Shimpling, Suffolk

If I was amazed to find St Peter, Cockfield, open I think staggered would be my reaction to finding St George unlocked - find it on Google Earth to see how isolated it is.

Sadly, despite its open status I found St George dark, cold and heartless - that might have been because the light was beginning to go and it felt like a Hammer House of Horror set but is more likely due to a thorough Victorian clean up, not, I'm afraid, my cup of tea but hats off for being open.

ST GEORGE. Reached along an avenue of lime trees. Mostly Dec, see the E window with a usual pattern of flowing tracery, the segment-headed S aisle windows, the N windows, and the arcade inside of low octagonal piers and arches with one chamfer and one hollow chamfer. The chancel S doorway has a frieze of dog-tooth inside, a motif usually earlier than the date of the church. - FONT. Odd, octagonal, probably C14. Stem with eight attached shafts. Bowl shallow with quatrefoils and tracery. - MONUMENTS. Elizabeth Plampin  d.1774. By R. Westmacott Sen. Woman standing by an urn on a sarcophagus. - Thomas Hallifax d. 1850. Unsigned. Niche with two angels in profile kneeling symmetrically against an altar with a cross over it.

SHIMPLING. An avenue of limes shades the way to its 14th century church. It has a 15th century font and a Jacobean table. Some of the windows casting their dim religious light have fragments of ancient glass, bits of 14th century canopies, and heraldic shields thought to be 12th century, precious fragments indeed, for glass so old is rarely to be seen; there is exceedingly little of it in England. Outside, on a sunny wall, is an old mass dial.

Flickr.