‘Aye, well, first mention of the church as we know it was in 1190 AD. Just you think how many centuries had gone by since the Romans left. What were here? What were life like? The experts didn’t know and nor do I. But I know that long before Lanercost Priory or Westminster Abbey, there was a church 300 yards from where we now stand and when you think of all the life and death it’s seen it’s a brave man who doesn’t feel the urge to say a prayer.’

‘I’m not one for praying,’ I said, and I felt Cordelia nip me, like we were sisters. She wanted me to hush.

‘It’s a really good example of its type – that’s what they told me over a beer. Fairfax was there, scribbling away. They reckoned that folk were simple then. Not simple like dull-witted, but simple like they understood things in more black and white than we do now. So they thought Hell was just below them and Heaven just above. And the church was built to reflect that. God was the light and the Devil was the darkness. That’s how the church looked. Those about to be baptized came in through the small doorway on the north side and after the ceremony they left into the bright lights of the south. It was very literal. As a craftsman I like that. But they were the same with representations of darkness. I got a chill when they told me of the bones.’

She made an extra effort with her breathing. Wouldn’t let herself alter the casual way she was talking with her new pal.

‘Bones?’

‘Years back the church was being repaired and the flagstones were taken up. There were more human bones found under the floor of the church than they were able to count. The archaeologists have made plenty guesses who they were but nobody knows. They were centuries old though and they died hard. The Saxons buried their honoured dead in stone coffins and there are plenty of those in the churchyard. More bones under the font too. Robert the Bruce ploughed his way through this land after the Battle of Bannockburn and there were locals who saw it as their duty to defend it. They were buried where they fell. Honestly, we think we know about where we live but we’re just passing through really. The land knows more than we do.’

‘Fairfax interviewed you?’ I asked.

‘Time and again,’ laughed Harper. ‘Loved a yarn. Broke my heart to hear of the accident. He’ll be buried there, will he, Mrs Goose? In the yard?’