Bramham

My family have lived in Bramham for generations. My brother was born in Milnthorpe Cottage. Our mum and dad were married at All Saints' Church, and now our father and grandfather are buried in its churchyard. When I was about three, Mum and Dad separated, and we moved away. It was more by accident than design that I returned to Bramham in my mid-thirties, with my wife and our children, to buy a family home.

These days I often find myself wandering around the village—along the footpaths that skirt the farmland, weave through the woods, and trace the edges of Bramham Park. The church itself was built around 1150, in the era when Henry II married Eleanor of Aquitaine and extended the Norman British empire into France and Ireland. Just below the church, Bramham Beck runs alongside. Though it appears to be little more than a stream, it carries vast volumes of water—flowing into the River Wharfe, which then joins the River Ouse and ultimately empties into the North Sea. Presumably, this beck has been flowing continuously since at least the time the church was first built. Those early villagers, peering into its waters, would have had no idea of the existence of the Americas. Their awareness of far-off lands like China or India would have hovered somewhere between hearsay and myth.

Since then, we might imagine around thirty generations of families living out their lives in this little village—thirty cycles of youth, love, coupling, endeavour; thirty cycles of old age, inheritance, wisdom, decline, and death. In one respect, the meanings of life were very simple. I’m fascinated by that recognisability—not just by how life has changed, but by how deeply the patterns have remained.

Walking the old county roads, I admire the land. Some scenes bear no trace of the 21st century. Wind rustles in the leaves—it feels like time travel. I was here before I died. Following Bowcliffe Road, I discover Bowcliffe Wood and a public footpath running south alongside the Great North Road. The woodland floor is blanketed in white flowers I don’t recognise, so I take a photograph.

(Later, consulting a British nature book, I believe they are Ramsons—which would also explain the strong smell of garlic.)

The church is one patch within the many small patches that make up this village. We have a yew tree in our garden, just as there is one in the graveyard. In a way, our village orbits the church—and the church itself might be seen as orbiting the wider Church of England. I reflect on the historic tensions between the church, the Crown, and Parliament. But perhaps what matters more than any particular doctrine preached from the pulpit, or any particular bloodline on the throne, is the sheer materiality of these institutions—that they have stood at the centre of our village and our nation, offering both structure and a sense of transcendent purpose.

Here are some photographs I took at the Lych Gate, where Mum and Dad stood forty years ago on their wedding day:

The inscription on the gate reads:

Hanc porta memoriam eorum quos vivos amavit et in spe bona futuri posvit J L Wharton AD1902

This translates as:

"This gate in memory of those who loved living and in the hope of good things to come" – J. L. Wharton, AD 1902.