In this six-part serial, a country vicar investigates a violent crime connected to a legendary church treasure.
The Reverend Septimus Treloar (Michael Craig), a former policeman, finds his tranquil Norfolk parish violently disrupted when his organist, Mary Crowle (Fanny Rowe), is attacked. The crime appears to be linked to the fabled Danedyke chalice, a priceless Saxon relic long rumoured to be hidden within the church. Aided by two young parishioners, Angela Horton (Tessa Peake-Jones) and Tom Richards (Derek Thompson), Treloar is drawn into a dangerous hunt for the treasure. His investigation puts him in the path of a ruthless Major (Kenneth Colley) and his menacing subordinate, a heavy known only as Armchair (John Rhys-Davies).
Produced for a Sunday tea-time audience, this is a resolutely low-key adventure. The serial builds suspense not through action, but through its quiet, eerie atmosphere and the patient unravelling of historical clues. It is a story more concerned with parish politics and local history than with conventional thrills. Willis Hall’s script made one crucial alteration to Stephen Chance’s source novel: the two young assistants, originally a married couple, were recast as unattached individuals. This was a shrewd concession to the family viewing slot, providing younger members of the audience with identifiable surrogates in a plot driven by otherwise adult concerns of greed and faith.
Broadcast: Granada, 6 Episodes, Sundays, 3 June – 15 July 1979
Based on the novel by: Stephen Chance
Dramatised by: Willis Hall
Director: Jonathan Wright Miller
Producer: Pauline Shaw
Executive Producer: Michael Cox
Main Cast: Michael Craig (Reverend Septimus Treloar), Derek Thompson (Tom Richards), Tessa Peake-Jones (Angela Horton), Kenneth Colley (The Major), John Rhys-Davies (Armchair), Peter Vaughan (Det Insp Burroughs), Fanny Rowe (Mary Crowle)
