It was my idea to spend two nights champing^TM, or church camping, when we visited the UK this year. Camp beds provided and we would just have to bring everything else – it sounded perfect. I was excited and the others went along with me.

My requirements were 1) a medieval church and 2) a flush loo. Kitchen facilities would be a nice bonus. We browsed through the list of available churches at champing.co.uk. None of the champing churches has a shower, and the response to my half-joking suggestion to the organisers that I could set up a camp shower in the churchyard was a clear “Definitely not.” (This is Britain, after all.) Steve’s only requirement was a pub across the road.

So we settled on the beautiful 12^th century St Laurence at Hillmarton in Wiltshire, close to the Avebury henge and stone circles. Twelfth century, flush loo, kitchenette, pub across the road. We paid up and were now officially “champers”.

The “bedrooms” were cosily set up and the church mice had thoughtfully left us some home baking.

We knew we had made the right choice when we saw that just up the road there is a hamlet called New Zealand – represented along with other local places in a cross-stitched church kneeler.

Above our bed the stained-glass window of St Laurence/Lawrence/Laurentius showed him with the gridiron on which legend has it he was martyred, i.e. burnt/roasted to death, resulting in him being the patron saint of chefs. Not a story to dwell on for too long.

One of the marvellous things about a church with medieval history is the little time capsules of language use over the centuries. By combining our school Latin, French and some online translation we think we worked out the gist of the memorial for Margaret and William in the beautifully engraved marble above slightly creepy skull decorations.

I tried out some very rusty Bach on the pipe organ, but soon discovered that reading music on a mobile phone is pretty well impossible. And I had little idea of what the stops meant, even if I could work out how to use them.

In one corner a 1611 copy of the St James Bible was a special treat.

The church is still in use (champers fit around the schedule). A modern-day language example is the Certificate of Bravery for Pyjama Ted at the Hillmarton Parachute Drop.

John the bellringer came over and kindly gave us a tour of the belfry. I am not great on heights so I decided to stay and read the workers’ graffiti.

To get inspiration for a champing experience, I can highly recommend The bones of St Nicholas, the 2022 Christmas Special of the BBC TV series Inside No. 9 (each episode is a standalone story which somewhere includes the number 9). Check out the trailer of this good spooky Christmas story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doefk2NrT5g\ I did not know that telling ghost stories is a tradition at Christmas, but it makes much more sense in the cold dark of a northern hemisphere midwinter.

We had no supernatural visitors and the resident bats decided not to make an appearance. Our camp stretchers were adequate and the main obstacle to a good night’s sleep was loud snoring (mentioning no names). I loved the experience. I have not told the others, but I have been looking up the list of champing churches for next time…

PS Much to Steve’s disappointment, the pub across the road was closed when we were there and we did not find the secret tunnel which was rumoured to link it to the church. Luckily a nearby supermarket meant that we could still access the required refreshments.