ST PETER. Early Dec chancel with two pretty E turrets with spirelets. For the dating see the windows and the chancel arch. The E window is of five lights, segment-headed, and has an irregular design with reticulated elements. Of the same time probably the W tower. Its doorway and window however are Perp. Of the same time also the five-bay arcade with unusually slim quatrefoil piers and arches with two small quadrant hollows. Perp N and S sides, Perp S chapel. - FONT. Plain, octagonal, C14. The stem has an octagonal core with eight detached shafts. - SCREEN. With one-light divisions. Rather arid. Only the lower parts original. - STALLS. With traceried fronts and poppy-heads. - BENCHES. Some with poppy-heads. - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup; Paten 1776.
BRANDON. It is a little town where a thousand years are as yesterday, for men are doing here today what was being done before the pyramids were built. Fifty centuries will not take us back to the beginning of it all. The men of Brandon are knapping flints as they were doing when Hereward the Wake may have lived in the Fens close by, when the Romans were building London, when Homer was telling his immortal stories, and when Abraham dwelt in a tent. There is something to see here that can be seen nowhere else in England, stirring us with the thrill of immemorial time as a sound to be heard that has been going on for centuries and is perhaps soon to vanish for ever.
Everywhere in these old streets shaded by trees are flints. Most of the houses have flint walls; there are flints in the road, in the pavements, in the church. But Brandon is not all stone. There are dark pines round about it, and heaths with miles of firs and bracken, said to be one of the few breeding-places in England of the stone curlew; there is Brandon Hall, a delightful 17th century house in a Dutch garden; and an enchanting corner by the Little Ouse, where an old bridge with five arches brings us from Suffolk into Norfolk. Lovely meadows and woods, an old mill, and a charming inn among lawns and flowerbeds, all contribute to the making of a picture too delightful to be spoiled.
There was a church here before the Conqueror came over the heath, but the building we see is mostly 14th and 15th century, with queer gargoyles still looking down from the tower after 600 years. Among the rough flints in the walls are patches of brickwork looking rather odd. An old sundial says, So Passeth the Glory of the World, and, also outside, are two stone coffins perhaps belonging to Crusaders. The spacious north porch shelters a grand old door and a beautiful stoup.
Within are arches on handsome clustered pillars, a quaint company of corbels, a big 13th century font, and an east window whose unusual tracery has been admired since Chaucer’s day. There is a very old Bible, old pews with carved poppyheads, part of a 16th century screen with traces of painting in the panels, and a striking peace memorial window with three warrior saints. The beautiful chancel is the sleeping place of an infant Samuel, a little one whose nine months of life ended in 1854.
But it is not for the church that we come to Brandon, but because it is perhaps the first workshop in England, the spot where the first wholesale merchants were making flint weapons and tools long before a furrow had been ploughed in Europe. Here in holes in the ground, or perhaps in lake dwellings among the Fens, lived Stone Age men who made more flint weapons than they wanted and bartered them for skins and food. We can see the pits where they quarried flint, and there is still an ancient digging 80 feet deep where in modern times a fossil antler was found buried in the rock. It was used as a pick-axe over 5000 years ago, and thrilling it is to handle it. At Grimes Graves, a few miles away, are the astonishing tunnels these ancient quarrymen made; and on Lingheath Common we can see hundreds of pits where flints are still quarried.
The most exciting place in Brandon is a yard behind an inn, where we heard the tapping of a flint knapper in a shed close by, and found a man bending over his work as the Stone Age men had done. He had a leather pad on his knee and a hammer in his hand, and we saw him pick up a rough piece of rock, rest it on his knee, and strike it so skilfully that the flints flaked off as he wanted them. He was making flints for the old flintlock guns still used in the Congo and Malaya; and for the savages in the dark places of the earth he was making flints for kindling fires and killing game. It is an astounding thought that when the work of knapping flints began in this place the men who worked here were less civilised than the tribes for which these flints are made in our own day.
It is the oldest industry in England, 200 generations old, yet we spoke here with a man who may be the last of all the flint knappers. He learnt his art from his father, but his son knows nothing of this ancient trade. The breaking of flints for building purposes may go on for many years, but the demand for kindling flints is almost done. Yet in all our travels through the Motherland we have had few experiences more strangely impressive than this, of seeing a skilled industry which has been handed down unchanged from father to son, from generation to generation, from century to century.
Everywhere in these old streets shaded by trees are flints. Most of the houses have flint walls; there are flints in the road, in the pavements, in the church. But Brandon is not all stone. There are dark pines round about it, and heaths with miles of firs and bracken, said to be one of the few breeding-places in England of the stone curlew; there is Brandon Hall, a delightful 17th century house in a Dutch garden; and an enchanting corner by the Little Ouse, where an old bridge with five arches brings us from Suffolk into Norfolk. Lovely meadows and woods, an old mill, and a charming inn among lawns and flowerbeds, all contribute to the making of a picture too delightful to be spoiled.
There was a church here before the Conqueror came over the heath, but the building we see is mostly 14th and 15th century, with queer gargoyles still looking down from the tower after 600 years. Among the rough flints in the walls are patches of brickwork looking rather odd. An old sundial says, So Passeth the Glory of the World, and, also outside, are two stone coffins perhaps belonging to Crusaders. The spacious north porch shelters a grand old door and a beautiful stoup.
Within are arches on handsome clustered pillars, a quaint company of corbels, a big 13th century font, and an east window whose unusual tracery has been admired since Chaucer’s day. There is a very old Bible, old pews with carved poppyheads, part of a 16th century screen with traces of painting in the panels, and a striking peace memorial window with three warrior saints. The beautiful chancel is the sleeping place of an infant Samuel, a little one whose nine months of life ended in 1854.
But it is not for the church that we come to Brandon, but because it is perhaps the first workshop in England, the spot where the first wholesale merchants were making flint weapons and tools long before a furrow had been ploughed in Europe. Here in holes in the ground, or perhaps in lake dwellings among the Fens, lived Stone Age men who made more flint weapons than they wanted and bartered them for skins and food. We can see the pits where they quarried flint, and there is still an ancient digging 80 feet deep where in modern times a fossil antler was found buried in the rock. It was used as a pick-axe over 5000 years ago, and thrilling it is to handle it. At Grimes Graves, a few miles away, are the astonishing tunnels these ancient quarrymen made; and on Lingheath Common we can see hundreds of pits where flints are still quarried.
The most exciting place in Brandon is a yard behind an inn, where we heard the tapping of a flint knapper in a shed close by, and found a man bending over his work as the Stone Age men had done. He had a leather pad on his knee and a hammer in his hand, and we saw him pick up a rough piece of rock, rest it on his knee, and strike it so skilfully that the flints flaked off as he wanted them. He was making flints for the old flintlock guns still used in the Congo and Malaya; and for the savages in the dark places of the earth he was making flints for kindling fires and killing game. It is an astounding thought that when the work of knapping flints began in this place the men who worked here were less civilised than the tribes for which these flints are made in our own day.
It is the oldest industry in England, 200 generations old, yet we spoke here with a man who may be the last of all the flint knappers. He learnt his art from his father, but his son knows nothing of this ancient trade. The breaking of flints for building purposes may go on for many years, but the demand for kindling flints is almost done. Yet in all our travels through the Motherland we have had few experiences more strangely impressive than this, of seeing a skilled industry which has been handed down unchanged from father to son, from generation to generation, from century to century.
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