First out of the lychgate

There are few things more romantic than a gabled lychgate leading to a charming church, says Jack Watkins, despite their funereal and functional purpose

- Jack Watkins

Flychgates were still known as corpse gates, would they be so fondly looked upon? Very probably, yes. In our rose-tinted idea of what an English village should look like, a gabled lychgate goes perfectly with a sturdy church tower, a cottage garden and a well-scrubbed red telephone box.

At Shere, in Surrey's Tillingbourne valley, the lychgate sits sweetly at the end of the path leading to the church of St James's. It's obligingly off-centre, ideal for photographers with an eye for composition. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1902, this is the lychgate at its most picturesque. Yet the original purpose of these structures was solemnly funereal.