Places I've been: Repton Church

This is not my picture of the church in Repton, England , but we spent a wonderful two weeks here in the summer of 1987, digging it up. Well, much of the ground around it, that is.

The whole project had started as a few townspeople wondering just how old the church was. It turns out to be one of the oldest churches still standing in England. The core of it was built well before the winter of 873-874 CE when the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that the main force of the Vikings‘ great army wintered there.

Digging up all that dirt was exhausting but lovely. It’s nice to know that all of the trenches are filled back in, though.