Whilst our ongoing research relating to the site is currently on hiatus, during an attempt to make sense of a pile of loose notes from Laura tucked away in a box recently, I came across a sketch with comments which, with hindsight, has clearly added to the puzzle surrounding the church.
However, before I discuss the sketch itself, it would be worth placing it in some form of context, to provide further insight.
Having moved away from the area following our initial visits to the church, we found ourselves living back in the area again, after a gap of seven years, although we had no motivation to revisit the location.
However, this was about to change.
The Missing Notes
In March of 2015, I was looking forward to the release of the updated Andrew Collins’ seminal work, The Black Alchemist, some 27 years after the original was first published. I had followed Collins’ work for more years than I care mention, so I was very interested in learning what new information had been included – had the Black Alchemist been identified? Was he still alive? Where did he live?
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| The ‘new’ book, retaining its striking cover, an image, heavily influenced by Salvador Dali’s 1951 work, Christ of Saint John of the Cross. |
In anticipation of the impending arrival of the book, I put out an innocuous post on the Twitter social media platform, in an attempt to generate some discussion, as there appeared to be little discussion about the release floating around.
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| An innocuous little Tweet.... |
Sadly, the post generated little interest, other than a short reply from someone who we’d never came across before, Sam, who it turns out has become our very good friend and, subsequently invited us to Greenwich Park, which we wrote about HERE.
In discussion, we found that we both had a longstanding interest in the works of Andrew Collins and indeed psychic questing itself, with Sam being involved in the ‘movement’ himself in the 1990’s.
Despite this interest, he’d not had the opportunity so far to visit the well known locations that featured in many of Collins’ works, many which were now local to where Laura and I were based, so it naturally followed that we made plans with Sam for him to travel up to us for the day, where we could undertake a tour of the sites, such as the church and Griffin pub in Danbury, Rettendon Church, Runwell Church and, the Running Well itself.
The Essex Safari
Unfortunately, come the day, Laura was unable to make the journey with us, so it was left to just Sam and myself to take the tour on our own.
As we walked away from the Running Well, the final location of our tour, Sam turned and asked if Laura and I had any favourite locations of our own in the area?
Thinking about it, the only one that came to mind that was relatively close to where we were now was ‘the church’ so, agreeing that this was as good a site as any, we made our way east through the Essex countryside, until we found ourselves pulling up in the unofficial car park, next to the church.
At this point I did not know what was going to great us - when Laura and I had last visited the church seven years earlier, the conservation process had just commenced and the building was completely surrounded by a secure protective metal curtain and we’d not kept in touch with any progress or what we could expect now.
Looking across to the building, I breathed a sigh of relief – the protective curtain had obviously gone, but so had the surrounding scrub and desolation and the church looked quite serene in the afternoon sun.
I guided Sam around the church, following the steps that Laura and I had trod many times before.
It felt odd now actually being able to walk among the gravestones, which were previously heavily overgrown with brambles and nettles, but pleasing that the church was now in a far better state of repair from when we’d last seen it.
Walking to the main porch, I pushed at the heavy wooden door, but it wouldn’t budge, as expected.
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| The North Porch |
It was a pity, as Laura and I’d never been inside the church and I was secretly hoping that it was unlocked so that Sam and I could go inside, now that the structure had been made safe.
Disappointed, we continued our walk around the church, stopping here and there to study the memorials, in particular the one that had always troubled Laura.
Having exhausted everything of note that there was to see, we made our way back to the car. As we passed the wooden, Tudor Bell Tower, I noticed that the door no longer had a metal clasp and padlock fitted.
I paused, looked at Sam and then walked over to the door and turned the door handle.
To my complete surprise it moved and the door slowly creaked open as I pushed the handle downwards.
After all these years I was finally going to be able to enter the church. I wondered what Laura would say when I broke the news to her later.
We examined the interior of the bell tower, its timbers exposed and, walked through an archway into the Nave itself.
Amongst the pews there was a small table, containing a selection of leaflets and brochures for visitors.
Something caught my attention.
Not quite believing what I was seeing, there, on the table was a leaflet advertising a concert, which had been held at another church a couple of weeks earlier.
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| Looks familiar.......... |
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| The leaflet vs the book |
As can be seen from the photograph above, it was Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross, the image used as the cover for Collins’ book, The Black Alchemist (and another variant for its follow up, The Second Coming), the very book that drew Sam and Laura and myself, complete strangers, together.
Synchronicity at work? A strong coincidence at the very least.
Departure
After exchanging a couple of words, we continued our exploration of the church for a while, then Sam and I drove back to my house to finally meet Laura, where we discussed how our tour had gone and, revealing the fact that the church was now open.
Laura was surprised and suggested that we should visit in the near future sometime (which we finally did some four weeks later) and the conversation soon turned to other matters.
And that, we thought, was that.
An eventful end to the day
In the late evening, as we were preparing to retire to bed, Laura unexpectedly received a vision.
She began to describe what she was seeing, as it unfolded and I quickly passed her a pen and paper so she could sketch the details, whilst it was still fresh in her mind.
This vision was particularly vivid and her hand moved quickly across the paper as she continued with her description, in an attempt to document the details.
As the scene began to fade, we discussed what it could mean.
As a reminder, at this point Laura had not been inside or even seen the interior of the church from photographs and, I was not that familiar, only having had a fleeting visit hours earlier.
It did not immediately strike us that the vision related to the church, so our discussion focused on other options that we had been working on at that time.
However, as things on a psychic level had been relatively quiet for Laura in the preceding months and, my first visit to the interior of the church having taken place only hours earlier, it was difficult to avoid the conclusion that it must relate to the church.
We would need to visit at the next convenient opportunity which, as it happened, took place four weeks later.
The Vision
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| Laura's notes, taken directly from her vision |
“Someone lying on table people gathered around them. Not dead or sacrificial.”
Trying to make sense of this, Laura clarified that she had no idea why the ‘sacrificial’ element came up, but she felt that, a need, that this was important in the scheme of things to provide clarification that it wasn’t any such thing.
“Round tiny plaque on wall under beam?”
With what we know now about the location, there is now a small metal plaque attached to a beam in the bell tower, commemorating the District Council Conservation and Design Award for 2010, following the conservation work undertaken in 2009.
However, this is relatively modern and Laura stated that ‘her’ plaque is much older than this.
There are two other candidates that are still present in the building following preservation. As you leave the Tudor bell tower and enter the nave, there are two oval texts, or plaques, painted on the walls opposite each other, immediately to your right and left, above the North and South Doors.
Crucially, in the context of Laura’s vision, they are both directly below a roof beam.
The texts are taken from the Book of Isaiah and have been professionally dated to the 18th Century.
The text on the South Wall is Isaiah c55 v6:
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near.
The text on the North Wall, also from Isaiah, c48 v17:
Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord thy God with teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.
Profound, but Laura is against accepting either plaque as whilst they are in the context of the correct location, they could hardly be described as ‘tiny’, in spite of them fitting the location, due to the size.
Hopefully further research will identify the plaque or indeed a further search, in case we’ve overlooked anything during our visits to the church.
“Body hanging from a beam, with a distinctive archway behind”
We are comfortable with our identification of the archway and, where this alleged hanging took place.
As you enter the church via the bell tower walk through to the Nave, you have to walk through a double archway – a large archway with a ‘flattened’ top section and, right above it, a smaller archway, with a peaked top section.
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| Both archways, as seen from the Nave. |
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| The upper archway, with the top of the flattened archway just visible below. |
Either side of the archway, i.e. in the Nave or the tower, there are timber beams that would prove suitable to secure a rope.
Having considered the possibilities, we feel that the scene took place on the bell tower side, with the rope being secured where the beams cross, thus ensuring that the rope didn't slip and placing the suspended body in the correct position, at the centre of the ‘flattened’ arch, when comparing to Laura’s sketch.
“Under floor, something, tight chest”
In retrospect, this was the first time that Laura had received information that there was something under the floor.
This information has been repeated during subsequent visits to the extent that the information has been expanded to include a small room or crypt, of which we now know did exist, although there is no longer access and, the possibility that it no longer exists.
As for the tight chest element, again, Laura has felt this during our visits but, for the moment, she is not aware what this relates to.
Epilogue
Our research relating to this location is ongoing, as ever, but, the re-discovery of Laura’s vision has provided fresh impetus for us after a period of inactivity, leaving us with the questions –
What was the event with the body on the table?
Who had been hanged and what were the events that had led up to this?
Was there another plaque and, is it still there to be discovered?
No doubt another visit could reveal more and open the lid of the box of secrets even wider.
The question remains, when?
