Morwenstow

I am on a sort of holiday in Devon, though yesterday we lunched just over the Cornish border (luckily we remembered our passports) at the excellent Bush Inn, Morwenstow with an old family friend. He is a man o' the cloth and, like all deeply cynical English clerics with a black sense of humour, terrific company.

Morwenstow is notable for being the parish of one Robert Hawker, a 19th Century vicar who dressed as a mermaid, invented Harvest Festival, got namechecked by Dickens and smoked opium, amongst other commendable eccentricities. We had a poke around his church after lunch.


The above sign reads "These bench-ends date from 1575. Pilgrim pause to whisper into the ear of God your prayer in these our own times."

O my brothers, long dead, they are the same prayers. Always the same prayers.