File:St. John's - east end - geograph.org.uk - 766247.jpg

English: St. John's - east end Viewed from the footpath which skirts the eastern edge of the churchyard. The building stands upon an old pagan holy site, the knoll of Burstonhaugh between the marshes of the valley and the wet oak-woods that, fifteen hundred years ago, clothed the higher table-land. When the first missionaries came to Badingham they rededicated the old pagan site. The great festival at Burstonhaugh had been mid-summer night, with its blazing bale-fires: so the new church was dedicated to St. John the Baptist, whose feast is on midsummer day. The church is so built that at sunrise on the patronal festival the sun shines straight in at the east window This means that the long axis of the church lies nearly NE and SW, instead of the more usual east and west: it will be seen that the sundial over the porch is set at an angle to the wall.