A charming little church set on a wide chalk ridge in north-east Hertfordshire. I sat in the churchyard as the warden mowed the lawn, his little sit-on mower appearing and disappearing between the grave-stones.
Throcking is a tiny little spot, but it has been around as a village for a long time; it was recorded in the Domesday Book as Trochinge. You can see more photographs here: Hertfordshire Churches in Photographs
The Tinstaafl website has this to say:
The parish of Throcking lies in northeastern Hertfordshire, it is located about 2 miles northwest of the large village of Buntingford. Throcking is little more than a hamlet and has been such since it was largely deserted in the later Middle Ages. Throcking's property largely sits on a square of lanes about a half mile north of the A507 road which links Buntingford with Baldock. The area is one of the highest within the low county of Hertfordshire standing as it is underlain by chalk. The area supports arable agriculture in large and open fields, an area of "big skies". The parish is drained by a small stream running along the attractively named "Thistley Vale", this joins the River Rib before running southwards to meet the Thames and the North Sea via the Lea. Throcking is sited at around 140 metres above the sea, some 40 metres or so above the valley of the Rib. By the standards of Hertfordshire Throcking was a small parish, it covered just over 900 acres and supported a tiny population of just over 60 parishioners. In Domesday Times Throcking was still small yet shared between no less than 4 landholders each having just a small piece, the entries mention collectively just 3 ploughs and some small meadows.
and about the church:
Holy Trinity church stands at the northeastern corner of Throcking's square of lanes. The church has structure from two distinct eras, the oldest is the western tower which has its origins in the 13th century albeit added to in the 17th. The remainder of the church dates from the Perpendicular period of late 14th or early 15th centuries, the great church building era of England. The church is small and almost square there being no chancel as such. The church is surrounded almost entirely by a screening wall of mature trees, it is largely hidden from the lanes except from the south. It is at the southern side that entry is found, a pair of wooden gates piercing the screening trees. Once inside, however, all is much more open and there are no impediments to photography.
