NECROLOG

BOB DAVEY

orfolk pensioner and amateur church restorer Bob Davey died on 4 March 2021, aged 91. He spent most of his life working as an agricultural engineer, and later a Southern Water superintendent, before moving to North Pickenham at the age of 58 to start an antiques business based in Swaffham. Five years later, in the abandoned village of Houghton-on-the-Hill, his wife Gloria discovered a derelict mediæval church, St Mary’s, which dates back to around AD 1000. It had suffered damage in World War I when a returning Zeppelin dumped its bombs on the churchyard, and was abandoned in 1933, though never deconsecrated. During WWII, American GIs ripped out a Gothic window as a souvenir, thus causing the roof to fall in, with what remained of the building being