The village as a small village store cum post office with friendly helpful staff, a post office we use often for our posting of bead orders and there is a nice village pub, The Chequers Inn that serves hot and cold meals.
The parish church of St Mark is a Grade ll listed building, built by the Victorians in 1864, but sadly the condition of the tower is in a very bad state with cracked, broken and weather-beaten bricks plus the addition of bird sown flora that grows strongly from within the mortar. The tower leans because of the lack of solid foundations and the main building is nothing really but a large hall with a high pitched tiled roof. I must say of all the fen villages I have had the pleasure to visit so far on my cycling journey this house of God is, without a doubt, the poorest I've come across.
One very good feature of the village is the unique war memorial erected in the form of a fine clock tower that stands in the center of the parish. A great structure of which to remember those brave "Tommies" the village lost in the great war.
As I pass through Friday Bridge I'm soon entering the village of Elm, a nice quiet village surrounded by fruit orchards and running on towards Wisbech. The parish church of All Saints is dated from the 13th century and has a nice example of a pin spire. The main building is made from local stone including some really interesting stone-carved features. The churchyard is tidy and spacious with one path leading to the church including old gravestones from Elm residents of centuries past.
Opposite the church stands the war memorial, a very fine clean example bearing the names of those brave Elm boys who laid down their lives for king and country.
There are a number of older buildings in the village including cottages from the 17th century and many Victorian farm workers cottages. One cottage still has a reminder of its past engraved upon a stone nameplate.
Such a shame about the church tower - I suppose it's difficult to raise money for repairs in a small village
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