The 15th-century chapel at Ayshford stands alone in a small, undulating field next to the Grand Western Canal. It is an unassuming building, facing slightly away from you as though preoccupied with other things, nudged aside by centuries of industrious human activity.
In the early 19th century, engineers and labourers built the canal to ferry goods from Taunton to Tiverton. The canal never had a chance to live up to the grandeur of its title, cut short by the coming of the railways. The little village and the tiny stone chapel are now doubly bypassed, as the M5 thunders past, leaving this quiet stretch empty of traffic, bar the odd pottering moorhen or the Formula One flash of a kingfisher.
The spring rain is fine and pervasive, so gentle it barely disturbs the pewter-grey surface of the water. We heave open the wooden door and step into the dry silence. The pews are stippled with dusty white splotches: tell-tale signs of bats in the belfry. Julia, whose family now owns the adjacent house and surrounding farm, sits down at the ancient organ and pedals it into life. It wheezes plaintively like a ghostly chorister.
In one corner of the chancel is a huge stone tomb dedicated to the brief life of Henry Ayshford, who died in 1666 “aged one yeare and nine mo”. At the other end is another reminder of our mortality: an 18th-century stone carving of a reclining figure, now headless, cradling a skull. I take my phone out to click a picture, but the settings are wrong and I catch my own startled face in a selfie vanitas.
The chapel still belongs to the Ayshford family, but is looked after by the wonderfully named Friends of Friendless Churches, a charity whose founders include TS Eliot and John Betjeman. Julia and her family are busy raising funds to repair the bell in time for the Queen’s platinum jubilee.
Outside, the early flowers, known as spring ephemerals, have colonised the banks. Primroses, daffodils and violets make the most of their fleeting time before the trees come into leaf and gobble up the light.
We walk back along the towpath through the soft rain, buoyed with renewed wonder at our ephemerality. Behind us, the cracked bell waits to be rung.
• Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary
