Last year we stopped at
Imber on the way to north Devon, as it was one of the village's annual open days - it's part of the army training grounds on Salisbury Plain. The
church dates back to the 12th century and is now in the care of the Church Conservation Trust. The caretaker has beehives of a rare pure strain of bees, isolated by distance from contamination - honey was being sold. Also at the church was a display of the history of the village, and we chatted with a man who had been born in the village - the entire civilian population was evicted in 1943 to provide an exercise area for American troops preparing for the invasion of Europe.
In the church tower are these 17th century paintings of the changes of bells to be rung -
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| ringing the changes |
The ring of six bells was installed in 2010; wonder how much use those ropes get? -
An atmospheric place -
I did botanical survey work on Salisbury Plain in the late 1980's - as well as being quite an eerie place the Imber range was very special for plants though you had to be careful where you put your feet because of old ordnance ( we had military escort)
ReplyDeletethey had something about this type of thing on Country File on Sunday night, only it was in the Norfolk Brecks.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of this sort of displacement up to Sunday and now twice.
Sandy
Would it be possible to get a straight-on shot of the script for those 'changes' for the bells? That would be an interesting kind of writing/marks to print with!
ReplyDelete