I  always try to write to the person in charge of the church I plan to visit to ask if  it is open and if I may take photographs; when I do I usually receive a positive reply. Occasionally, because I forget to write, come upon a church I had not planned to visit, or receive no reply, for reasons which will be referred to in due course, the church is more often than not open. Here are three which were locked. You will note here that in all cases the key holder remained with us during our visit to the church, but this is not always the case.

1. The Peep-Toe Mail

    In the North Riding, so the book tells me, there is a church in a village called Whorlton-in-Cleveland and this church contains a well preserved wooden effigy of a knight; I know of no other example in the North Riding, although Alfred Fryer in his book on Wooden Effigies does list several in the West Riding, most of which may be found elsewhere on this site. If you put this village's name into your Sat Nav you may well find that it is 'not recognized', as the current phrase goes, which clearly sounds more professional than, although means exactly the same as, 'dunno'!  Help is at hand - need I add - from the Ordnance Survey. There is another Whorlton, which is near Barnard Castle, both in County Durham; that's not the one, although with boundary changes you would be forgiven for thinking that perhaps it might be. The book also states that the parish church of Whorton-in-Cleveland is at Swainby; this confusing statement will become clearer later. The Ordnance Survey map shows that Swainby is a medium sized village with a pub and a church (with spire) and, if you go over the river bridge in that village, you will pass this church and eventually reach Whorlton, as it is simply called on the map. This has just a scattering of buildings (probably mostly farm buildings) and a church (with tower) as well as a castle. When you do the actual journey you will find that the church in Swainby, which you will find to be indeed  a medium sized village, is a late 19th century building dedicated to the Holy Cross, but when you pass over the small bridge and reach Whorlton there is virtually nothing there except for a ruined castle and a medieval church , also partly ruined and also dedicated to the Holy Cross. Apparently what we find is explained by there once being a medieval village here but which was abandoned long ago; this may have been owing to the plague or mass movement for other reasons. There is little or nothing of this villageto be seen above the ground now. The area is still called Worlton-in-Cleveland and its church referred to Whorlton Old Church.

    You may park outside this church and enter the church yard but, although the church is mainly a ruin, the chancel and the tower have been restored and are in good condition, services being held there at intervals. The churchyard, which contains a number of interesting head stones, may be entered may through its gate but the restored part of the church is locked and there is, at least when we visited, no indication of where to obtain the key. I could not see the wooden knight through either window or keyhole.

   However the internet, that sometimes fickle friend, came to the rescue here: there is quite a lot of information about the lost village, the castle as well as Whorlton Old Church, including the e-mail address of the person who holds the key. I contacted this person and arranged to telephone her when we next we visited God's Own County. This I did and we arranged to meet in the car park of Swainby church and then both drive in tandem to the Old Church. She was a very friendly and helpful lady who knew a good deal about the history of the church, even giving us a booklet on the subject. She pointed out some interesting features both inside and outside the church, such as the two sided tomb stones with images of death on the one side and resurrection on the other, which are here shown to the left and right.

   This knowledgeable lady also pointed out a mass dial on the south outside wall of the church. A photograph of this particular example is shown below on the left.  It is said that the six days of the week are represented by the circular row of the lower holes and Sunday is represented by the hole in the centre of the arc of the circle they form. An itinerant priest, if the church had no resident one, would put a light coloured stone in the relevant hole to indicate the day of the week that mass was to be held in the coming week.

  There appear to be another variation of mass dials which are sometimes called scratch or tide dials. There are said to be more than 3,000 of these on church walls in England, although some are faintly scratched, and certainly worn, rather than deeply cut as is the example at Whorlton and hence easily missed. A photograph of a rather enhanced one is shown below right.These are in effect vertical sun dials and were always on the outside south wall  (the sunny side) of the church near the priest's door. If the are not on this wall, being on another wall or inside the porch, then some rebuilding has occured or a porch added to the church The term scratch is obvious as they appear to have been at times simply and possibly crudely scratched onto the wall; the term tide is derived from tid, an Old English term for a period of time, these dials first appearing in Anglo-Saxon times. Incidentally the use of the word referring to the rise and fall of the sea from the gravitational action of the Moon did not appear until Late Middle English. These dials consist of an incised circle, the lower semi-circle  of which has thirteen small holes cut at equal angles around the circumference of this semi-circle and  incised radii passing from the large central hole to these holes. Five of these incised radii are more deeply incised. The large central circle held the gnomon (a wonderful word, derived from Greek meaning one who knows) often just a wooden stick, which cast a shadow over the lines. The holes indicated the hours of the day, beginning at 6.00 am and ending at 6.00 pm. The more deeply incised lines represent the times of the Divine Offices, the times of the five daily prayers in a medieval church day. By the 14th century these dials were progressively replaced by mechanical clocks, which initially were erratic in their timekeeping. The plain upper semi-circle represents night time, not an effective time for sun dials!

  These dials could not be adjusted for longitude, so would not give the country's 'universal' time but only the local time, although local time is, after all, the real time, as told by the sun. People did not worry too much about this until as late as 1880 when the coming of 'high speed' travel on the railways made it essential to introduce a universal time. Otherwise it would be worse travelling east to west on a USA railway where you have to adjust your watch by an hour when you enter another universal time zone, the east-west width of this country being far too large to have a county wide universal time zone; before the railways and universal time it would meant alteringyour watch each village village visited and by any amount.

	The wooden knight we see in the photograph above appears to be wearing 'peep-toe' mail stockings, an extremely rare feature, which is mentioned in Fryer's book. There have been various explanations of this curious feature but my own opinion is as follows. The figure is very well carved and appears to have suffered very little damage or vandalism: note the details of the sword belt and spurs. However the mail is not carved at all where, in normal circumstances, it would be exposed, such as on the arms, legs where the surcoat falls back, and the mail hood; it is highly unlikely that the sculptor would have failed to have done this. Effigies of this date were often coated with a thin layer of a plaster like substance called gesso, and fine detail, such as mail, was simple stamped into it, this being a simpler and much quicker process than actually carving all the mail links. The gesso would than be painted. Thus the outline of the mailed toes could still be seen under this coat of gesso. This cost eventually flakes away which explains the state of the effigies today.

   However there are other explanations: one is that the mail was cut short of the toes to make movement more free and the knight would have worn a pair of leather hose beneath, a sort of shoe/sock combination; or that the toes were carved by some skillful vandal. I have no idea what it is like to walk in mail foot wear, allthough the knight in this period would have fought on horseback, but mail shoes are available to buy on the internet if you wish to find out! So I think the open toe idea can be dissmissed.

  But there is another effigy of a knight in Pickering, also in the North Riding. This effigy is of Purbeck Marble and the knight wears a later variation of the armour seen here. Purbeck Marble is a hard stone to carve but all the mails links have been carved into the stone where the mail would have been exposed: but his toes are carved , by the looks of it, on one foot only! I think this may be apparent as I could not stand close enough to the effigy to make out the detail more clearly. I know of no other examples with this curious feature. ***

2. The Pretty Girl Holds the Key

    Key holders of these locked churches are more often than not middle aged, or even elderly, people who have been trusted to keep the keys safely, only releasing them to those who appear trustworthy, and who often live in a cottage near the church. This proved not to be  the case when I visited a church in Somerset a few years ago when I was taking a series of photographs of monuments in that county to add to the Church Monuments Society website; I was Hon. Publicity Officer of the Society at the time and these photographs were to promote the Society's symposium at Bristol, which had been organized by Dr Clive Easter. I had failed to arrange a visit to the church but, in this case, there was a note on the church door stating that the key may be obtained from the house behind the church. I walked round the church to the house but this was no cottage, but rather a large, fine and old manor house. I expected the door to be answered by the maid, but instead there appeared an attractive young woman dressed in what is known as 'hippy' style with long skirt, long free hair and no shoes. She proved very friendly and chipper and walked over to the church with me, still shoeless, to open the church door. She remained with me in the church while I took the photographs, chatting and asking me questions. I often wondered how she managed to walk barefoot on a cold church stone floor.

  It wasn't until several years later that I found out who this delightful young lady was or might have been, as this manor house was no longer such but a hotel, or rather one of a number of holiday cottages and manor houses now converted for that very purpose.

3. Private Property - Keep Out

   Another locked church we attempted to visit was at Kirkby Fleetham, also in the North Riding. Your Sat Nav will certainly guide you to the village but not  to the church which is a short drive away from the former. So it's Ordnance Survey to the rescue again, either the 1:50 000 map or the O/S Sat Nav. In fact you need neither of these as the church is signposted in the village, although this is easy enough to miss, at least initially, but I always advise a
1:50 000 map when monument hunting, as churches are not always quite where you think they should be. We soon came to a pull in on the right hand side of the road with two large gates, one signposted 'Home Farm' and the other 'Kirkby Fleetham Hall'; there was also a small sign by the latter gate: 12th Century Church. We drove through the relevant gate, which was open, and along a drive through a wooded area. On either side there were notices fixed to the trees, telling the reader to Keep Out! and that it was Private Property; not an encouraging welcome. We eventually came to a clearing where the church was in front of us. To the right was Kirkby Fleetham Hall, a fine large Grade II* early 18th century house, which has been a private house, a hotel, but was now partly let out as apartments. An occasional person  wandered in front of the Hall but no one challenged us. Surprisingly there was not a shot gun or fierce dog in sight. To the left was a car park with the notices: No Parking and Private: Residents Only. Fortunately there was a small area of somewhat informal parking in front of the church. As expected the church was firmly locked. However there was a notice board giving the name and telephone number of the current vicar.

   We intended to visit this church on our next visit to the North Riding but had lost the details of the vicar who, it transpired, had moved to another parish anyway, leaving the church in 'interregnum'. The details of the person to contact was on the church's website and I e-mailed the person concerned, who was one of the church wardens. A reply came from a lady and I arranged to telephone her when we had arrived in the North Riding. It is quite difficult to make these appointments precisely since it is impossible to accurately plan the times ahead. I telephoned on a suitable day and we arranged to meet outside the church. I asked about parking and was told to simply park on the grass verge outside the church as that was the normal arrangment.

   There were the two gates and the notices giving information but the hostile notices fixed to trees along the drive had now gone. We parked on the grass as arranged and the key holder lady arrived shortly afterwards; she was, as ever, a very helpful person and keen to tell us all she knew of the church. I asked her about the local situation and was told that the Hall had recently been sold to another owner, so hence the welcomed disappearance of those unwelcomed notices, that the forbidden car park served a number of properties, which we could not see, on the other side of the church to the Hall, and, as mentioned, that the vicar had left now the parish. She unlocked the door and I was delighted to find a number of fine monument sinside, including the cross legged knight, shown below, who is locally referred to as 'The Crusader'. Although certainly not a crusader this is a very fine stone effigy indeed. Note the fine carving of the mail, sword and sword belt and the heraldry on the shield, which are, as often as not, quite blank, the heraldry having once been painted but having since disappeared. Note the toes are not suggested at all.

On the right is the monument to William Lawrence (1785) by Flaxman. On the left side of the pedestal is a pile of books while on the right Anne Sophie mourns beneath the bust of her husband. Below her knees may been seen a pile of coins. I have not been able to discover who this William Lawrence was but his wife was the heiress to the Studley Royal estate, near Ripon