Lawshall, Suffolk

All Saints was the first big church of the day and was remarkably uninteresting although I liked the painted angel corbels, the east window and a modern (millennium?) window in the south aisle.

ALL SAINTS. Quite big. Tall W tower, nave and aisles, clerestory and lower chancel, the latter in all its E.E. details Victorian. Arcade of four bays. Piers with four filleted shafts and in the diagonals a thin shaft between two hollows. Castellated capitals. Above the arches a string-course with demi-figures of angels. - FONT. C14, with tracery panels, recently rather garishly painted. - MONUMENT. J. B. van Mesdag d. 1945. Large inscription plate made up of small tiles. Designed by the distinguished typographer Jan van Krimpen and made at the Royal Goedewaagen workshops at Gouda.

LAWSHALL. It must have been a scene of titanic labours in bygone days. The hall, now a farmhouse, with walls six feet thick in places, has it is said the remains of a tunnel which led to Coldham Hall. Over the door are the arms of the Drurys and the date 1557. Ten years before the Armada sailed Queen Elizabeth and her retinue were here as guests, for the owners were rich and famous with a Speaker of the House of Commons and a great law-maker, among their ancestors.

Fine limes lead to the clerestoried medieval church, which, with its lofty tower, forms a noble picture, standing on some of the highest ground in Suffolk. In the spacious interior are graceful pillars, a finely carved cornice of angels and flowers, and a 15th century font rich with tracery. The best woodwork is that of a chest three centuries old, with shafts between bands of foliage beautifully wrought on its panels.

Flickr.