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.

 

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.

Flickr.