The forgotten valley

In the heart of England, find a lost world straight out of storybooks, where castles, medieval manor houses and ancient inns await. Tim Relf takes a wander in the Welland Valley

- Tim Relf

There's a hill behind my house from the top of which you can see five churches: Nevill Holt, Drayton, Bringhurst, Great Easton and Cottingham. It's a beautiful view and the landscape is typical of the Welland Valley, a patchwork of lush pastures, hedges and coppices.

Below is Drayton where I live, a village with one claim to fame - as the location of Leicestershire's smallest consecrated church. Built from the beautiful, honey-coloured ironstone that characterises the area, it sits on the tiny village green, with its one room capable of accommodating 25 worshippers. It's "small but perfectly formed", according to Reverend Stephen Bishop of the parish of Six Saints circa Holt. It has a portable font, a tiny altar and a single small bell. It was built on the site of a former chapel, which fell into disuse and became the village bakery.

In 1878-79, its new owner, George Lewis Watson of Rockingham Castle, rebuilt it as a mission church with a central door on the south side (you can spot the remnants of the bakery door on the north wall). "The imaginatively minded might describe it as 'Leicestershire's Bethlehem' since the latter name means 'house of bread' and this is a space where bread was made and where bread is blessed and broken in worship," says Reverend Bishop.