Belstead, Suffolk

St Mary, locked, keyholders listed, didn't seem to me to be likely to contain much of interest so I didn't bother to seek out the keyholders - this was a mistake, as Pevsner shows, which is unlikely to rectified in the near future. Intrigued by Pevsner I headed over to Simon Knott's Suffolk Churches site to rub salt into my wounds and found the tale of its redemption.

ST MARY. Much renewed. With a S porch tower. C16 N chapel of brick with brick window-frames and door-frame. - FONT. Perp, octagonal, with four lions against the base, and four flowers and four demi-figures of angels on the panels of the bowl. - PULPIT. Jacobean, with the usual blank arches. - ROOD SCREEN. Dado only, painted with figures of saints, c. 1500. They are set against a continuous background of landscape. -- MONUMENTS. Brass probably to John Goldingham d. 1518. Knight and two wives, 19 in. figures. - Tobias Blosse and Elizabeth Blosse, both by John Stone, and both set up in 1656. The former is in the form of a hatchment, i.e. a stone lozenge, with only a little decoration. The other is a tablet with oval inscription plate, drapery above it, and small figures of kneeling children below.

BELSTEAD. High up is Belstead’s church, with good views of the country round. Most of it has stood nearly 500 years, but the porch was built and the tower begun in the 14th century, the battlements being added in the 15th. The roodloft stairs remain, and there is a Jacobean pulpit and six old benches. There are two fishes on the bowl of the 15th century font, and the shaft has stone lions and buttresses. The screen is very fine; on its ten panels are painted saints, archbishops, and a man with a halo in armour of the 14th or 15th century. The brass portraits of a man in armour, with two wives in the lovely headdresses of 400 years ago, may be of John Goldingham and his wives, Jane and Thomasine. A stone on the wall keeps in memory the name of Sir Robert Harland, an 18th century admiral of the fleet. He went to sea as a lad, took a leading part in capturing a French warship, was second in command under Admiral Keppel at Ushant, and served his country well on the high seas for over half a century.

Flickr.