A Diversion via Trollington

In my haste to leave unencumbered by the spaniels, and to avoid the protestations of my doughty if put-upon housekeeper, who had just put away her mop, and was about to settle down to  Jeremy Kyle and the ironing, (fortified only by a pot of Bewley's tea, a Tunnocks wafer, and the eager if not wholly holy anticipation of a large dose of schadenfreude)I had neglected to bring my trusty Ordnance Survey map on which Mgr Porter's residence was marked  with splodge of marmalade (dating from an incident involving an argument about a reredos with Fr Crusty over breakfast in a Happy Eater on a previous expedition), and soon got hopelessly lost.

I took a wrong turning somewhere near the Trocklesfield Bypass, and in no time the trusty Yaris was climbing steadily away from the mellow redbrick farms and cottages around Trollbridge, and up in the hills, where all at once the scenery changed to moors and limestone, dotted with little Wesleyan chapels marking the footsteps of the 18th Century Anglican who got fed up with his own hierarchy, but had the politeness to leave existing parish churches unmolested, and build his own (now mainly teashops serving hikers in cagoules - but it's the thought that counts).

Trollington

At last I descended via a series of corkscrew bends, into a valley that was all but invisible to anyone even half a mile away. It was the Diocese's very own Brigadoon - the village of Trollington - which by strange coincidence was the place where the church that had incurred the good prelate's wroth was situate. Here the clocks had stopped circa 1979. There were small shops, a park, a bandstand, a cricket ground, a police station with a blue lamp,and a gaggle of public houses. Most surreal of all, there  was a factory - a working factory nestling down by the River Trollin.  After negotiating the steep incline up to the church car park I could hear the sound of arguing coming from the Narthex - even over the noise of Tom and Tony Archer disputing the wisdom of growing chilis,  on the radio, and the windows of the Yaris were (as usual) jammed shut because I had lost the user's manual telling me how to release the locks).

I ran inside but stopped in amazement for a second time, as the sun glinted through the stained glass windows, at an angle that dazzled my eyes. It disappeared behind a cloud but my eyes remained dazzled, for there - prevailing against Mgr Porter were a set of plain but lovingly polished brass altar rails.