The way I came in - a step out of time. There's those gallery windows again.

There was a little bookstall, with newspapers and magazines, and a stairway led off to a gallery. Ahead of me, a simple doorway led into the chapel itself, and I went through it.

I felt as if I had stepped out of time. I was in a superb early 19th century meeting house. The wooden gallery swept around on three sides, supported by cast iron pillars; there were contemporary benches beneath, all focused on the reading podium at the far end.

Everything was well-kept, finely polished, and that was what made it strange, I thought to myself. Where is the dust and decay, the neglect I associate with church interiors of this time? This place felt as if it had been cared for constantly over the decades.

I sat for a while in silence, and then wandered about. There was a highly polished parquet floor, and memorials to former ministers around the walls.

Immediately in front of the podium was a modern light wood table and chairs - for communion, I assume. I wondered if there was a total immersion font in the space below.

Outside the clear windows, the rain had stopped, and the sun sent shadows of branches scurrying across the woodwork.

Well, as you can imagine, I was hooked. This particular edition of the newspaper was for October, and the whole of it was taken up by responses to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Basically, it argued that, as well as targeting Osama Bin Laden, the western industrial military complex should also go after Sinn Fein. Whether it was actually advocating the carpet bombing of republican west Belfast, I wasn't clear.

I read on, fascinated. Such terrible events as those witnessed on Tuesday past are not a matter of injustice to the victims but of mercy granted to the living, it said. There is not one of us who dies in what are termed "tragedies" but deserves to! There is not one who escapes while others perish who deserves to! All of us are worthy of death and we can escape only by repenting and turning to Christ for mercy and forgiveness.

Wow. I turned to the back page. One of the most horrific incidents... was watching as poor people, demented by the heat and flames behind them, hurled themselves into space in order to escape those flames. Of course, there was no escape for them in such action. But tonight, there is escape from everlasting hell for you if you but take one step, the step of faith, and come to Christ.

Preaching desk and communion table.

In loving remembrance of Mr John Cooper, for nearly fifty years the valued Pastor of this church. He was beloved and revered for his great worth as a faithful and zealous minister of Jesus Christ, of no ordinary abilities, as well as for his high moral consistency kindness and courtesy.

His mortal remains are interred in the adjoining burial ground.

Born at Drinkstone Nov 21st 1805,

Baptised at Rattlesden April 9th 1826,

Commenced his ministry at Wattisham April 25th 1830,

Retired from the pastorate Sept 28th 1879,

Died in the faith Feb 15th 1881.

Rev XIV 15.

Originally, 18th century non-conformists from the local villages had walked the fifteen-odd miles to Woolverstone every Sunday. I imagined them; farm labourers mainly, with their decent wives and poor children, they must have thought it revolutionary to find a way to God without the need to go through Parson and Squire first.

"They went to Woolverstone because the preaching there was first class", Mrs Hawkins told me, as if it was something that had happened last week. "But in the end they found a man in their midst who could preach to them, and they gathered around him here."

The preacher was everything. His name was John Hitchcock.

In 1889, an article in the East Anglian Daily Times recalled the setting up of Suffolk's first Baptist congregations, and noted that, within two years of joining the Baptist church at Bildeston, John Hitchcock,with a minority of the other members, resigned from it over the question of free communion.

This small group joined Woolverstone Baptist church in the same year (1759), a step which demanded of them a journey of fifteen miles there and back every Sunday. They sustained this for nearly four years; on March 9th 1763, the group, now numbering 28, was dismissed from Woolverstone with the mission to set up a Church in its own neighbourhood.

Had her husband been here long? I wondered. He had been Pastor for 37 years, she told me. He was chosen by the people, and if they didn't like what he preached they could throw him out. "But they never have", she smiled.

She talked about the Baptist tradition in Suffolk, mentioning 17th and 18th century names that meant nothing to me. "We're the same now as we were then", she said. "We're still true separatists." Separatists. I caught on the word, and mentioned the Brethren community on the east side of Ipswich, where I live. "Yes, that's right", she enthused. "They practice Believers' Baptism and preach the Bible. They're like us."

She paused. And then she said something quite extraordinary. "We're truly ecumenical", she said. "We'll stand firmly alongside anyone who believes the same as us."

We said our farewells, and she invited me to visit them one Sunday morning. This is the kind of invitation that I often receive, but she made it sound as if it would be in my interests rather than theirs.

Past the cast iron pillar to the preaching desk.