Parracombe is an easily missed village in North Devon, on the edge of Exmoor. The A39 bypasses it, the steep road in and out of the village being more than a little offputting to the more timorous driver. But they would be missing out on a rather attractive village with an atmospheric pub in which to eat and drink fine food and drink. And they would miss the Church of St Petrock, high on the hill away from the village, now redundant and preserved. It was saved from destruction in the Victorian era by a group that included John Ruskin and we should thank them for bequeathing us a time machine.
It is 'as was'. Box pews, tiered pews for the village band (including a hole in the floor to take the tip of the bass viol), no heating, minimal decoration. I have been there several times and find it one of the most atmospheric churches I have ever been in.

I should say here that I am not a Christian, not anything really but do possess a spiritual outlook, largely of a Pagan nature. I firmly believe there are no right or wrong spiritual paths (I am not talking dogma here, that has about as much to do with real spirituality as a cow pat drying in a field), just horses for courses. Thus I can appreciate places like this church.

There is a lot of overtly Pagan music. Some of it pretentious nonsense. Some of it unutterably twee and precious. Some of it talentless noise. Some of it quite wonderful.
However the most Pagan album I possess was not conceived with anything Pagan in mind as far as I am aware. Back in the 1970s, shortly after the creation of folk rock, there was a short lived group called Mr Fox, created by Bob Pegg and his then wife. The group survived (I think) for two albums only. The one that is remembered most is their second one, The Gypsy, which is a fine album, well worth anyone's trouble to buy and cherish. However, it is their first, self-titled album that I am referring to here. the idea was to produce a suite of songs in the Yorkshire idiom, to make a record that spoke of Yorkshire more than anywhere else. Being a born and bred Southerner, I am not really qualified to say if they succeeded but I can say they produced a set of songs unlike any others that I know. And those songs have a feel that speaks of the land, of Pagan spirituality.

One particular song on that album, The Hanged Man, immediately came into my head the first time I ever went to St Petrock's. Written about a legend from the other end of the country, the chorus seemed to fit the sparse interior perfectly...

'Walk in a valley that never saw the sun
step by the stones where the icy waters run
stand in a church where the village choir once sang
and all along the path way where the dead man used to hang'