur to them - so they gave her the head of a bearded man. 

We had a walk in the woods and fields nearby

We found an old oak tree, which we decided (!) had been there at the time of Julian and Augustine's marriage.

The Medway Queen: places don’t have to stay in the same place to be special!

Some sacred places are not static. The Medway Queen is a “place” like that for my family. A paddle steamer built in the 1920’s, it was pressed into service in WW2 as a minesweeper, and made seven journeys across the Channel at the evacuation of Dunkirk, rescuing an estimated 7000 soldiers. My father was one of the crew. He didn’t speak much about his experience, but it evidently made a deep impression on him. It was an exhausting mission, and after the final trip, when the ship reached Ramsgate and the crew were finally allowed to rest, he slept for 24 hours solid. 

After the war, the Medway Queen went back to pleasure cruising, and became a floating disco on the Isle of Wight. Eventually it fell into disrepair, and would have been lost if it hadn’t been rescued by a band of volunteers in the early 1990’s. My parents supported the project in its early days, but it looked like a long, and perhaps impossible, task. However, it is now well on the way to repair and is moored in Gillingham where it can be visited on summer Saturdays.

When we visited, I mentioned that my father had served on her, which delighted the volunteers. As we looked around the expedition, I found, on display, a picture of my Dad – a special and proud moment. 

Medway Queen is moored in Gillingham

Dad is second from the left on the front row. The dog was rescued and brought on board from another ship which sank.