A bright February morning in St John’s Chapel, Weardale, and most of the snow on Chapel Fell has melted away. At first glance, it seems that it still lies in a thick carpet among the gravestones down here in the churchyard, but these are snowdrops: hundreds of dainty white flowers, dancing like ballerinas on their slender stalks. Even the faintest zephyr of wind sends a shiver through their ranks.
Longed-for spring has arrived and the reawakening snowdrops gladden the heart and lift the spirits. It’s a scene repeated in churchyards, ruined monasteries and abbeys the length and breadth of Britain, so familiar that it might seem that these
