Monday 20 August 2012

Thorpe Morieux, Suffolk

I accidentally missed an entry for St Mary which was an unscheduled visit. After Brent Eleigh I needed to fill up but almost got to Stowmarket before finding a garage - how do Suffolkonians cope without modern gadgets like petrol stations?

Anyway I went past St Mary the Virgin on my way to Preston so stopped. Unusually on the south side the graveyard is very small with a large yew in front of the porch making it impossible to photograph successfully and with the sun in the south east my north view was a disaster. This is a big church but rather dark and gloomy inside and felt cold. The setting, however, is glorious.

ST MARY. All C13 to C14. The chancel Piscina in the angle of the SE window with its angle shaft and stiff-leaf foliage must be C13. The tower looks c. 1300, the nave c. 1320-30. The chancel windows are renewed and represent a date c. 1300. The nave buttresses are V-shaped (cf. Raydon; LG). - Fine C14 timber porch with traceried bargeboards and simply traceried three-plus-three side openings. - FONT. Plain, square, C13, on five supports. - DOORS. S and W doors with quatrefoil borders. - SCULPTURE. An elaborately carved bracket with embattled cresting. Late Perp. What did it originally belong to? - PLATE. Paten 1708; Flagon 1751; Cup 1765. - MONUMENT. John Fiske d. 1764. Nice restrained standing wall-monument. No figures. The centre is a cartouche with a coat of arms.

Hatchment (2)

Font

THORPE MORIEUX. It has a few thatched cottages, a Tudor farmhouse, and a 60-year-old church with a high 15th century tower. In the 14th century porch is an ancient panelled door. The church has a magnificent 13th century font, and in the south wall is a fragment of stone which was found embedded in a piscina, carved with fruit and foliage. The fine Tudor house is across the meadow; it has a grand Elizabethan porch.

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