ST EDMUND (R.C.), Withermarsh Green. Early C19 brick.
Mee probably couldn't find it; although to be fair it isn't in a village so doesn't really fall into his remit.
Saturday, 9 March 2013
Withermarsh Green, Suffolk
I don't normally do Catholic churches but I read about Our Lady Immaculate & St Edmund King & Martyr on Simon Knott's Suffolk Churches website and was intrigued so added it to the map. The first thing to say is that it's almost impossible to find even with satnav and a postcode and secondly that it is now privately owned but is still in use. Being a practising Catholic whose place of worship is a recycled shed I'd rather like this to be my parish church.
ST EDMUND (R.C.), Withermarsh Green. Early C19 brick.
ST EDMUND (R.C.), Withermarsh Green. Early C19 brick.
Raydon, Suffolk
St Mary is a tower-less building with a low exterior bellhouse for the bells; it's very plain and simple and I rather liked it.
ST MARY. Mostly late C13 to early C14, see the chancel windows, the nave windows, the N and S doorways, and the Priest’s Doorway (thin shafts and big moulded capitals). On the chancel N side a normal late C13 two-light window with a quatre-foiled circle. The piscina inside has the same design - unusual and handsome. The two chancel S windows have in the tracery a circle with a cusped quatrefoil. Low W bell turret with pyramid roof.* Inside the early C14 date is confirmed, apart from the Piscina, by a low tomb recess on the N side and by the hood-moulds of the chancel windows. - PAINTING. Large ‘Noli me tangere’ by Alessandro Allori. - BRASS. Lower part of a tiny figure with a butterfly head-dress.
* The LG remarks on the V-shaped buttresses, comparing them to Thorpe Morieux.
ST MARY. Mostly late C13 to early C14, see the chancel windows, the nave windows, the N and S doorways, and the Priest’s Doorway (thin shafts and big moulded capitals). On the chancel N side a normal late C13 two-light window with a quatre-foiled circle. The piscina inside has the same design - unusual and handsome. The two chancel S windows have in the tracery a circle with a cusped quatrefoil. Low W bell turret with pyramid roof.* Inside the early C14 date is confirmed, apart from the Piscina, by a low tomb recess on the N side and by the hood-moulds of the chancel windows. - PAINTING. Large ‘Noli me tangere’ by Alessandro Allori. - BRASS. Lower part of a tiny figure with a butterfly head-dress.
* The LG remarks on the V-shaped buttresses, comparing them to Thorpe Morieux.
Rather bizarrely Mee also missed Raydon - two villages on one trip that he missed hasn't happened before.
Flickr.
Flickr.
Layham, Suffolk
St Andrew felt very airbrushed and rather soulless.
ST ANDREW. Flint, with a brick tower of 1742 (altered c. 1800 ?). It replaces a tower of c. 1300 of which the tower arch remains. The windows of the church are all of the type of c. 1300, but all renewed. - FONT. Hexagonal, of Purbeck marble, with two arched blank panels on each side. - SCREEN. Fragment of the dado with simple traceried panels. - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup and Cover; Flagon 1774; Paten 1796.
ST ANDREW. Flint, with a brick tower of 1742 (altered c. 1800 ?). It replaces a tower of c. 1300 of which the tower arch remains. The windows of the church are all of the type of c. 1300, but all renewed. - FONT. Hexagonal, of Purbeck marble, with two arched blank panels on each side. - SCREEN. Fragment of the dado with simple traceried panels. - PLATE. Elizabethan Cup and Cover; Flagon 1774; Paten 1796.
Mee missed it.
Hadleigh, Suffolk
St Mary is a beast of a church, impressive in scale and ambition but strangely antiseptic, however, and this is a big however, it's the first church I've visited which has not only a pool table but also a snooker table in the north aisle - this makes it officially brilliant, sadly I didn't warm to it.
There are bits and bobs (particularly the large benchends - one showing St Edmund's head in the wolf's jaws) to enjoy but the whole left me cold. The Deanery Tower and Guildhall are magnificent though.
ST MARY. The church is 163 ft long and has a tower crowned by a lead broach spire, 135 ft high. Externally mostly Perp, except for the tower, which is clearly of the early C14. To the l. and r. of the bell-openings, which have three-light intersected tracery, are circular openings. Of the C14 also a tomb recess in the S aisle (ogee arch cusped); so the S aisle wall is also of that period. There may be more of it (e.g. the chancel walls) but the windows are Perp, large in the aisles, larger still in the E end, where three windows look down Church Street, smaller, in pairs of two of two lights, in the nave clerestory (renewed). At the E end to the N a two-storeyed vestry, vaulted below. S porch of two bays with side windows and three niches above the entrance. The porch was originally vaulted and had an upper floor. Arcade of five wide bays. The piers have polygonal shafts, carrying capitals only towards the arch openings. The clerestory windows are not above the apexes of the arches, but above the spandrels. Chancel arch and two-bay arcades of the chancel chapels of the same type. In the chancel N wall an EASTER SEPULCHRE, simple, Late Perp, panelled above the arch. - FONT. Octagonal with finely detailed blank niches, two to each side, with feigned rib-vaults. - FONT COVER by Charles Spooner, 1925. - SCREENS. Perp, to the N and S chapels. - BENCH END in the S chapel with representation of the wolf finding the head of St Edmund. - DOOR. The S door has tracery and a border of quatrefoils. - ORGAN CASE. A fine large piece of the early C18, brought in 1738 from Donyland Hall (Essex). - STAINED GLASS. Odd bits in the N chapel E window. — S chapel E window (Christ and the Children) by Hedgeland, 1857, very Nazarene. - E window by Ward & Hughes. - PLATE. All silver-gilt: Paten 1685 ; Paten 1730; Cup and two Flagons 1745; Paten 1792.* - MONUMENTS. Three Brasses of 1593-1637. - Sarah Johnson d. 1793 by Regnart. With two putti by an urn. - First World War Memorial. by Charles Spanner.
CHURCHYARD. The church lies on a lawn, and to the S and W sides of this stand the most spectacular buildings of Hadleigh.
DEANERY TOWER, W of the church. Of the palace built by Archdeacon Pykenham in 1495 only the Gatehouse survives, a splendid brick building with polygonal turrets to the entrance and exit sides, the latter starting on corbels. Four-centred archway. The middle part is three-storeyed, the higher turrets have six stages. In the middle on the first floor oriel windows with a canopy on four trefoiled arches. The same trefoiled arches in pairs form the top of each of the panels into which the turrets are divided. Battlements on centre and turrets, on the centres with pinnacles in the middle. The motifs are similar to those used in the far more monumental gatehouse of Oxburgh in Norfolk (1482). The ornate chimneys are of c.1830. In the first-floor room inside a painting of the church, by a local artist, Benjamin Coleman, dated 1629. The room was panelled in 1730. To the l. of the tower first a majestic lime tree and then, in a contemporary Wall, two small stone archways, apparently earlier than the tower. These come from a former second S porch further E than the other. To the r. of the tower the DEANERY, also brick, simple imitation Tudor of 1831, enlarged in 1841. Built with the use of some old materials.
GUILDHALL, to the S of the churchyard. Timber-framed. Of two parts, both C15. The centre is of three storeys, with two overhangs. On the ground floor the characteristic thin buttress posts. To the l. of this the Long Room, the former guildhall proper. It is on the first floor. The ground floor was originally almshouses. To the E of the churchyard CHURCH STREET starts (with good houses on the N side, especially the RED HOUSE) and leads to the main crossroads of Hadleigh.
* Hadleigh possesses the earliest church BELL in Suffolk, probably of the late C13.
There are bits and bobs (particularly the large benchends - one showing St Edmund's head in the wolf's jaws) to enjoy but the whole left me cold. The Deanery Tower and Guildhall are magnificent though.
ST MARY. The church is 163 ft long and has a tower crowned by a lead broach spire, 135 ft high. Externally mostly Perp, except for the tower, which is clearly of the early C14. To the l. and r. of the bell-openings, which have three-light intersected tracery, are circular openings. Of the C14 also a tomb recess in the S aisle (ogee arch cusped); so the S aisle wall is also of that period. There may be more of it (e.g. the chancel walls) but the windows are Perp, large in the aisles, larger still in the E end, where three windows look down Church Street, smaller, in pairs of two of two lights, in the nave clerestory (renewed). At the E end to the N a two-storeyed vestry, vaulted below. S porch of two bays with side windows and three niches above the entrance. The porch was originally vaulted and had an upper floor. Arcade of five wide bays. The piers have polygonal shafts, carrying capitals only towards the arch openings. The clerestory windows are not above the apexes of the arches, but above the spandrels. Chancel arch and two-bay arcades of the chancel chapels of the same type. In the chancel N wall an EASTER SEPULCHRE, simple, Late Perp, panelled above the arch. - FONT. Octagonal with finely detailed blank niches, two to each side, with feigned rib-vaults. - FONT COVER by Charles Spooner, 1925. - SCREENS. Perp, to the N and S chapels. - BENCH END in the S chapel with representation of the wolf finding the head of St Edmund. - DOOR. The S door has tracery and a border of quatrefoils. - ORGAN CASE. A fine large piece of the early C18, brought in 1738 from Donyland Hall (Essex). - STAINED GLASS. Odd bits in the N chapel E window. — S chapel E window (Christ and the Children) by Hedgeland, 1857, very Nazarene. - E window by Ward & Hughes. - PLATE. All silver-gilt: Paten 1685 ; Paten 1730; Cup and two Flagons 1745; Paten 1792.* - MONUMENTS. Three Brasses of 1593-1637. - Sarah Johnson d. 1793 by Regnart. With two putti by an urn. - First World War Memorial. by Charles Spanner.
CHURCHYARD. The church lies on a lawn, and to the S and W sides of this stand the most spectacular buildings of Hadleigh.
DEANERY TOWER, W of the church. Of the palace built by Archdeacon Pykenham in 1495 only the Gatehouse survives, a splendid brick building with polygonal turrets to the entrance and exit sides, the latter starting on corbels. Four-centred archway. The middle part is three-storeyed, the higher turrets have six stages. In the middle on the first floor oriel windows with a canopy on four trefoiled arches. The same trefoiled arches in pairs form the top of each of the panels into which the turrets are divided. Battlements on centre and turrets, on the centres with pinnacles in the middle. The motifs are similar to those used in the far more monumental gatehouse of Oxburgh in Norfolk (1482). The ornate chimneys are of c.1830. In the first-floor room inside a painting of the church, by a local artist, Benjamin Coleman, dated 1629. The room was panelled in 1730. To the l. of the tower first a majestic lime tree and then, in a contemporary Wall, two small stone archways, apparently earlier than the tower. These come from a former second S porch further E than the other. To the r. of the tower the DEANERY, also brick, simple imitation Tudor of 1831, enlarged in 1841. Built with the use of some old materials.
GUILDHALL, to the S of the churchyard. Timber-framed. Of two parts, both C15. The centre is of three storeys, with two overhangs. On the ground floor the characteristic thin buttress posts. To the l. of this the Long Room, the former guildhall proper. It is on the first floor. The ground floor was originally almshouses. To the E of the churchyard CHURCH STREET starts (with good houses on the N side, especially the RED HOUSE) and leads to the main crossroads of Hadleigh.
* Hadleigh possesses the earliest church BELL in Suffolk, probably of the late C13.
HADLEIGH. It is one of those Suffolk corners we do not forget, with a fascinating group about the church: the marvellous walls of the church itself, the ancient timbered guildhall, the medieval houses, and the deanery tower with its age-long dignity and its pathetic memory. The windows, the roofs, the lovely chimneys, blend with as fine a group as we could wish to see, and it is the picture we remember of Hadleigh - this and its long street of old inns and houses, carved brackets and plaster fronts and overhanging eaves, and especially the old almshouses built by William Pykenham, with their little 15th century chapel, which still has benches on which the Darbys and Joans of Hadleigh have sat for many generations.
In the streets of this old town have walked many boys who grew up to serve their generation well. John Overall was one of the makers of the Authorised Version of the Bible; Joseph Beaumont and William Alabaster were both poets; Thomas Woolner was the sculptor whose bust of Tennyson is in Westminster Abbey. But most famous of all the men of Hadleigh is the heroic Rowland Taylor, who was rector here for 11 years before they burned him on Aldham Common outside the town, in 1555. There is a monument to him on the common telling us that in defending what was good he at this place left his blood; and it is the chief interest of the deanery tower that the brave martyr hid himself in its tiniest chamber, where he must have spent some of the happiest and some of the most anxious hours of his life.
The tower was built by Archdeacon Pykenham in 1495 as the gatehouse of a parsonage which then stood near the river. It is a fine red brick place with panelled and battlemented turrets, inside one of which we may climb up to the oriel-windowed rooms above the gate. We come also up these steps into the lovely little vaulted oratory which has a secret way into the small chamber where Dr Taylor hid; if we are privileged to come to the deanery (a fine 19th century gabled house built on to the gateway) we may see the trapdoor through which he would creep.
It was in one of these rooms that the Oxford Movement began at a conference called by Dean Rose; the conference decided on the issue of the famous Tracts for the Times which made a great stir in the country. In one of the gatehouse rooms is a picture by Canaletto; it is of his native Venice and is said to have been painted here.
From the window of the gatehouse we look across to the timber-fronted guildhall, which saw the great prosperity of this woollen town from the Middle Ages up to the 17th century, having been the meeting-place of five guilds which existed here.
The great church, one of the spectacular buildings of Suffolk, is the fifth church of the county in size, the work of our three great building centuries but mostly of the 15th. Its great windows run in two rows from end to end of the chancel and the nave. The narrow tower is 64 feet high with a spire of 71 feet which has been here since the 14th century and covered with lead in our time. The tower is 700 years old, and one of the eight bells has been ringing since its earliest days.
We come in through two fine doors which have been on their hinges about 500 years. The wagon-headed roof of the nave is of last century; the chancel roof is old with bosses and grotesques and rich tracery. There are two elegant open screens in the aisles, medieval panelling in the finely vaulted vestry, and old bench-ends, on one of which we noticed a grotesque animal with folded wings and an ornamented collar, wearing a hood. It is holding a man’s head by the hair and is an extraordinary piece of work, supposed to represent the story of King Edmund, whose head was found near a wolf after the king had been decapitated by the Danes. It is believed that a beautiful 14th century tomb in the south aisle stands near the place where the Danish king Guthrum was buried in 889.
There is another lovely tomb in the sanctuary about 500 years old, thought to be that of Archdeacon Pykenham. The fine font comes from the same days, but it has a remarkable cover in memory of John Overall; it is 16 feet high. In a few fragments of old glass are the arms of four Archbishops of Canterbury, and in a window of the south wall is a group of scenes in the life of Rowland Taylor, showing him walking with a friend, preaching to his people, and standing bravely in white at the stake.
On the wall opposite his window is a 17th century brass with a rhymed epitaph to him in 20 lines; they have been engraved on the back of a Flemish brass of 1500, the Flemish engraving showing a civilian with long hair, wearing a triple chain. Other brasses of the 16th and 17th centuries show Bishop Still and his wife, John Alabaster, and Richard Glanfield and his wife, a quaint couple of Charles Stuart’s days, holding hands and wearing ruffs, she in a wide-brimmed hat.
There is a memorial to the 111 men who did not come back from the war, a charming relief of a mother and child, and a font cover, all by the same artist, Charles Sydney Spooner, who worked under the inspiration of William Morris.
The Pitiful Fate of a Scholar
ROWLAND TAYLOR was a Northumbrian, born in the beginning of the 16th century and distinguished as a scholar at Cambridge. He was brought up a Roman Catholic, but the preaching of Hugh Latimer started a doubt in his mind, and he became chaplain to Cranmer and a Protestant. Cranmer appointed him to Hadleigh, one of the first places in England where the Reformation began to quicken, and this man of good will and good works was the best loved parish priest in Suffolk.
But all was changed with the coming of Mary Tudor. Hearing the bell of his church ringing on a day when the building was supposed to be closed, Taylor hurried to find a strange priest celebrating mass, with two Roman Catholic parishioners for his congregation. The firm protest of the rector was followed by his being thrust out of the church, the door was locked in his face, and a report of his prohibition of the mass forwarded to the Bishop.
Summoned before Bishop Gardiner, he was brutally badgered and ill-used, but preserved an unruffled calm, appealing to the laws of Edward the Sixth and greatly reminding the terrible Chancellor of his own breach of the oath. Both Gardiner and Bonner pursued him with bitter malevolence, and found delight in stripping him and having the garments of a Roman Catholic priest forcibly put on him. He was sentenced to death.
He began his last journey in the middle of the night, but in the darkness his wife and their little children found him, cry answering cry in the gloom of the shrouded city streets. Four yeomen of the guard were his escort, three of them often in tears for his sake, the fourth a ruffian. The journey ended. “What place is this?” asked Taylor, and when they told him it was Aldham Common, and that there he was to suffer, he exclaimed. “Thanked be God; I am even at home.” The stake was ready, and Taylor, stripped to his shirt, gave away his clothes to those about him. When he began to speak to the sorrowing multitude the fourth yeomen struck him a heavy blow on the head.
Ordered to light the fire, one of the villagers pretended lameness, but others were forthcoming as the martyr stepped into a pitch barrel and was chained by the waist to the stake. As the flames leapt up he began to pray aloud, and with hands folded across his breast submitted to the fire, uncomplaining.
In the streets of this old town have walked many boys who grew up to serve their generation well. John Overall was one of the makers of the Authorised Version of the Bible; Joseph Beaumont and William Alabaster were both poets; Thomas Woolner was the sculptor whose bust of Tennyson is in Westminster Abbey. But most famous of all the men of Hadleigh is the heroic Rowland Taylor, who was rector here for 11 years before they burned him on Aldham Common outside the town, in 1555. There is a monument to him on the common telling us that in defending what was good he at this place left his blood; and it is the chief interest of the deanery tower that the brave martyr hid himself in its tiniest chamber, where he must have spent some of the happiest and some of the most anxious hours of his life.
The tower was built by Archdeacon Pykenham in 1495 as the gatehouse of a parsonage which then stood near the river. It is a fine red brick place with panelled and battlemented turrets, inside one of which we may climb up to the oriel-windowed rooms above the gate. We come also up these steps into the lovely little vaulted oratory which has a secret way into the small chamber where Dr Taylor hid; if we are privileged to come to the deanery (a fine 19th century gabled house built on to the gateway) we may see the trapdoor through which he would creep.
It was in one of these rooms that the Oxford Movement began at a conference called by Dean Rose; the conference decided on the issue of the famous Tracts for the Times which made a great stir in the country. In one of the gatehouse rooms is a picture by Canaletto; it is of his native Venice and is said to have been painted here.
From the window of the gatehouse we look across to the timber-fronted guildhall, which saw the great prosperity of this woollen town from the Middle Ages up to the 17th century, having been the meeting-place of five guilds which existed here.
The great church, one of the spectacular buildings of Suffolk, is the fifth church of the county in size, the work of our three great building centuries but mostly of the 15th. Its great windows run in two rows from end to end of the chancel and the nave. The narrow tower is 64 feet high with a spire of 71 feet which has been here since the 14th century and covered with lead in our time. The tower is 700 years old, and one of the eight bells has been ringing since its earliest days.
We come in through two fine doors which have been on their hinges about 500 years. The wagon-headed roof of the nave is of last century; the chancel roof is old with bosses and grotesques and rich tracery. There are two elegant open screens in the aisles, medieval panelling in the finely vaulted vestry, and old bench-ends, on one of which we noticed a grotesque animal with folded wings and an ornamented collar, wearing a hood. It is holding a man’s head by the hair and is an extraordinary piece of work, supposed to represent the story of King Edmund, whose head was found near a wolf after the king had been decapitated by the Danes. It is believed that a beautiful 14th century tomb in the south aisle stands near the place where the Danish king Guthrum was buried in 889.
There is another lovely tomb in the sanctuary about 500 years old, thought to be that of Archdeacon Pykenham. The fine font comes from the same days, but it has a remarkable cover in memory of John Overall; it is 16 feet high. In a few fragments of old glass are the arms of four Archbishops of Canterbury, and in a window of the south wall is a group of scenes in the life of Rowland Taylor, showing him walking with a friend, preaching to his people, and standing bravely in white at the stake.
On the wall opposite his window is a 17th century brass with a rhymed epitaph to him in 20 lines; they have been engraved on the back of a Flemish brass of 1500, the Flemish engraving showing a civilian with long hair, wearing a triple chain. Other brasses of the 16th and 17th centuries show Bishop Still and his wife, John Alabaster, and Richard Glanfield and his wife, a quaint couple of Charles Stuart’s days, holding hands and wearing ruffs, she in a wide-brimmed hat.
There is a memorial to the 111 men who did not come back from the war, a charming relief of a mother and child, and a font cover, all by the same artist, Charles Sydney Spooner, who worked under the inspiration of William Morris.
The Pitiful Fate of a Scholar
ROWLAND TAYLOR was a Northumbrian, born in the beginning of the 16th century and distinguished as a scholar at Cambridge. He was brought up a Roman Catholic, but the preaching of Hugh Latimer started a doubt in his mind, and he became chaplain to Cranmer and a Protestant. Cranmer appointed him to Hadleigh, one of the first places in England where the Reformation began to quicken, and this man of good will and good works was the best loved parish priest in Suffolk.
But all was changed with the coming of Mary Tudor. Hearing the bell of his church ringing on a day when the building was supposed to be closed, Taylor hurried to find a strange priest celebrating mass, with two Roman Catholic parishioners for his congregation. The firm protest of the rector was followed by his being thrust out of the church, the door was locked in his face, and a report of his prohibition of the mass forwarded to the Bishop.
Summoned before Bishop Gardiner, he was brutally badgered and ill-used, but preserved an unruffled calm, appealing to the laws of Edward the Sixth and greatly reminding the terrible Chancellor of his own breach of the oath. Both Gardiner and Bonner pursued him with bitter malevolence, and found delight in stripping him and having the garments of a Roman Catholic priest forcibly put on him. He was sentenced to death.
He began his last journey in the middle of the night, but in the darkness his wife and their little children found him, cry answering cry in the gloom of the shrouded city streets. Four yeomen of the guard were his escort, three of them often in tears for his sake, the fourth a ruffian. The journey ended. “What place is this?” asked Taylor, and when they told him it was Aldham Common, and that there he was to suffer, he exclaimed. “Thanked be God; I am even at home.” The stake was ready, and Taylor, stripped to his shirt, gave away his clothes to those about him. When he began to speak to the sorrowing multitude the fourth yeomen struck him a heavy blow on the head.
Ordered to light the fire, one of the villagers pretended lameness, but others were forthcoming as the martyr stepped into a pitch barrel and was chained by the waist to the stake. As the flames leapt up he began to pray aloud, and with hands folded across his breast submitted to the fire, uncomplaining.
Friday, 8 March 2013
Kersey, Suffolk
St Mary is perched high over its pretty village and is, despite to my eyes a rather heavy handed Victorian restoration, magnificent. From north aisle bosses, tower corbels, rood dado, a dodo lectern (at least it looks more like a dodo than eagle to me), a fantastic font along with an even older one in the north chapel, some great niches, remnants of medieval stonework, damaged but still good roof angels and a south porch to die for this is a must have church and I forgot to mention the badly preserved wallpaintings.
Kersey is the most picturesque village of South Suffolk. The view from the church over the tiled roofs of the houses dipping down to the ford of the river Brett and climbing up the other side is not easily forgotten. The church lies on its own at the S end of the village, which is just one long street with an extension by the stream.
ST MARY. Dates are recorded for the completion of the N aisle (1335) and of the W tower (1481). Both fit the stylistic evidence. Dec N aisle - see the windows under their almost straight-sided arches and the four-petal motif in the tracery, and the fine, broad, ogee-headed niche between two of them inside. Niches also flank the E window. The chancel windows are Dec too, but the chancel was rebuilt in 1862. Are they correctly renewed? Lying between the two are the Sedilia and Piscina of the aisle, one straight-headed composition with four ogee headed vaulted niches. One of the vaults has miniature ribs. The backs of the three Sedilia niches are open in windows to the chancel. Can this motif be original? The N arcade is also of the same period. The piers are octagonal, the arches have one chamfer and one double-wave moulding. Hood-moulds to nave and aisle with pretty fleurons and leaf trails. Finally the aisle roof resting on a uniquely elaborate stone wall-plate, unfortunately ill-preserved. It clearly tells a long story, but what story has not yet been recognized by any student. The roof of the E chapel is ceiled with four big Elizabethan or Jacobean stucco panels. In spite of all these contributions of the early or mid C14, the effect of the church is Perp, thanks to the big W tower, the porches, and most of the windows. The tower has diagonal buttresses with four set-offs. On them long flushwork panels. Battlements with flushwork tracery. Big W doorway. Three-light W window with transom, flanked by fiushwork panels. Also niches l. and r. Bell-openings of three lights with transom. S windows Perp. S porch of two bays with flushwork and pinnacles. Inside the S porch ceiling with sixteen very delicately traceried panels. N porch similar but a little simpler. Perp clerestory, the roof with alternating long arched braces meeting at the collar-beam and hammerbeams.
FURNISHINGS. FONT. A slightly elongated octagon; Perp. Stout stem with quatrefoils. Bowl with four demi-figures of angels. - SCREEN. Dado of the screen to the N chapel, with six painted early C15 figures, not of high quality. - LECTERN. Wooden shaft with thin buttresses and flying buttresses. - WEST DOOR with tracery and a trail border. - SCULPTURE. Fragments of an alabaster altar, e.g. Trinity. Also good bearded heads probably from a reredos (cf. St Cuthbert Wells). From the same perhaps the seated figure of St Anne. - WALL PAINTING. St George and the Dragon, high up on the S wall. - PLATE. Paten 1711 ; Cup, Paten, and Flagon 1791.
Kersey is the most picturesque village of South Suffolk. The view from the church over the tiled roofs of the houses dipping down to the ford of the river Brett and climbing up the other side is not easily forgotten. The church lies on its own at the S end of the village, which is just one long street with an extension by the stream.
ST MARY. Dates are recorded for the completion of the N aisle (1335) and of the W tower (1481). Both fit the stylistic evidence. Dec N aisle - see the windows under their almost straight-sided arches and the four-petal motif in the tracery, and the fine, broad, ogee-headed niche between two of them inside. Niches also flank the E window. The chancel windows are Dec too, but the chancel was rebuilt in 1862. Are they correctly renewed? Lying between the two are the Sedilia and Piscina of the aisle, one straight-headed composition with four ogee headed vaulted niches. One of the vaults has miniature ribs. The backs of the three Sedilia niches are open in windows to the chancel. Can this motif be original? The N arcade is also of the same period. The piers are octagonal, the arches have one chamfer and one double-wave moulding. Hood-moulds to nave and aisle with pretty fleurons and leaf trails. Finally the aisle roof resting on a uniquely elaborate stone wall-plate, unfortunately ill-preserved. It clearly tells a long story, but what story has not yet been recognized by any student. The roof of the E chapel is ceiled with four big Elizabethan or Jacobean stucco panels. In spite of all these contributions of the early or mid C14, the effect of the church is Perp, thanks to the big W tower, the porches, and most of the windows. The tower has diagonal buttresses with four set-offs. On them long flushwork panels. Battlements with flushwork tracery. Big W doorway. Three-light W window with transom, flanked by fiushwork panels. Also niches l. and r. Bell-openings of three lights with transom. S windows Perp. S porch of two bays with flushwork and pinnacles. Inside the S porch ceiling with sixteen very delicately traceried panels. N porch similar but a little simpler. Perp clerestory, the roof with alternating long arched braces meeting at the collar-beam and hammerbeams.
FURNISHINGS. FONT. A slightly elongated octagon; Perp. Stout stem with quatrefoils. Bowl with four demi-figures of angels. - SCREEN. Dado of the screen to the N chapel, with six painted early C15 figures, not of high quality. - LECTERN. Wooden shaft with thin buttresses and flying buttresses. - WEST DOOR with tracery and a trail border. - SCULPTURE. Fragments of an alabaster altar, e.g. Trinity. Also good bearded heads probably from a reredos (cf. St Cuthbert Wells). From the same perhaps the seated figure of St Anne. - WALL PAINTING. St George and the Dragon, high up on the S wall. - PLATE. Paten 1711 ; Cup, Paten, and Flagon 1791.
KERSEY. We go down into Kersey and up out of it; it lies up and down its two hillsides, set in something like a natural letter V, with the church looking down from one hill and lovely timbered houses creeping up the other, a brook rippling between, and gardens everywhere. No traveller can be disappointed here, with all these legacies from Tudor England and this superb piece of country-planning by Nature herself.
Kersey lives in literature without any literary reason why, for it has given its name to a cloth which was famous centuries ago. It is mentioned in an Act of Parliament of Edward the Sixth, which fixes the standard of this cloth, and Kersey cloth comes into poetry more than once or twice and three times into Shakespeare, who twice mentions it as cloth (in Love’s Labour’s Lost and Measure for Measure) and once pays this village a high compliment by saying that he will express himself “in russet Yeas and honest kersey Noes.” Up and down this steep street, and over the stream which crosses it, the villagers of the great wool days would bring in their packs, and in these timbered houses would weave it into the enduring ribbed material which made them rich and gave a word to our language.
At the top of the street, facing the hill crowned by the church, is a wood the old weavers must have loved. Under the lofty trees in front of Priory Farm are the ruins of the tower, an aisle, a transept, and the west wall of the great church of the 12th century priory.
The church of today is 14th and 15th century. It has handsome buttresses, many of them niched and pinnacled, balancing an exterior over which rises a noble 15th century tower with battlements adorned with traceried and flinted panels. The south porch has a fine old roof carved with tracery and flowers. The nave reminds us of a tragedy which ended an architectural epoch, for it was left unfinished when the Black Death of the 14th century carried to the grave so many of the men who built the exquisite churches of those days. The nave arcade, with its delicate arches supported by slender octagonal pillars and its capitals with moulding and daintily carved foliage, was left unfinished when plague carried off the old artists at their work. The richly carved font, with angels on its panels, probably served at the christening of those craftsmen, for it is 600 years old, as is the impressive stone frieze, with scenes from the life of Christ, running under the roof of the north arcade. Under trefoil panelling in a chapel are fine 15th century stone seats which, like the piscina, have pinnacled arches with birds in the spandrels ; and here, under a plaster roof showing roses and sheaves of corn, is a wall recess in which is a broken alabaster sculpture. Vaulted niches by the window, one with St Anne sitting in a gilded robe, have traces of ancient colour.
The men who carved the birds and vines on the modern lychgate may have found inspiration for their work from the timber within. With a stout old chest banded with iron the church has two rare treasures of the woodworker’s art, a 15th century lectern with a beautifully carved eagle, as prim as a parson, holding the Bible on its upturned wings and tail. The eagle rests on an orb supported by graceful flying buttresses; and the lower panels of a grand old screen have three sceptred kings in ermine capes, and three prophets in ermine gowns. In the tracery above them are hanging flowers.
Kersey lives in literature without any literary reason why, for it has given its name to a cloth which was famous centuries ago. It is mentioned in an Act of Parliament of Edward the Sixth, which fixes the standard of this cloth, and Kersey cloth comes into poetry more than once or twice and three times into Shakespeare, who twice mentions it as cloth (in Love’s Labour’s Lost and Measure for Measure) and once pays this village a high compliment by saying that he will express himself “in russet Yeas and honest kersey Noes.” Up and down this steep street, and over the stream which crosses it, the villagers of the great wool days would bring in their packs, and in these timbered houses would weave it into the enduring ribbed material which made them rich and gave a word to our language.
At the top of the street, facing the hill crowned by the church, is a wood the old weavers must have loved. Under the lofty trees in front of Priory Farm are the ruins of the tower, an aisle, a transept, and the west wall of the great church of the 12th century priory.
The church of today is 14th and 15th century. It has handsome buttresses, many of them niched and pinnacled, balancing an exterior over which rises a noble 15th century tower with battlements adorned with traceried and flinted panels. The south porch has a fine old roof carved with tracery and flowers. The nave reminds us of a tragedy which ended an architectural epoch, for it was left unfinished when the Black Death of the 14th century carried to the grave so many of the men who built the exquisite churches of those days. The nave arcade, with its delicate arches supported by slender octagonal pillars and its capitals with moulding and daintily carved foliage, was left unfinished when plague carried off the old artists at their work. The richly carved font, with angels on its panels, probably served at the christening of those craftsmen, for it is 600 years old, as is the impressive stone frieze, with scenes from the life of Christ, running under the roof of the north arcade. Under trefoil panelling in a chapel are fine 15th century stone seats which, like the piscina, have pinnacled arches with birds in the spandrels ; and here, under a plaster roof showing roses and sheaves of corn, is a wall recess in which is a broken alabaster sculpture. Vaulted niches by the window, one with St Anne sitting in a gilded robe, have traces of ancient colour.
The men who carved the birds and vines on the modern lychgate may have found inspiration for their work from the timber within. With a stout old chest banded with iron the church has two rare treasures of the woodworker’s art, a 15th century lectern with a beautifully carved eagle, as prim as a parson, holding the Bible on its upturned wings and tail. The eagle rests on an orb supported by graceful flying buttresses; and the lower panels of a grand old screen have three sceptred kings in ermine capes, and three prophets in ermine gowns. In the tracery above them are hanging flowers.
Lindsey, Suffolk - St James's Chapel
Just down the road from St Peter is the C13th Chapel of St James. Maintained by English Heritage it is strongly reminiscent of three other chapels of similar age I've visited: St Helen in Wicken Bonhunt, Duxford Chapel and the Leper Chapel in Cambridge and, less so to Harlowbury and the Abbey Church in Cambridge.
It's always fascinating to see these early chapels and even more so when you can access them; the simplicity of the design, and the fact that they are still extant, lends them a special presence.
ST JAMES'S CHAPEL. Early C13, with lancet windows. The S wall is in its original state, with lancet windows and a doorway with one slight chamfer. Piscina late C13 (pointed-trefoiled arch). W doorway Early Tudor brick.
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.
Flickr.
It's always fascinating to see these early chapels and even more so when you can access them; the simplicity of the design, and the fact that they are still extant, lends them a special presence.
ST JAMES'S CHAPEL. Early C13, with lancet windows. The S wall is in its original state, with lancet windows and a doorway with one slight chamfer. Piscina late C13 (pointed-trefoiled arch). W doorway Early Tudor brick.
 |
| St James, Lindsey |
 |
| St Helen, Wicken Bonhunt |
 |
| Leper Chapel, Cambridge |
 |
| Duxford Chapel, Whittlesford |
 |
| St James, Lindsey |
 | ||
| Duxford Chapel, Whittlesford |
 | |||||
| Harlowbury Chapel, Essex |
 |
| Abbey Church, Cambridge |
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.
Flickr.
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.
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
