Hundon, Suffolk

Sadly All Saints was locked - which seems a shame as the Suffolk Historic Churches Trust have contributed to the upkeep of the fabric of the church and that money comes from you and me...actually in this case not from me since I couldn't access the church and make a contribution.

That said, the exterior is a treat in itself with wonderful grotesques, elaborate carving and setting to die for. The interior was destroyed by fire in 1914 so I probably would have been disappointed but still.

ALL SAINTS. Burnt in 1914 and rebuilt by Detmar Blow & Billerey (GR). W tower with higher SW stair-turret. S porch with flushwork panelling. S doorway with small shields in one arch moulding. Two niches l. and r. The S clerestory has pretty openwork battlements with quatrefoils. Wide nave, low octagonal piers. -  PANELLING in the S chapel, from another source. - PAINTING. Copy of Titian’s earliest dated painting. - PLATE. Cup and Paten 1749. - MONUMENTS. In the churchyard ambitious monument to Mrs Arethusa Vernon, 1728. Pyramid on a sarcophagus, carrying a wheatsheaf. -  (Also in the churchyard HEADSTONES by Thomas Soane and other members of his family, C18, probably the earliest in the county. (F. Burgess)

HUNDON. Its thatched hillside cottages look up to the dignified church, to the turrets of its noble 15th century tower, and to its 14th century clerestory, adorned with a parapet of open quatrefoils like lace of stone. The porch shelters a little chapel reached by a steep and winding stairway within the wall, and the 600-year-old doorway leads into a nave with a glorious tower arch soaring almost to the roof, an impressive sight. The walls of the north chapel have some old traceried panelling which was long preserved at the vicarage and so escaped the disastrous fire which destroyed most of the treasures of the church a few months before Europe was set aflame in 1914.

Flickr.