| John Betjeman knew a fine country church when he found one, and he certainly found one in St Thomas’s, Harty. Writing to the then rector to apologise for having to miss the Harvest Festival, he wrote: "Alas I shall have to console myself with memories of the church in its splendid isolation, with sea birds wheeling by and the Thames so wide as to be open sea, and air so fresh as to be healthier than yoghurt (unflavoured)." Almost any day of the year, the tiny hamlet of Harty basks in the isolation Betjeman describes. This parish of barely 20 souls, which boasts an inn, a couple of farms, a few cottages and a derelict school, is insulated from the outside world. To reach it you must cross from the Kent mainland to the Isle of Sheppey; which lies; low and rather grey in character and reputation, in a cleft between the estuaries of the Thames and the Swale. The last four miles are along a narrow, rutted lane over marshes to the now-landlocked Isle of Harty. Despite being barely 50 miles from London, this is a profoundly remote, beautiful and tranquil place. Although very English, it has the feel of pilgrimage churches in remote parts of Bavaria, Austria and Italy: places where heaven and earth seem to meet. Without water, electricity or gas, it is lit by candles and oil lamps. It is rare to find no one here – the church draws a steady trickle of lone pilgrims; those who find it an idea setting for prayer and meditation Yet, on one weekend each year, St Thomas’s draws the crowds. On the first weekend in July, it holds it’s flower festival, called Flowers in a Country Church, and is joined in its isolation by thousands of people. Of course, there is nothing unusual in a country church holding a flower festival: they are a mainstay of many; helping raise funds, and giving a congregation a perfect opportunity to socialise, and to celebrate their faith through the glory of flowers. What a flower festival means to any other church is multiplied a thousand-fold at Harty, because Flowers in a Country Church is vital to St Thomas’s survival. When the festival began in 1979 the tiny congregation was desperate. The church, which dates from 1089, was in urgent need of repair, and it’s survival as a place of worship was in grave doubt. St Thomas’s churchwarden, Colin Patience, was there at the start: “We only made £150 the first year, but it gave us hope that we could attract people here. Year by year, more and more people have come, and our income has risen. Now we are up to £3,000 – and that’s without charging for admission. The money comes from voluntary donations, and from the craft stalls which we have in the churchyard. It is no exaggeration to say that flowers have saved Harty church” The funds have helped, in part, to pay for some wonderful stained glass, with designs that reflect the simple rhythms of life in Harty. In the west wall, four new lights depict the seasons in the hamlet. In the north chapel, one light depicts sheep and a gamboling lamb, another a view of the church from the Swale foreshore. The north window in the sanctuary has a wonderfully rich representation of St Thomas the Apostle, while another bears an owl. This year, as every year, the tiny ragstone church is packed with flowers. With the roof reaching low like a slate tent over the north wall, you step into the porch and then down into the whitewashed, stone flagged church. It is towerless, but with a bellcote at the west end. Sunlight streams through the Lady Chapel from the south. There are poseys at the end of each pew, and vases on the window sills, around the font and altar, on every ledge and sill. The scent of lilies and jasmine fills the air. There are foxgloves, roses, dahlias, chrysanthemums, violets, marigolds, carnations and many more. “Everyone contributes to the festival,” says Colin. “It can be anything from a bunch of flowers a child has picked from a hedgerow, to a bucket of flowers from someone’s garden. We fill every nook and cranny.” The churchyard is filled as well: with craft and produce stalls. I bought Sheppey honey, half a dozen veronicas, a rather nice 20p cocktail glass, shortbread, date flapjacks, and had two unsuccessful goes on the bottle stalls. My daughter, Bea, bought three model bees from the honey stall, which now buzz around her notice board. You might conclude that this is religion lite; with all the charm of Church, but without the commitment. But those who come don’t just find a pretty church, eat a cream tea and leave. Many of them find their encounter with Harty a profound one. “Flowers bring people here,” says Colin,” but those who come often find a great deal more than that. They may be entering a church for the first time, and they feel God’s presence, often, for the first time. It’s a very simple country church and’ when you are taking your first faltering steps towards faith’ that is what you need. “A child, when it starts its education, goes to a small homely school, not a university. People can find a cathedral or a large church daunting; the clerical garb off-putting, but here they find a simple place with a sense of peace and holiness - and it draws them in.” Despite the fact that it is a church with a tiny congregation, worship is regular. As part of the united benefice of Leysdown, Warden Bay and Eastchurch – where Father Francis has his main church - Harty is supported by the wider east-Sheppey Anglican community.
“We don’t want to keep it as a museum,” says Colin. “Father Francis holds a service once a month and there is never a day without visitors or pilgrims. It’s a wonderful, holy place, and the flower festival provides for it; keeps the church maintained, brings in the curious and can start them on the road to faith.” Many have been drawn in. I am among them. I happened upon Harty in the darkest of times, and found enormous peace, and the strength to endure a daunting test, in this church. I came on a winter’s day when the snow lay on the ground. From the small rise at the lynchgate I could look east across the low, flat fields to the tip of the island; to the marsh where British aviation was born when, in 1909, John Brabazon became the first Briton to achieve a one-mile circular flight. To the south east is the curious private hamlet at Shellness, on the very tip of the island, alongside what must be the chilliest naturist beach in England. To the south, across the choppy Swale, are Faversham, Whitstable, Herne Bay and the North Downs. Once a ferry ran from Harty to the mainland, and the parish priest would be rowed across from the mainland. The old stone jetty still stands before the Harty Ferry Inn. To one side of the church is a neat Georgian farmhouse; to the other, a single storey cottage, once the 20-pupil strong Harty School but now abandoned, hustled by saplings, and with a tall chimney blown down slap against the slates. There was a fortified Saxon manor called Sayes Court here. The remains of its moat still lie, deep, dark and reed-fringed, to the east and west of the churchyard. Once it guarded this community from raiders who came up the Swale; the favoured route to London because it was more sheltered than the main channel of the Thames to the north. This has always been a pilgrim church There is a legend that, in the reign of Henry III, St Thomas’s north aisle was built as a shelter for pilgrims on their way by ship north to Walsingham, and south to Becket's shrine at Canterbury. Many pilgrims, drawn as I was, feel the need for an enduring link with Harty. Soon after I discovered it I joined the friends, receiving their newsletter with the pictures of Father Francis meeting the Cheeky Girls at the Priory Hill Holiday Park and receiving a cheque for £1,150, and Colin Patience’s Gleanings at the Gate, telling the story of the theft and recovery of the 14th century Harty Chest, which now lies behind bars in the Lady Chapel. St Thomas’s is the parish church for all those without a parish; all those who, for whatever reason, feel their faith is not anchored anywhere else. In a rootless age, I believe, many have lost contact with the place in which their faith first found expression, and search in vain for a spiritual home; a church in which they feel at rest and in true communion. For me and for thousands of others, Harty is that church: our spiritual home, the anchor of our faith. Without the flower festival to ensure worship shall continue, that home would be lost. | |
