Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk (St John)

I know I shouldn't, and I'm not sure why I do, but I rather liked St John, open, perhaps just because it was open. The roof was being repaired and scaffolding filled the aisles obscuring windows et al so a revisit is required.

Almost a year later I revisited and confirmed how rewarding the interior is with truly amazing Stations of the Cross by Ian McKillop and all round general fabulosity - highly recommended.

ST JOHN, St John’s Street. Consecrated 1841. By Ranger of London. Yellow brick, with a w tower and an ignorant spire. Gaunt recessed porch, under the spire. The style of the church is E.E. Clerestory with three stepped lancets per bay. Timber rib-vault. The W end is canted towards the tower. The E end re-done by J. Drayton Wyatt in 1875* - STAINED GLASS. The E window original, but renovated (i.e. new glass surrounds to the three scenes) in 1960 (ARA). - PLATE. Set of 1841.

I don't think Mee visited.

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Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk (Railway Mission)

Unsurprisingly neither Pevsner nor Mee mention the Railway Mission but it's a tin tabernacle so can't be missed!

Great Barton, Suffolk

Holy Innocents, open, is a large building set away from the village and the location, churchyard and exterior are all splendid but I'm sorry to say that the interior failed to excite me. It's just too run of the mill and insipid to stir the feelings. There is a good Morris & Co Burnes Jones window, a VR Golden Jubilee peculiarity beside it and a couple of jolly dog bench ends but other than that I'm afraid it's dull.

The name Holy Innocents is a rarity - out of 1423 churches visited this my second occurrence, the first being Lamarsh in Essex.

HOLY INNOCENTS. w tower Perp,* big, of knapped flint and stone. Flushwork decoration at the top: quatrefoil frieze and panelled battlements. Late C13 chancel with interesting window details, the E window of three lancet lights with three circles at the top, quatrefoiled far back. N and S windows with plate tracery, a lozenge, quatrefoiled far back. At the E angles polygonal buttresses with obelisk roofs. The priest’s doorway has an arch on thin shafts, and to its E a big niche with a heavy gable on plain corbels. The chancel arch inside has friezes of leaves on the two capitals. The PISCINA has an ogee gable. The S aisle has an early C14 E window, and the arcade inside also belongs to that style. Four bays, slender octagonal pier and two circular piers, fleurons on the capitals, moulded arches. Perp N arcade of typical details. Perp N aisle of knapped flint. Perp also the other S aisle windows. Perp clerestory windows, double the number of the arcade bays. The hammerbeam roof in the nave is nothing special. - BENCHES. With poppy-heads and seated animals on the arms. Traceried ends. - STAINED GLASS. In the N aisle Perp canopies.

* A will of 1440 leaves money to the making of the new tower on condition that within a year of the testator’s death the parishioners . . . prepare the material for this work. Another will of 1449 leaves money to the tower (ARA).

GREAT BARTON. Often there must have been told in this place the story of one of the most dramatic moments in English history, when the news was broken to Napoleon that he was to go to St Helena. Here under an arched altar tomb lies Sir Henry Bunbury, who broke the news and so played his part in the last scene of the last act of that dramatic chapter of Europe’s history.

He lived at the hall (burned down in 1914), where Oliver Goldsmith loved to come. He built Great Barton’s almshouses in memory of his wife. Though the home of the Bunburys has gone, the ancient church remains with their memorials, dominated by the noble 15th century tower handsomely adorned with flint and stonework shields. The chancel, with its canopied buttresses, is 13th century, but nearly all the rest is the same age as the tower. The nave has a clerestory and a fine roof with headless angels, the porch a king and a queen as corbels, a niche over the inner door, and a sundial telling us in Latin that “They perish and are reckoned.” There are old poppyhead benches and modern copies, an ornate reading-desk with a Charles Stuart Bible on it, and a carved screen forming a little room at the back of the south aisle. The reredos has a cherub at each end, and near it is a tall box beautifully carved. Also tall and beautiful, with tabernacle work, is the cover of the old font. There is a doorway which led to the roodloft.

The windows which make this spacious building so light have in them fragments of 600-year-old glass showing parts of castles and churches. In one window, a memorial of the Diamond Jubilee, is Queen Victoria with Esther and the Queen of Sheba. Another illustrates the text Suffer Little Children, and is dedicated to all little ones who pass away in their first two years of life. There are pictures of the Good Shepherd and the Light of the World, in memory of a 19th century churchwarden; and the Good Samaritan with figures of Faith and Hope in memory of Francis Riley Smith, whose monument in the churchyard has a statue of Our Lord under a delicately carved canopy. A bronze tablet on the wall is near the spot where a faithful couple came to worship for over 60 years.

Sir Henry Bunbury’s mother was Catherine Horneck, immortalised by Oliver Goldsmith; his father was the Norfolk squire remembered as a great caricaturist; and Sir Henry himself was godchild of Sir Joshua Reynolds. He grew up a brilliant soldier, a scholar and reformer, and was a successful Under-Secretary of State. It was because of his high reputation for tact and moral courage that he was chosen to execute a mission of unparalleled delicacy. Napoleon was a captive on the Bellerophon, daily hoping that his appeal to the Prince Regent would be granted and he would be allowed to live in England. He saw himself as an illustrious figure in history and could not imagine that he would be treated except as a great man - perhaps the Tower of London would be his destination. But England was too near to France and the danger was too great; it was necessary to exile Napoleon far away, and Bunbury’s mission was to tell him that he was to be exiled for life. Napoleon was grief stricken to hear it, and declared that the idea was a perfect horror to him - “to be placed for life on an island within the tropics, at an immense distance from any land, cut off from all communication with the world, is worse than Tamerlane’s iron cage!” he said.

Sir Henry Bunbury wrote a dramatic account of the interview. Napoleon declared that he would die rather than go to St Helena:

Let me be put in a country house in the centre of England. In St Helena I should not live three months; with my habits and constitution it would be immediate death. I am used to ride 20 leagues a day. What am I to do on this little rock at the end of the world? The climate is too hot for me. If your Government wishes to put me to death they may kill me here. And what good is my death to do you? If you now kill me it will be eternal disgrace to the nation. I have made war upon you for 20 years and I do you the highest honour by placing myself voluntarily in the hands of my most inveterate enemies. Remember what I have been, and how I have stood among the sovereigns of Europe. This courted my protection, that gave me his daughter, all sought my friendship.

Sir Henry Bunbury, who listened to this dramatic outburst from the dictator of Europe, reported it to his Government. Napoleon went into exile and the years passed on, Bunbury dying here in 1860 at the age of 82, having been one of the inspirers of the English system of volunteer armies, unwearying friend of the poor, and an industrious writer whose works still keep his memory green.

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Thurston, Suffolk

St Peter, open, is essentially a Victorian rebuild by JH Hakewill [not his brother Edward as Pevsner has it] after the tower collapsed in March 1860, followed shortly afterwards by the nave. Normally I'm scathing about Victorian rebuilds - typically I find them antiseptic and poorly designed/executed - but here Hakewill executed a fine reconstruction. The interior is well designed, airy and full of light, it really is very good. Contents wise there's some good glass, including medieval fragments, a good font, a smattering of poppyheads and Royal arms celebrating ER II's silver jubilee. Worryingly the west window was boarded up, I do hope for restoration and not because some moron has stoned it.

ST PETER. Mostly 1861-2 by E. C. Hakewill, after the tower had fallen. The Perp arcade seems correct and the Perp chancel original. Nice SEDILIA and PISCINA reaching evenly to the sill-frieze below the windows. The piscina has two arches and a shelf across. The wall arcading of the aisles which embraces the windows can also hardly have been Hakewill’s invention. - FONT. Big leaf panels of different species, probably C14. - STALLS. Traceried fronts, the ends with simple poppy-heads. - BENCHES. With poppy-heads, traceried ends, and the seat backs carved on their backs. - STAINED GLASS. Fragments in aisle and chancel windows. - PLATE. Cup 1675.

THURSTON. Here, at Nether Hall, a refashioned Tudor house still with its huge old beams and a fine staircase, lived a man of our own century to whom Thurston must often have said Thank You.. He was Sir Walter Greene, who gave this church many of its possessions, including a fine east window of the Crucifixion and the Last Supper, in memory of his father. He restored the 15th century chancel, giving it a roof with wooden angels and a reredos carved with saints and the Annunciation. He gave also the dainty screen, the pulpit with its four Disciples under canopies and its two angels praying by the steps, the eagle lectern (originally made for Bombay Cathedral), and the organ with its lovely oak case. This organ was the last made by that fine 19th century builder Henry Willis, who may be said to have filled our country with music, for he built or renewed the organs in about half the cathedrals in England, as well as in the Albert Hall and in Windsor Castle. It was while tuning this very organ that Henry Willis caught the chill which led to his death.

One of the windows is copied from a Norwegian church and shows the women at the Holy Sepulchre; it is in memory of a son of Sir Walter Greene. Another shows Christ blessing the little ones, in memory of a babe of 14 months who died in 1842. In a lancet window is lovely modern glass which looks old, with little medieval figures in bright colours; and elsewhere are fragments of ancient glass showing in vivid blues and yellows the heads of saints and of Our Lord.

The church has had its benefactor, for whom it is thankful, but it has had its misfortune too, for the 14th century tower collapsed last century and destroyed most of the nave, which was just as old. Both were built up again in the old style, the nave roof resting on stone heads for corbels. The font was carved with its foliage 600 years ago, and there are 12 panelled benches of the 15th century, with eagles, angels, heads, and a Tudor rose as poppyheads. By the altar are sedilia and a piscina all under canopies.

The village has its peace cross set in the churchyard wall. It has also a memorial hall, given in 1914 by a wife who lost her husband when the Titanic went down.

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Hunston, Suffolk

Next stop St Michael, typed in the postcode pressed go and set off.....and couldn't find it. Odd since the postcode I'd found on the web, and checked on Google earth, got me close but my SatNav took me closer to Langham. Next time I'll use Google earth directions.

Great Ashfield, Suffolk

I'm ashamed to say that I was sure that All Saints would be locked, it just gave off that vibe, when in fact it is open - apologies. Unusually the tower sports a Hertfordshire spike miles and miles away from the home of Hertfordshire spikes. Apart from the AK Nicholson east window and a north aisle Surinder Warboys window, it's woodwork that is the attraction here - many mutilated/worn bench ends, a carved bench end depicting blacksmith's tools  and possibly one of the largest pulpits, dated 1619, I've seen to date in a relatively small parish church.

ALL SAINTS. Finely moulded C13 S doorway. One C13 lancet window in the chancel. The chancel on the whole looks all C19. Original ogee-arched niche to the l. of the E window. Nave and N aisle Perp. The arcade piers have four semi-octagonal shafts. The capitals are treated as one band. Double-chamfered arches. S porch Perp, of brick with flushwork panelling. W tower of knapped flint with a spike.* Base-frieze of flushwork panelling. Dec W window. - PULPIT. On short bulbous legs. The body square, not polygonal. One tier of the familiar Elizabethan short blank arches, a tier with simple lozenge panels below. Back panel and tester. On the tester the date 1619. - BENCI-IES. Many, with poppy-heads and animals on the arms. - PANELLING. Behind the altar, in the style of the pulpit. - COMMUNION RAIL. With twisted balusters, c. 1700. - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup; Almsdish 1808.

* A will of 1460 leaves 6l. 8d. ‘Panneto de Asshfield’ - presumably the tower’s pinnacle (ARA).

GREAT ASHFIELD. In this flat land of many low-lying streams most of the older houses still have moats, and there are three moated houses hereabouts, the hall (now a farm) having a moat on two sides.

Flint panels adorn the face of the 15th century red brick porch of the 13th century church, where a sundial calls on us to Redeem the Time. Here is the original timbered roof and much fine carving. The bench-ends are solid and heavy and on an unusually large scale, but much defaced. We noticed on them the graceful sweep of an angel’s wing, the half-human face of a mythical beast, and the plumage of a bird. The canopied pulpit is magnificent, the work of one of those Jacobean craftsmen who have made so many of our churches beautiful by their skill. It stands high on a square base mounted on carved feet. There are diamond designs in the lower part, and the whole erection is a masterpiece of delicate work. The clerk’s bench has the symbols of the blacksmith’s craft, horseshoes, hammer, and pincers. The reredos harmonises with the pulpit in richness of design. An ancient chest is bound with many iron bolts and bands, and the 15th century font is raised on two high steps.

A window of lovely colouring was given in the early years of this century by three daughters in memory of their father and mother. In richest purples and blues adoring angels bow before Our Lord, and in smaller panels are the Sower and the Reaper. The eight men of the village who fell in the Great War are remembered on a marble tablet as “a band of men whose hearts God had touched.”

Towards the end of last century it was found necessary to restore the ancient framework on which the bells had swung for many generations to call the folk to prayer, and part of the old woodwork was carved as a memorial of the Jubilee of the Victorian Era.

Here at the rectory were born two famous brothers, Edward Thurlow, Lord Chancellor, and Thomas who became a bishop. Edward, first baron, born here in 1731, was the son of a clergyman and was expelled from his first school and from Cambridge University as incorrigible. While studying law he, a profane and truculent bully, had as a colleague in the same office the gentle poet Cowper, and one of the few creditable things in his life is his scholarly correspondence with him and his friendship with Dr Johnson. He attained fame in celebrated trials, entered Parliament, and became first Attorney-General and then, as a servile flatterer of George the Third, enemy of the American Colonies, and an opponent of reform, he was made Lord Chancellor, one of the worst and most bad-tempered Chancellors the nation ever had. By trimming and twisting he held his high office on three occasions, browbeating peers, bishops, judges, and counsel, undermining his colleagues for the advantage of the king, and disgracing his office until Pitt insisted that the king should choose between himself and his intolerable Chancellor.

Thurlow sought to regain influence through popular favour by unsaying all he had said in defence of privilege and tyranny, but the ruse failed and he retired from public life. He built a house at West Norwood, but quarrelled with his architect and never entered it. He was taken ill at Brighton in 1806, and his servants, when carrying him upstairs, accidentally struck his feet on the banisters. His last utterance was a curse upon them for their clumsiness.

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Bacton, Suffolk

St Mary, open, whilst lovely, and not without interest, has been left somewhat disinfected by an 1860s Butterfield restoration. Having said that I liked it a lot particularly the hammerbeam nave roof, the Doom remnants, the painted memorial to Thomas Smith and his wife behind the pulpit and the Morris & Co  east window [there are also 4 good bench ends but they look to me to be 'replicas']. Both Pevsner and Mee mention a screen [Mee refers to it as C15th and Pevsner places it under the tower arch] but I have no photos of a screen, C15th or not. This puzzled me until I remembered that the two parts are now on either side of the organ in the west gallery and without my wide angle lens were impossible to photo.

ST MARY. Dec W tower. The bell-openings have Y-tracery and also flowing tracery, which is unusual for towers. Early C16 stair-turret of brick. S aisle and S porch Perp. Inscription on the S aisle commemorating Robert Goche and his wife, and James Hobart, his wife, and his parents. Cautley points out that Sir James Hobart was Attorney-General under Henry VII. N aisle also Perp. Clerestory with doubled windows. The arches with intermittent radially placed bricks. The windows are of two lights with panel tracery. A variety of flushwork emblems between them. The arcade is of five bays and has octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. Nave roof with double hammerbeams, the figures sawn ofi‘. Big square flowers on the wall-plates. Fine cresting on the purlins. Colouring over the rood-bays. The aisle roofs also have decorated wall-plates. The chancel roof is cambered and has arched braces. The E bays have coloured stylized symmetrical leaves or palmettes. The roofs were restored in 1860 and 1864 by Butterfield. - FONT. Octagonal. Against the stem two tiers of shields and square flowers. Against the bowl angels with shields, a shield, and square flowers. - BENCHES. Two, with carved backs, poppy-heads, and on the arms three animals and one kneeling figure.- SCREEN. With one-light divisions, ogee arches, and close panel tracery above them. Two parts under the tower arch. - WALL PAINTING. Dim Doom over the chancel arch. - STAINED GLASS. E window c. 1920 by Morris & Co., partly still to the design of Burne-Jones. - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup; Paten 1682; Almsdish 1729; Flagon 1756. 3 MONUMENTS. In the nave good tablets with cartouches: George Pretyman d. 1732; his widow d.1738.

BACTON. A stream runs down its street and we cross it by a bridge to enter the churchyard, with a church from the 14th and 15th centuries. The windows of the clerestory have under them flint panels of various designs forming a fine line of decoration.

The greatest treasure here is the magnificent double hammerbeam roof. Part of it is brilliantly coloured, and row after row of carving rises one above another to the ridge, while the great bosses have many exquisite designs. The elaborate richness of the roof is so insistent that it draws and holds our gaze. But there are other fine things to see: the elegant pillars of the arcade, and the dainty Tudor roses on the 15th century screen and on the font. The staircase turret is lighted by quatrefoils and there are two shields of old glass in a chancel window. Some of the poppyhead benches have carvings of birds and beasts, and two back benches have many carved designs.

There are still on the wall here traces of the remains of what must have been a painting, full of vigour and detail, of the Last Judgment. In the lower part the dead are seen rising from their tombs, and odd bits of colour here and there stand out from the blank wall. One vicar, Edward Burton Barker, was here for more than half of last century, all through Trafalgar and Waterloo and the Crimean War. In the five-light west window, set up as a peace memorial, are angels with trumpets, Our Lord, St Peter, St John, and the Evangelists.

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Cotton, Suffolk

St Andrew, locked, keyholder listed [and also a note in the porch announcing an open time on Fridays between 10 and 4], is a huge Dec building and is truly magnificent. I sought out the key and entered the rather spartan interior and found a bright, airy, clean lined space. My admiration increased sevenfold. It's not often such a large building only yields 30 photographs, and I'm sure that if I was in to architectural features it would have yielded many more, the interior is all about atmosphere.

ST ANDREW. Almost entirely Dec. Chancel with an original tracery design. Five lights, above them four spherical triangles, forming the main ogee arches, and above them one large reticulation unit. The side windows of the chancel are segment-headed. To the l. and r. of the E window niches outside. Inside ogee-arched PISCINA and SEDILIA. Of the sedilia the two seats and arches broken off which stood against the window. Aisles with segment-headed two-light windows, either with one spherical triangle or with reticulation motifs treated again very originally. The latter type of window also in the s porch. The five-bay aisle arcades have the typical early C14 piers: quatrefoil with fine diagonal spurs. The arch is moulded in two waves. The S porch has a parapet with flushwork decoration. Porch entrance with leaf capitals. Delightful S doorway with three orders of shafts all with leaf capitals. In the arch one order closely carved with leaves. The hood-mould also treated in this way. It rests on the l. on a big lizard. There is exceptionally much of the original colour preserved. Equally startling the W tower. Its W side is opened by a tall arch all the height which is usually occupied by doorway and window. It forms quite a spectacular W porch. At its E, however, there is no doorway, only a fine Dec three-light window. The Perp contribution is the clerestory and the roof.* The clerestory has doubled windows ; they are of two lights with panel tracery. The arches with some brick voussoirs. Flushwork emblems between the windows. The roof has double-hammerbeams with collars alternating with arched braces up to the collars. Angels remain against the upper hammerbeams. The purlins have fine crestings. The E bay is boarded, but nothing of its decoration survives. - FONT. The stem with eight small figures (monks? bedesmen?). The bowl is not original. - PULPIT. Jacobean. - READER’S DESK. Made up of Jacobean parts. - BENCHES. One with poppy-heads, and on one end the carving of an iron-bound door. The others plain and solid, straight-headed. - COMMUNION RAIL. With turned balusters; C17. - DOORS. The S door with tracery of reticulation motifs. - The door to the tower stairs is all iron-faced. - STAINED GLASS. Fragments in the aisles and in the N clerestory. - PLATE. Cup probably c. 1600; Paten c. 1675; Flagon 1727.

* A will of 1471 gives a close called Garlekis for the repair and building of the new roof - on condition that no man of Cotton unjustly claims or induces a disturbance in his close called Clarys Close in Cotton (ARA).

COTTON. About a mile from Finningham we come to it, to find several old moated houses and its old hall now a farm. The church has happily preserved some of the lovely things created for it 500 years ago. In its wide porch we stay to admire the charming tracery of two early unglazed windows, and the equally charming tracery of the east window filled with old green glass. The doorway is carved with oak and vine leaves. The north door is guarded by a heavy oak bar.

The 14th century nave arcade, to which a clerestory was added 500 years ago, has graceful clustered shafts and moulded capitals. Some early craftsman who loved the saints has carved canopied niches for them here and there about the church- - on the outer buttress of the east wall, and, wreathed with foliage, above the double piscina and sedilia. Four steep and narrow steps lead up to the pretty little Jacobean pulpit. There are carved figures round the shaft of the font, and fine work on the pillars of the oak altar rail.

In one of the aisle windows are small figures of prophets and a headless figure of Christ in painted glass thought to be 14th century, and in the clerestory windows are 15th century angels of lovely colouring. From the fine hammerbeam roof, with carved cornices, are angels looking down on all the beauty below.

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Finningham, Suffolk

I've been to Finningham before, about 10 years ago I was staying for a weekend with friends and we went for a walk and stopped at the church but found it chained and padlocked shut. Arriving at St Bartholomew last week I had a first impression of an unloved church and a fairly unkempt churchyard and fully expected to find it LNK, so I was delighted to find it open.

Truth be told there's nothing much of interest here - some bench ends, Sir John Fenn's monument and the pulpit but otherwise all rather airbrushed and sterile [or at least I thought so]. Hats off though for being open.

ST BARTHOLOMEW. Partly of the early C14, partly Perp. The W tower is of the earlier date. Bell-openings with Y-tracery, but that to the E a quatrefoil in a circle. The chancel S doorway and nave S doorway also of the earlier date. The rest of the S side Perp. N side all Perp with a simple brick porch. The S porch is the only ornate piece. It has flushwork panelling, niches l. and r. of the entrance, and a parapet nicely decorated with alternating quatrefoils placed upright and diagonally. - FONT. Octagonal. Simple. The base is of two steps, the upper in the form of a Maltese Cross. - FONT COVER. Perp, a pinnacle, but not a high one. The principal decoration is some oblong panels with squares flanked by little arches. In the squares interesting combination of squares and circles, e.g. a square set within a diagonally placed square set within a square. All three touch. Or a circle set within a square set within a circle set within a square. All squares and circles touch. It all looks connected with the masons’ mysteries of proportions. - BENCH ENDS. With tracery and poppy-heads. On the arms figures seated not towards the E as usual but towards the gangway. - STAINED GLASS. Some, in the E window. - MONUMENTS. John Williamson d. 1781 by John Golden of Holborn. A pretty tablet of white and pink marble, neo-classical in style. No figures at all. - Sir John Fenn, editor of the Paston letters, signed by John Bacon, 1797. With a woman kneeling over an urn.

FINNINGHAM. There is a pleasant air of order about this wide street and well-kept churchyard, where the 15th century battlemented tower rises among the trees. There was once a Saxon church here, and, though all traces of it had long disappeared, a little clay arch of the Saxon tower has been uncovered, linking it with the fine church of today. Two crosses stand out on the gable of the chancel  and there are mass dials on buttresses. The 15th century font has its original wooden cover, high and elaborately carved. A choice bit of Jacobean carving is let into one of the choir-stalls, and the battered bench-ends have been made good. Some bits of old glass in the east window show small figures of saints in the tracery.

There are memorials of the Freres on every side; they came to Suffolk in the 13th century and have lived at Finningham since 1598. Some have been rectors; and Sir Henry Bartle Frere was in the Indian Civil Service, and was thanked by Parliament for the relief work he organised during the Mutiny. In 1872 he was sent to Zanzibar to enquire into the slave trade, and so successful were his interviews with the Sultan that he brought home a treaty abolishing the slave traffic of which Zanzibar was the centre. A most difficult task was then allotted to him, for he was sent to South Africa as High Commissioner to bring about a confederation of the South African colonies. The Transvaal had just been brought under English suzerainty, the Kaffir chiefs were in revolt, and Cetewayo was assembling his Impis in Zululand. Bartle Frere showed great personal courage and earnestness in his endeavours to solve the difficult problems, but his declaration of war on the Zulus led to his being recalled by the Home Government, and he devoted the remainder of his life to advocating good causes in England. Frere was a man who lived to do his duty; and when he was asked one day what  would remain when he was superseded in the midst of his work in South Africa, his simple reply was: “My integrity.” One brass here records the names of members of his family from 1736 to 1918.

In a window in memory of Hatley Frere, who died in 1878, is the family group of Lois and Eunice reading the Bible to the youthful Timothy. A kindly bequest mentioned on a tablet was of money left in 1766 to teach four children to spin and to sew, and to buy four strong coats “to be turned up with black” for four poor men. In the porch two windows with shields and borders were given by Constantine Frere, rector here for 58 years to 1905. A tenderly worded inscription to the memory of his wife is in the porch

through which she loved to pass, among a people whom she loved, into the earthly Temple of Him she loved above all, into whose closer presence she entered through the door Christ Jesus, to go no more out.

There is some remarkably fine carving on the modern gallery, and an exquisite canopied reredos, with festoons of vine leaves and gilded earns of corn. Robert de Finningham, a 15th century follower of St Francis, was born here; he wrote many scholarly  works in Latin. Here sleeps in the chancel Sir John Fenn, High Sheriff of Suffolk, a well-known antiquary and editor of the Paston letters, “who made deep researches into the darkest and most turbulent period of our history.” He died in 1794, and there is in his memory a graceful sculpture by John Bacon of a woman kneeling in grief. An inscription to his wife declares that many rising generations will join in thankfulness for her support of the improved system of education.

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Westhorpe, Suffolk

St Margaret, open, was the proper beginning of this visit - I think the most successful ever, with 10 out of 11 being accessible - and is a delight. From its location to its contents there's something for everyone here - I particularly liked the traceried south door and the parclose screen. The somewhat absurd Barrow monument is, however, the crowning feature, so much so that in my haste to examine it I missed a couple of monuments to Nathaniel and Jane Fox in the chancel - what a shame I'll have to go back! There's also a good monument to William Barrow in the chance. A great start to the official tour.

ST MARGARET. Dec W tower with Perp W window. Dec N aisle with Perp N windows. Dec chancel with renewed E window and ogee-arched PISCINA. Dec W window in the S aisle, but Perp S windows and S porch. Perp clerestory. Attached to the N side the Barrow Chapel, of brick, with a Jacobean ceiling with pendant but C18 window surrounds. Dec arcades of four bays with octagonal piers and double-chamfered arches. Dec tomb recess in the S aisle. Perp roof of simple hammerbeams alternating with tie-beams on big arched braces. - PARCLOSE SCREE. Dec, and quite an important piece, with shafts instead of mullions and three circles with two mouchettes each as tracery. Much original colour preserved. - PULPIT. Simple, Perp. - BENCHES. Just a few. - SOUTH DOOR. With tracery.- PA1NTING. In the Barrow Chapel black floor slab painted with flower arrangements. - PLATE. Cup 1631. - MONUMENT. Maurice Barrow d, 1666. Semi-reclining white marble figure, hand on heart. Two flying putti hold curtains back from a circular inscription plate with a wreath border. Top entablature with segmentally raised centre.

WESTHORPE. Here lived and died a Queen of France, Henry the Eighth’s sister Mary, who was married to Louis the Twelfth of France in 1514. It is a pathetic story, for she was married as a beautiful girl of 18 to a man of 52, a few months after he had lost his wife. She was married in October and was crowned in November, and on New Year’s Day her lord was in his grave. She came back to England after three months of romance and tragedy and married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and they lived at Westhorpe Hall, where she died, being buried in the old Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, and lying now by the altar of St Mary’s in that town. Their hall has gone, but their royal pew, with its cockscomb hinges on the door, is still in the 14th century church, old glass in one of the windows has the Suffolk coat-of-arms, and there is a memorial tablet. The branches of a grand old yew sweep the churchyard, from which one of the characteristic East Anglian porches leads into the church. There is old ironwork on the belfry door. A charming medieval piscina has a wreath of acanthus leaves above its pillared arch. The embattled screen is a delightful patchwork of old and new with some of the original painted panels remaining and there is old linenfold on a bench near the reading desk.

A nameless tomb under an arch in one of the aisles, 600 years old, is believed to belong to Henry de Elmham. A quaint wall-monument of painted alabaster in the chancel is to the memory of William Barrow who died in the same year as Shakespeare; his two wives are kneeling side by side on a crimson cushion before a prayer desk, wearing ruff's and a sort of mortar-board headdress. A daughter and a son kneel behind them and two tiny babies lie at the foot of the desk. The painted heraldry on the tomb is still bright. In the year of the Great Fire of London Maurice Barrow left £500 to be spent on “an elaborate white marble tomb” in this church, and his figure is still on it, half reclining. His face and hands are finely carved. Two plump cherubs with gilded trumpets are unveiling a long inscription, and two more hold up his shield and coat-of-arms. The monument was begun by an artist who was “suddenly snatched out of this world,” and was finished by his brother.

Flickr.

Wyverstone, Suffolk

I passed St George, open, on my way to nearby Westhorpe [qv] and naturally stopped to visit. The setting is delightful, the exterior pleasing and whilst I wouldn't say this is a top flight building it is satisfying. Inside there's some good glass, not one but two royal arms [the one for WR III carved in wood] and an astonishing bas relief carved roodscreen dado - I've never seen a screen like it. As you'd expect it's suffered at the hands of iconoclasts, and two panels have been removed, but it's still extraordinary. It, on it's own, lifts St George in to the realms of a must visit church.

ST GEORGE. Dec W tower with a tier of small quatrefoil windows. S porch of timber with carved bargeboards and a hammerbeam roof. Perp nave and chancel; clerestory, though no aisles. Good roof with arched braces joining at the high collar-beams. - FONT. Octagonal, Perp, simple. Panelled stem; bowl with shields in quatrefoils etc. - BENCHES. Some ends with medieval poppy-heads; also one dated 1616. - SCREEN. Dado with remains of carved, not simply painted, scenes: Annunciation, Nativity, Magi, Mass of St Gregory, Visitation. - PULPIT. Early C16 with linenfold panelling. - COMMUNION RAIL. Jacobean. - STAINED GLASS. A little in the NW and more in the NE window of the nave. - PLATE. Paten and Almsdish 1724; Flagon 1729.

Should I be surprised that this is another village missed by Mee? Perhaps by now not so much [truth is I am].

Flickr.