Corpus Christi & Heritage Crafts Festival
7-17 June 2007
For photos of the festival click
here
The
weather was kind to us, amazing, for this June has proved a disaster for so many
outdoor activities. The Festival started with the celebration of 700 years for
Carleton
Rode
Church
with a Corpus Christi Service on June 7th. The
story of
Corpus Christi
was given outside the church porch by local actors with an excerpt from the kind
of play that would have been performed by the medieaval craft guilds. The
service was a ‘proper’
Corpus Christi
one with incense and rose petals. The first week-end there was an interesting
and beautifully put together exhibition at Carleton Rode Church ‘ From Wool to
WWW’ charting the history of the village from its early beginnings to the
present, and Tibenham had its annual celebration Village Fair with the Soap Box
Derby and Scarecrow Competition. There was a fascinating exhibition on the
Buxton Family in the church plus the annual opening of the Tower, and produce
show and teas at the Community Hall. The good weather brought out the crowds.
On Tuesday 12th and Thursday 14th there was a series
of talks with supper at the Community Hall in Tibenham on Archiving in Norfolk,
Wolterton Hall and its records, church maintenance and restoration and
‘beetles, bats and vandals’: the difficult life of paintings in churches.
All four sessions proved fascinating and thought provoking.
The second week-end activities moved to Great Moulton church and
churchyard where an array of talented crafts people were on hand to demonstrate
their skills. Norfolk Long Horn Sheep and Norfolk Back Turkeys were in
attendance to show the connection with farming.
Everyone
who came thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and learnt a great deal about all the
skills that went into the building of our magnificent churches and are still in
great demand today for maintaining and restoring them.
We have been left with two permanent examples of craftmen’s skills. Andy
Hibberd of Bunwell designed and carved a logo for the Festival, this can be seen
in Carleton Rode Church, and Mike and Iris Murphy of Great Moulton designed and
pargetted a five sided free standing ‘monument’
to the five villages and their individual histories. This can be seen in Great
Moulton Churchyard.
{By
Jennie Hawks}
