And so to Hopton. As you may imagine, our hopes were not high. Most East Anglian parish churches are open all day, every day, but in the characterless hinterland of Great Yarmouth, with its suburbs pinned against the sea by the traffic-choked A12, they all seem to be kept locked. And Hopton, I have to say, seemed to me a dismal place on this gloomy, drizzly day. I felt my heart sink as we walked up the path to the church, the great padlock already visible on the south doors. St Margaret was built in the 1860s by that great eccentric Samuel Sanders Teulon, one of the most prolific architects of the 19th century. He seems to have ploughed a fairly lonely and idiosyncratic furrow, but at this distance the quasi-Norman touches he put to his buildings have a certain jollity. This is his major work in Norfolk, although he was also responsible for the near-rebuilding of Rushford on the other side of the county. St Margaret has a powerful central tower, but transepts which seem to fall away to nothing, as if they had once existed but had been demolished. And perhaps that was Teulon's intention.

This new church was built to replace the medieval St Margaret, which burned down in 1865. The old St Margaret was out in the fields, and as so often in Norfolk the opportunity was taken to build a new church nearer to the centre of population. At the time, this was a tiny village of just 250 people, but the rise of the English seaside resort coupled with the industrial expansion of Yarmouth mean that this parish now has thousands of residents. It may come as a surprise to learn that it was actually in Suffolk until the border was moved in 1974. Because of this, we need to turn to The Buildings of England: Suffolk to read Pevsner's observation that the glass in the chancel is by William Morris and Burne-Jones, about 1881... beautiful and peaceful after Teulon's architecture.

But would we actually be able to see it? A notice behind the barred grill raised my hopes of a key for a moment, but all it said was Sadly, we have had to lock this porch. The shelter and protection we had hoped it would offer has been abused. It was signed by the Vicar. Well, I don't know, but this notice seemed to tell me more about the Vicar of Hopton than it did about the people. And I wondered who the notice meant when it said we. The PCC? The congregation? The churchwardens? There was something a bit smug about it, as if the people of Hopton had had their chance, but they had blown it. Maybe it is just me being eternally optimistic, but I would like to think that people who have to live in a place like Hopton would be just as deserving of somewhere in which to experience a spiritual quietness and a sense of the numinous as people living somewhere pretty. Or, indeed, as people living in Ipswich, a much-maligned town, but one where all the town centre churches are open or accessible every day. And the crime rate in Hopton cannot really be that much higher than it is in central Ipswich - can it?

The best protection against vandalism for an urban church is an open door and a constant flow of people. This doesn't happen overnight. It requires a culture to be built up, a culture of welcome on the part of the church, and a sense of ownership on the part of the people. The great majority of villages and towns throughout England have parish churches which are open every day. It is not just a blessing to the parish, but also to the church community, who are able, in a very spiritual sense, to fulfill Christ's Works of Mercy. Or as St Paul said, and he puts it so much better than me, Let brotherly love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.