All Sains Church, Billockby is a landmark, alone on a rise to the east of the Acle to Stalham road. There is no other building near. You reach it along tiny lanes cut deep between rolling fields, but in fact these lanes run into busy roads, and Billockby church's isolation is something of an illusion. Nevertheless, it is an easy one to maintain if you stand in the tree-surrounded churchyard, the fields rolling away in all directions, without another human being in sight.
This must have been a fine church once, but the tower was badly damaged by a lightning strike in 1762. Judging by the crack the event must have been spectacular. As so often happens, falling masonry destroyed the nave, and all that was left was the chancel. However, this proved sufficient to the needs of the congregation, who made it safe, until a full-scale restoration of 1872, and left the rest a picturesque ruin. And so it remains.
The thatched chancel is cottage-like. One survival of the collapse was the south porch, which now stands alone against the ruin of the south nave wall. There is some interesting 17th Century graffiti on the eastern jamb of the south doorway; Henry Mann and William Tooley came to visit from neighbouring Clippesby in May 1671, and made sure that future generations would know about it. Perhaps there wasn't a visitors book in those days.
To find this cache you'll first need to solve the puzzle below and then continue on with a visit to the Church.
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For full information on how you can expand the Church Micro series by sadexploration please read the Place your own Church Micro page before you contact him at churchmicro.co.uk
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
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