Newark is not large, and we are kind of running out of town walks...

But today we did an interesting variant of our railway loop by heading off first to Balderton.

On the way are a number of items of interest:





Star of the show, however, was the church of St Giles, Balderton, which we've seen from the road on numerous occasions, but never really stopped to investigate.

(St Giles, by the way, is the patron saint of lepers, beggars, and outcasts. He lived as a hermit in southern France roughly in the period 650-710, and came to a sad end when some hunters, tasked with finding meat for Frankish King Wamba, chased the deer that was Giles's only companion, and accidentally shot the hermit.)

As is so often the case, the church of St Giles in Balderton started life way back in the 12th century, and it has certainly seen life: "In 1646, 129 people were buried in the churchyard having died of the plague; this is in contrast to the 19 who had died the year before. This large increase in numbers was blamed on the final stages of the Civil War being fought in the area."




I love the red brick of this part of the world, and the gloomy winter colours really make it pop: