Norfolk Gains a New Medieval Church

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Those Heritage Cats are busy little critters. Goolie, in particular, is full of zip. Therefore, when Aunty Vernon and Uncle Alice told him about an abandoned Anglo-Saxon stone church in Essex that was in danger of falling into complete disrepair, Goolie was onto it like a flash!
"We will move it! We can bring it to new ground and preserve it. Yes, let's make it happen."

And they did...

After much negotiation they found a benefactor (Munro Tweeder-Harris, Esq) to finance the project. As well as paying for the church itself and its transportation, he also provided ground from his private estate in Norwich as the new location for this precious historic building. 

Oh there was lots to do! The clearing and relocation of the plants; the levelling and landscaping of the ground. They even had to hire special 'Bomag' rollers to compress the ground. Here, you can see the Heritage Cats setting wooden stakes into the ground in order to establish true meridian for the church's alignment.   

However, being antiquarian cats, a debate ensued about the merits of a 'true' East-West alignment, as opposed to one slightly offset...

"Given that there is at least a 90 degree variance in alignments of medieval church's across Norfolk alone, I feel that we would be upholding a tradition by deliberately offsetting it," asserted Goolie

"And it would look good at a jaunty angle" added Aunty Vernon - a comment that received disapproving looks from Goolie. 

"Well I want it on a true alignment' said Uncle Alice. "This is the twenty first century and I can't abide pastiche..."

"I love 'em!" interjected Aunty Vernon, licking his lips with his tiny pink sandpaper tongue.

Eventually, after many words and much violence, Goolie's preferred option prevailed and the decision was taken to offset the church. 

At the end of an unbelievably gruelling bout of work and endeavour the church was re-assembled and the cats stood proudly outside this fine old Anglo-Saxon minster church*. 

As you can probably tell from the photograph below, standing outside their new/old church the looked like the cats that had got the cream.

* You may have noted that, for instance, the lancet windows in the tower suggest a 13th century date. However, as Goolie and other noted experts in the field will tell you, folk from them olden days were much smaller back then and their churches reflect this.