Hockering

The Good Friday Walk of Witness will start at the Evangelical Church in Mattishall.

The project for installing new heaters at ASM is about to start. Last summer the old infra-red heaters (from back in the 1970s?) were condemned and taken down. Since then we have relied solely on the oil-fired boiler to keep us warm and we had severe problems with that for many weeks. The new heaters work in a different manner to "normal" infra-red heaters in that significantly more of the power gets radiated. They are also better at heating objects around us. Unlike when we use the boiler when we either have the whole church heated or not at all, the electric heaters will be split into 5 zones (chancel, nave, side chapel, north aisle and south aisle) which can be turned on and off individually. Though running all heaters for an hour is significantly more expensive than running the boiler for an hour, we should need to turn the heaters on for a shorter time before events start and will only use the zones we need at any one time. This winter we have been turning on the boiler some 3 hours before events. Exactly how long we will need to turn on the heaters before events we don't know yet, but it should be significantly less than with the boiler. There will be a lot of trial and error getting the right balance, so please bear with us.

Work is due to start on 18th March for 3 days and then the following Monday 24th March through to Easter. We will meet in ASM for worship as normal on Sunday 23rd, but thereafter will be meeting in the Methodist Church for the next 3 Sundays. Easter Sunday itself we will all be at North Tuddenham anyway for the Benefice Holy Communion service. Thus, we won't be back in ASM until Sunday 27th April. We don't know yet whether we will have one or two services each Sunday at the Methodist Church.

During the time work is being carried out in ASM there will be no access except for people authorised by the churchwardens or PCC and the main door key held at Victoria Stores will be withdrawn.

The cost of the project is £27k, of which £17k has been given by the ASM congregations and the remaining £10k is a grant from the diocesan nett-zero carbon initiative.

How To Find Us

If coming to the church from the Norwich direction, head west along the A47. As you approach Hockering, there is an angled turn off to Hockering itself. Ignore this and turn right into The Street only when you have passed Mill Lane on your left. Once on The Street, turn left and follow the road round to your right. You will see St. Michael's on your right. There is usually space to park on the side of this quiet road in front of the church itself.
If coming to the church from the Dereham direction, bear left onto an unnamed road which heads directly to the church. At this left turn you will see a white P on blue background (parking) sign) As you actually turn into the unnamed road heading to the church you can see St. Michael's in the distance.

Click on the link to find a map of the area on Google maps. (Please note that we have no control over the content of external websites).