Holy Trinity Church, Coverham

This church dates from the 13th century. According to Edmund Bogg in “From Eden Vale to the plains of York or A Thousand Miles in the Valleys of the Nidd and Yore” (1894) “In Coverham churchyard a person may stand whilst the bells are ringing and neither see the Church nor hear the bells ; this is caused by an abrupt declivity in one corner of the graveyard, and the sound of bells are destroyed by the noise of the falling waters of a brook which turn a mill wheel close by” He also mentions as appoint of interest that somewhere within the churchyard is a man who actually dug his own grave.

The bells were not ringing when I visited so I could not test the accustics of the graveyard, which happens to be the last resting place of many of my distant Topham relatives.