Brington Tower

For years I’ve always been fascinated by the tower in the above picture. It’s not far from where I live. It resides at the entrance to the village of Little Brington. The rest of the church is long gone. The entrance to the tower from within the absent church has been bricked up with similar stonework so it stands as a complete tower.

All the gravestones have been removed. The trees you can see are growing on what are now unmarked graves. Two sides of the graveyard are fronted by a stone wall. As I took the photo I was standing right in front of the stone wall. The wooden fencing you can see prevents the sheep from escaping the local farmer’s field.

The front entrance where the parishioners would have entered the churchyard is just off to the right of the picture. It’s a typical English wooden porch churchyard entrance which has been boarded up.

The churchyard is tended. As you can see the stonework is clean. There are no bird nests poking out of the window slats on the bell tower, or tucked away on the roof. At the time the picture was taken there’s some sparse dead wild grass about a foot high. At some point this will get cut back, it always is.

I was cycling past the tower today and I decided to stop and take a photograph. I’m glad I did. I’ve often thought I’d use the tower in a short story. There’s at least two I have in development which it would fit into quite nicely. However, I can’t escape the feeling that the tower deserves a short story all of its own. A story where the history / mystery of the tower is central. It’s not something I can start writing straight away. I may have to do another pass on ‘The Thirteenth Camera’ and I’m close to finishing a first draft of another story with a working title of ‘Night Owls’. I need to get those works finished first. After that the above picture ‘may’ be the next project.

Take care,

Mike