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All Saints, Thwaite, Norfolk

Aldborough is the biggest of the villages in the area between Cromer and Aylsham, a handsome village with a pub beside its pretty village green, a good place to sit and watch cricket on a sunny afternoon. And yet, there is something missing, for most unusually for East Anglia there is no village church in Aldborough. Instead, you can find no less than three medieval churches in a line along the nearby Holt to North Walsham road, each about half a mile apart and all very different from each other. The most easterly of the three is the parish church of St Mary, Aldborough, and the other two are the parish churches of Thwaite and Alby.

While Alby and Thwaite are landmarks, towerless St Mary hides behind hedges, and is fairly understated. The tower fell in the 18th century, and now the repointing of the flint and the early 20th century turret belies the fact that it is of great interest. And even as you step in, you feel that this is a busy, much-loved place, zealously taken care of by its community.

A low arcade separates the nave from the13th century north aisle, but otherwise the overwhelming feel is of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Six bold saints stand attendance in the aisle and the chancel, four of them in memorials to local lads lost in the Great War. The aisle windows are by Powell & Sons, and depict St Michael and St Francis from the 1920s, and St Peter and St John from the 1930s. But the best glass is in the chancel, depicting St George and St Edmund above a landscape of Suvla Bay, and is by William Aikman in 1925. It remembers Edmund Gay, who was one of the soldiers of the infamous 5th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment. Recruited on estates in north Norfolk, they sailed for Gallipolli, and were wiped out during the attack on Anafarta in Suvla Bay on the 12th of August 1915.

Because they had fallen behind enemy lines, they were listed as missing, and a Norfolk legend grew up that they had vanished into a mysterious cloud and were taken up out of this world. This sounds bizarre, but it was of a piece with legends like the Angel of Mons leading the British troops to escape death in Flanders, and with the great rise in spiritualism in this country in the years immediately after the War. Perhaps it was the dust and heat of that day which gave rise to the legend.

As you might expect in this part of Norfolk, there are some good medieval figure brasses. They are mostly to members of the Herward family, and date from the 1480s. Two are to Robert Herward, in full armour, and his wife Anne, in a butterfly headdress. The other is to an unknown civilian of the same period.

Half a mile westwards down the road sits the lonely church of All Saints, Thwaite. Thwaite church is a landmark, its round tower peeping above the trees. There is no Thwaite village. The church sits at the highest point in the road, and the view from the churchyard is wide and open to the south, all high Norfolk spread out before you. The tower probably dates from the 12th century, with bell openings of a century later. It was built against an already existing church, although the defining features of that church now are newer. The south aisle can be dated by will evidence as from the 1440s, but it was the early 19th century which brought the large school room built onto the north side of the chancel.

You step into a church which is entirely rustic, a real church of the common people, with a brick floor and a font pressed in the medieval manner against a plillar of the arcade. The south aisle is full of light and old benches. The cut-down screen has deeply cut tracery painted red, gold and green. Mortlock detected the hand of the Aylsham screen maker. The beautiful pulpit with its tester is dated 1624 in a large inscription on the backboard. Best of all, and to be expected in this part of Norfolk, a fine figure brass, a double one, to John Puttok and his wife. Interestingly, they died almost thirty years apart, Puttok first in 1442. The previous year, there had been a bequest for the building of the south aisle, and Puttok's will of a year later asked that he should be buried in it. Was it already built by then? Whatever, that is where the brass is now.

The east window of the south aisle has a modern glass depicting the crowned Tudor royal arms of England and France. It probably came from the same collection as at neighbouring Alby. Faith and Charity are rich and elegant in the mid-Victorian manner in the nave, but the chancel is full of simple white light, and less cluttered and complex spaces than this chancel would be hard to find. If you have come here after enjoying the gorgeous Anglo-catholic riches of the churches to the south, this church will feel like a breath of fresh air.

A gentle half mile or so downhill brings us to the third of the three churches, St Ethelbert, Alby. The churches come so thick and fast in this area to the north of Aylsham, and the parishes are so scattered, that sometimes you have to look at the church noticeboard to find out exactly where you are. I had been here before, in 2005, but it was one of the very few East Anglian churches into which I had never set foot, because I had found it locked. I remembered its austere, rather forbidding exterior, quite different to that of its two neighbours, and this with the secretive, bowering churchyard made me wonder if I was to be disappointed again. But I was pleased to discover that Alby church is now open to pilgrims and strangers every day.

This is a wide church, but aisleless, creating a sense of space enhanced by the clear glass which is punctuated only by what appears to be a collection of off-cuts from late 19th and early 20th Century workshops. These include St Christopher carrying the Christ child, the head and shoulders of a grieving Blessed Virgin at the foot of the cross, and a crowned arms of medieval France to match the set at Thwaite. The most curious piece is a crucifixion, for the figure of the crucified Christ appears to be medieval, and has been set in 19th Century glass depicting the Blessed Virgin and St John in the same style.

Looking up, there is another curiosity, for the clerestory consists of just two two-light windows on each side, at the eastern and western ends.

Tujunga Wash now open to public by Los Angeles District USACE

LOS ANGELES — Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District and Los Angeles County cut the ribbon opening the Tujunga Wash Ecosystem Restoration Project in Valley Glen, Calif., to the public Aug. 15.

The $7 million project was designed to restore degraded habitat along the sides of a 3/4-mile stretch of concrete channel carrying runoff from Hansen Dam to the Los Angeles River. Construction included a meandering stream with native riparian vegetation and pedestrian pathways along banks of the channel between Vanowen Street and Sherman Way in the San Fernando Valley. The project connects to the county’s Greenway project to the south, creating a riparian habitat corridor nearly 2.5 miles long.

LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky hosted the event and told the 50 people in attendance, including project partners and local residents, that open recreation space enhances quality of life but, more importantly, it improves the environment.

“It’s greening the environment. It’s taking an asset that’s been not only underutilized, but un-utilized, from an environmental point of view, and turning it into a real community asset that’s fully utilized,” said Yaroslavsky. “I know that the neighborhood’s going to love this and appreciate this.”

Yaroslavsky said one of the key features of the project is its water conservation component, where the meandering stream aids groundwater recharge.

“One way to reduce the reliance on imported water is by increasing the amount of rainwater that we capture and return to the groundwater table right here in the San Fernando Valley,” he said. “We need to continue to develop these kinds of innovative and cost effective environmentally sensitive projects to increase our local water supplies.”

LA County Department of Public Works operated and maintained the concrete-lined channel for the sole purpose of flood risk management. According to Director Gail Farber, the department welcomed the opportunity to collaborate with the Corps to bring environmental, recreational and educational benefits to this dense urban area.

“We’re extremely proud of our collaboration with the Army Corps of Engineers and the common vision we share with the urban waterways, like the LA River and its tributaries; to transform them into sustainable ecosystems that provide not only flood protection for our communities, but also habitats for plants, wildlife, open space and recreation for our residents,” said Farber. “So this project and the two habitat restoration projects downstream brings us even closer to our vision of sustainable communities.”

Los Angeles District Commander Col. Mark Toy talked about the growing momentum in the movement to restore portions of the LA River watershed with programs like the Urban Waters Federal Partnership and America’s Great Outdoors Initiative. Both programs share the goals of reconnecting people across the nation to their waterways and promoting water conservation. He said the Tujunga Wash restoration project, although relatively small, shows what is possible along the LA River and complements the river’s revitalization plan.

“This particular project here at Tujunga Wash has garnered a lot of interest from higher levels in Washington, D.C.,” said Toy. “They [Principal Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works “Rock” Salt and Chief of Engineers Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick] had heard what’s been going on in Los Angeles and what ecosystem restoration looked like and they wanted to see it for themselves.

All told, the Tujunga Wash Greenway created a total of 11.5 acres of native, drought-tolerant habitat, with 18 acres of open space and 3.2 miles of public pathways in a park-poor area of the San Fernando Valley.

Aldborough by Simon Knott

St Mary, Aldborough, Norfolk