Flamstead residents, the parish church and its churchyard feature prominently in a recent article in The Guardian.
“It clawed the back of my head” describes Michael Hart, a local resident out for a morning jog, talking about the Harris’s hawk that has gone on a rampage through Flamstead village, targeting tall men in particular. “I looked up and it flew back at me again. It landed on a roof around the corner and sat there staring at me,” said Hart. There are reports of around 20 tall men being victims of the hawk’s rampage, with some resorting to wearing hats or bicycle helmets for protection or even covering their heads with a newspaper.
Hawks carry a historical significance in Flamstead, shown in a prophetic painting inside St Leonard’s Church from the 15th century, titled Three Living and the Three Dead.
St Leonard’s, ‘the church on the hill in Flamstead’, was built in the 12th century, is a church where everyone is welcome, sharing God’s love with their local community. The church has many interesting features including churchyard sculptures featuring the hawk and other wildlife, which were commissioned by the church as part of the National Lottery Heritage Fund funded a project to repair the main nave roof.
