[The Lychgate of All Saints Church in Minstead, New Forest. This gate is where the funeral party rests the coffin and meets the Vicar in preparation for the burial. Photo is mine.]

‘Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world.

~~ William Shakespeare Hamlet

We were staying for five days in Minstead, in the heart of the New Forest on the south coast of England, a region called The Solent. Our accommodations are in The Trusty Servant Inn, a very interesting name if I ever heard one. Small room, minuscule sink in the minuscule bathroom. Hot water through the tiny faucet was intermittent. But the place had its charms. The grilled Hake was excellent.

Mariam was busy in the room sorting out our items we would need for the next days hike. I needed to stretch my sore and crampy legs from the drive down from Bath, so I took a short walk up a lane, following a small Footpath To Church sign. I passed through the lychgate (the lead illustration above) and walked around the church and into the graves. I was clutching a pamphlet I found just inside the door. It mentioned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Hmm. Could it be?

I followed a faint gravel path to the edge of a row of graves. There it stood, a cross with an inscription. I had found the grave of the man-of-letters who created Sherlock Holmes. I was delighted.

[Arthur Conan Doyle’s grave. All Saints Church, Minstead, England. Photo is mine.]

That was interesting indeed, but what about this business of the churchyard at night? Reader, bear with me. I need to tell a brief backstory that will lead to what brought me to go there, later that night.

We had picked out a walk that left from the small village of Brockenhurst, about ten miles distant. It was a four mile loop and I thought I could do it despite my having tendonitis of my ankle. Mariam wrapped my ankle in an ace bandage that looked like something that Boris Karloff had around his face in The Mummy. I self-medicated with two Ibuprofen.

And into the North Solent we went. The path was flat and views were beautiful in a bucolic way.

[The hard packed gravel surface was not kind to my ankle. Photo is mine.]

[The weather was fantastic. Photo is mine.]

We made it nearly all the way to Baily’s Hard but instead we took a short side path that lead to a birding blind. The breeze washed through the open windows as we watched a few ducks and a couple of herons.

[Wading birds on the nearby river. Photo is mine.]

The main reason we didn’t take more time on hike was that I had something I needed to prepare for back at The Trusty Servant.

All day, I kept looking up. I needed a cloudless sky. I was away from a city. It would be dark tonight.

Back at the Trusty Servant, I fished through my various stuff sacks and finally found my GoPro and a tripod for my iPhone. I had a clear idea what I wanted to do, but, unfortunately, I did not have a clear idea of how I was going to get what I needed.

First we had to go downstairs to have dinner. We had played with the idea about eating at the Fox & Hounds Pub in Lyndhurst (where, a few centuries ago, the innkeeper, while trying to adjust the logs on the fire, tripped and fell into the fireplace. His hair caught fire and he was dragged out by his loyal patrons. Alas, it was too late. He died a few minutes later. His ghost, apparently, appears in the various dining rooms and in the cellar. ) but we were too tired to drive back there. It was going to be the Grilled Hake for me.

By the time dinner was over, I put the GoPro and tripod into my backpack and tested my small flashlight. Everything was okay. So I walked up the lane and through the Lychgate and into the churchyard. I did this without a light as I wanted to allow my night vision to adjust. The headstones leaned in all directions. It was a cloudless sky, chilly and no moon. The stones looked pale, almost glowing at times. I had already picked out my spot. A small clearing behind the church. I put everything down. I stood still and listened. It was quiet enough for me to hear the blood rushing through my ears. An acorn dropped nearby, Then another. Oak trees. I looked in the direction of Conan Doyle’s grave. I couldn’t see it but I could make out the outline of the Oak tree that stood over his headstone. Local legend has it that the tree had been struck three times by lightening since he was buried there in 1930.

More acorns fell onto the hard surface of the table graves. The chill began to make me shiver slightly. I was not afraid of anything. I just shivered. Hundreds of the dead and departed surrounded me. People had been buried here for centuries. But I was not worried. I just shivered.

Why was I here? Many of my readers know of my fascination with ghosts and ghost stories. Once, years ago, Mariam and I took part in an all-night ghost watch in a supposedly haunted pub in the Adirondacks. No one saw or heard anything. Interesting as all that is, I wasn’t here to photograph any wisps of light, blue orbs or eyes in the darkness. I was here to photograph star trails. And I thought I knew how to do it.

I felt around in the darkness and set up the GoPro on it’s small tripod. I selected the Time Lapse mode and pushed the record button. A few feet away I attached my cell phone to a tripod (way too small for such an activity). I found the Time Lapse mode and pushed record. I stepped back, away from the cameras, and stood and looked at the stars. The Big Dipper was dominating the northern sky. There was the Milky Way. Off to the east was Jupiter. And all around me were tens of thousands of stars, glistening and winking.

I love looking at star trails. My brother Chris and I would set up our cameras and take time-lapse photos during camping trips in the Adirondacks. We did this when the sky was much darker than it is now. I stood, shivering in the graveyard because I had finally found myself in a place where light pollution was minimal. The glow of lights from Southampton made a portion of the sky too bright. But to the north, my field of view was getting populated with countless points of light.

I failed in my attempt. I lacked an app for my iPhone which would allow me to get great images. Tonight, I got little to see. The camera needs to be recording for at least an hour to make the effort worth it. I gave it only about thirty minutes. It was getting near midnight. I was getting colder. A lesson was learned. Do the homework and play with the camera. (I hadn’t used my GoPro in over eight months. And fiddling with it with cold fingers in the dark compounds my other shortfalls.

After packing everything away, I took a photo with my iPhone.

[Unedited photo of the north sky. The time-lapse segment only shows a very small movement of the stars. So I decided not to include it. Photo is mine.]

On the way to the lychgate, I turned and took the following photo. The light in the church is from a small source in the rear of the building. I’m assuming its a small light bulb. I admit that the scene was more than a little eerie.

[There is no re-touching of this photo of All Saints Church. It’s about twenty minutes until midnight. Photo is mine.]

I’ve done some pretty odd things in my life. Standing alone at night in a fairly remote country churchyard, very old and filled with moss and lichen covered headstones, was pretty extraordinary. For me anyway. I love old churchyards, old monuments, the names and dates, wives and husbands, siblings, ancestors…all were walking around once upon a time, living, laughing and dancing…just like you and me.

Then in the far corners, hidden amidst the weeds, or leaning against the outside walls of the church are the stones that bear no names or dates. The details of that persons life, all eroded away by the English rain and the acid of the lichen. They are nameless in death. I hope they had a fulfilling life.

As I passed through the lychgate, I turned and told whomever may have been silently watching me from where ever they were, that I will be back someday, or rather some night to complete my task.

Rest well, I said. I hope I didn’t disturb you too much on this dark and starry night.