Aldham, Suffolk

St Mary, open, is a round tower church with fascinating bench end carvings - an almost de Vere star, what looks like a horned star, a bearded bear [?], symbols of the passion [?] and a stylised lily [?] - royal arms for GRIII and ERII, a good font and an extraordinary range of poppyheads. Add to that a role in the Detectorists and the view to the south you've pretty much arrived in Heaven on earth.

ST MARY. Circular flint tower. Nave and chancel flint. The windows in the style of c. 1300. - BENCH ENDS with poppyheads. - LECTERN. Oak, the base original.* - (SCULPTURE. Anglo-Saxon fragments with interlace pattern in the jamb of a S window in the nave. LG) - PLATE. Paten 1735; Cup and Cover 1785.

ALDHAM. It has a farmhouse and a church at the end of a lane which leads to nowhere else, and we come to the church by old thatched barns. The church rises with its flint walls in a green meadow where it has stood about 600 years. For 500 of these years its people have sat on some of these oak benches; for 500 years its parson has been reading from this oak lectern. Older still are the stones at the base of the tower, for they are Norman. The tower is crowned with a small lead spire.

On the road to Hadleigh is a fine 15th century brick gatehouse with a barn to keep it company. It was along this road that they brought the heroic Rowland Taylor in 1555 to be burned alive at the bidding of Mary Tudor. It was in the middle of the night when they brought him from his church at Hadleigh and as the journey ended he said, “What place is this?” On being told it was Aldham Common, he exclaimed, “Thanked be God. I am even at home.” One of the good men of Aldham pretended to be lame when he was ordered to light the fire.

* I missed the lectern or it's no longer extant.

Flickr.