‘Well, I don’t want to spread rumours. But there was a big falling-out about it. There was a fight at the Anvil. In fact there always used to be fights at the Anvil. It’s all a lot quieter now.’ She pushed open the door, which creaked ominously, and Gillard ducked under the low lintel to enter the gloom of the nave. ‘Some in the village said the stolen lead was bound to have ended up at the Tickett yard. Being travellers, they get blamed for everything. The fly tipping, the burglaries, stuff like that.’

‘They look like they have been a settled family for decades.’

‘Yes. They’ve been here since before the war, but that’s not as long as some of the other local families, like us Willows. We go all the way back to the time of King John.’

Gillard realised he might be talking to the granddaughter of murder victim Henry Willow, and presumably the niece of Vicky. He kept his conjecture to himself.

Rowena flicked a switch which illuminated the tiny church. ‘There’s a history of St Crispin’s which goes back to the early seventh century, when St Augustine came through on his way to Winchester.’ She pointed to an interpretation panel on the wall which gave the history of the place.

St Augustine of Canterbury is believed to have founded St Crispin’s church in 602 AD, making it the third oldest parish church in England. Much of the original construction was of local flint and spolia, repurposed Roman bricks thought to have been scavenged from the original crossing of the River Wey, and associated military buildings. St Augustine was on his way to Winchester to meet the Frankish princes who at that time controlled this part of Britain. It is said that he baptised 700 people in the river. The Venerable Bede wrote that the church here was an outpost amongst a ‘particularly difficult group of pagans’ who inhabited the dense willow forest along the edge of the river. Although Bede implies that in Roman times there was already a temple on the site, modern scholarship has called this into question, suggesting that it may simply be a seventh century structure built of Roman materials. St Augustine was said to have chosen the dedication because of the local weaving and tannery, of which Crispin was the patron saint. There is a notable engraved historical stone in the foundations, of Cornish or possibly Scandinavian granite. This can be found on the obverse side of the apse, facing south near the Galilee porch.

Shortly before 1842, a hoard of gold coins which may date from the late seventh century was found in the churchyard, one of which is the Godwin medalet, which bears an image of a diademed figure with a legend referring to Godwin, Earl of Wessex (d. 1053).