Friday 8 March 2013

Lindsey, Suffolk - St Peter

Last week I finished off, apart from the pesky Little Bradley, the north west quadrant and revisited Toppesfield which now lists a keyholder.

I started the day at St Peter which externally looked unpromising - various different renders don't do it any favours - but the interior is excellent, light floods in and there's plenty of interest with graffiti, a good rood dado, an excellent pulpit and an all over sense of place. Oh and a very good font.

ST PETER. The W tower was removed in 1836 and replaced by a weather boarded bell-turret. Early C14 church, see the segment headed S aisle and chancel Windows. In the nave on the N side a specially handsome straight-headed two-light window with intersected top like the famous C13 piscinas of Jesus and St John’s Colleges at Cambridge.* The window has shafts and niches in the jambs inside, and a second of the same type further W is blocked. Simple C14 timber S porch. Arcade inside C14 with octagonal piers and double chamfered arches. Roof with tie-beams and kingposts. - FONT. Of c. 1300. Intersected arches with, in the spandrels, a circle, an encircled trefoil, a trefoil, etc. - SCREEN. Fragment of the dado with traceried panels. - BOX PEWS. - BENCH with traceried front and poppyheads. - COMMUNION RAIL. Three-sided, late C17. - ORGAN CASE. Pretty and probably early C19.- (WALL PAINTINGS. On nave and S aisle walls. Recently discovered. LG) - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup and Cover.

* And those of Hardingham and Pulham St Mary in Norfolk.

St Peter (2)

 South arcade (2)

Pulpit

LINDSEY. It has spacious views from its churchyard and from the moated mound called Lindsey Castle, a relic of the days when small places like this were fortified by such earthworks as are found here. It had a monastery of which something remains after 600 years, for not far off is a farmhouse built from its ruins, with the great beams in the kitchen, an old fireplace, and a little chapel which is a chapel no more, but has been neatly thatched and is much cared for. It is scheduled as a national monument and its thatched roof was paid for by the country.

The church of today is a 14th century structure which has lost its tower and has a bellcote in its place. The old timbered porch brings us into a simple nave which has an arcaded font at which Lindsey’s little ones have been christened for 700 years.

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