If you are keen to visit old buildings, some of the best examples of medieval ecclesiastical remains are to be found in East Anglia. On a recent visit I had occasion to spend some time church crawling and stumbled across Binham Priory, the remains of a Benedictine monastic settlement 4 or 5 miles from Walsingham. Why this place sticks firmly in my mind is the stark contrast between what now exists and what had been. Apart from the monastic ruins, the only utilised building (apart from a farm) is the nave of the church. The poignancy of juxtaposition makes the place special, a holy place in the sense that it has a continuity with the past and also a sense of dramatic personal history; it seems to have been a building that moved with the times as the different styles of architecture and furnishing show, but its truncated nave and aisles, gives the impression of a magnificent church built for monks and people in a remote place. Its setting is typically East Anglia, the rear approach is through a gatehouse, ruined, and then a paved way, into the door to face a magnificent medieval seven sacrament font, benches with carved figures on the poppy heads, the old holy water stoop, and a fine tapestry behind the Jacobean table altar.

I use Binham as an example of what one could call the ‘sacrament of building’, a place which engaged and still engages people with a transformative presence. This might be fanciful language but it hints at the importance of place and ritual in the context of human life.