St Mary, Wiggenhall St Mary, Norfolk
Simon Jenkins has observed that the churches of the Ouse delta kind possibly the very best focus of late-medieval craftsmanship in England. Naturally, any cathedral would give them a operate for their money, but you know what he implies. In this article, there are at least a dozen normally anonymous and workaday villages with merely monumental churches, lots of of them replete with wonders in stone and wooden. There is remarkably small medieval glass, and hardly a wall-painting at all perhaps the normal puritanism of the Fen folks dispatched these, but observed a simple use to the benches and the fonts. The biggest and grandest churches are at Walpole St Peter and Terrington St Clement, but neither are notably total of treasures. St Peter is a single of the most amazing architectural documents of the late medieval period of time, and St Clement is comprehensive of light and everyday living but in this article at Wiggenhall St Mary is the best collection of 15th and 16th century benches in Norfolk, possibly in England.
There are 4 Wiggenhalls: St Peter, St Germans, St Mary and St Mary Magdalene, now known just as Magdalen. All of the villages are compact, Magdalen currently being the most important, and are mainly approached up slim straight streets in the fens. All 4 churches sit close to the financial institutions of the Ouse – these banking institutions have been lifted, mainly because the drinking water stage is now bigger than the bordering land, but the towers even now form startling landmarks for any boat heading upstream from Lynn. St Peter is a destroy, and St Mary is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Rely on. It sits to the north of Magdalen with a pair of huge houses for firm.
As with all CCT churches, St Mary is well-kept. The rendering of the nave and chancel has lately been renewed and painted. They conceal a solution of this church, the total of brick applied in its development. The only expanse of brick continue to obvious is the upper component of the tower. The squatness of the tower belies its top, and stair turrets lean deliciously into it in the north-west and south-west corners, coming out as castellated turrets at the prime.
So, we could believe that the best third of the tower is present-day with the late medieval rebuilding – but the builders held the Early English doorway on both of those sides of the church. The south porch is significant, but useful there is very little of the elaborate decoration you locate at Walpole St Peter. Also practical is the considerable late Victorian restoration by George Street – all the roofs are his.
You action within to an interior that is at at the time significant but a tiny claustrophobic. This is simply because of the sheer quantity of woodwork – array right after range of good, very long, benches with significant bench ends. Street’s crown-posted roof looks to press down to satisfy them with out their pierced and traceried backs they would come to feel oppressive. The dust in the air and the murky light from the east window offers a perception, just for a second, of being underwater. There is a stillness, as if we have disturbed something that experienced very long remained undisturbed, as if we were the first folks to enter below for ages.
The nave was crammed with benches in two phases to begin with in the mid-15th century, and then yet again in the early 16th century. The more recent benches are those in the aisles. Benches are a symptom of what I have appear to feel of as a proto-Reformation maybe a century just before the actual one, there is a key change in the English Church from personal devotions to company acts of worship. This seems to have been partly a response to the Black Death, and a focus of the mind on creating it by means of purgatory the breaking up of the outdated estates introduced forth a new wealthy center course, who had been most anxious that their souls should be prayed for. Section of their undertaking was a reinforcing of orthodox Catholic doctrine during the 15th century, broad perpendicular windows replaced the wall paintings, filling the church buildings with gentle, and the fantastic roods were being elevated up to target people’s minds on the central doctrine of the Christian faith. Things of Catholic doctrine – the sacraments, the operates of mercy, the lethal sins – appeared in glass and stone. Benches stuffed the rebuilt church buildings – no longer were there shadowy corners exactly where old girls could tell their beads, and the plowman his Paternoster, as Mass progressed. The to start with pulpits appeared, and with the coming of the pulpit the Priest still left his chancel and entered the area of the men and women, having it about. All eyes had been fixed on him now.
The bench ends at Wiggenhall St Mary are elaborate. Tiers occur just about every facet flanking a significant specialized niche, which incorporates a determine. The tiers every single increase to a next and third determine, which are at times similar. Previously mentioned all rises the good poppyhead. You can shell out an fulfilling 50 % hour just pottering about hoping to recognize them. Many are in Tudor dress, and are seated in day-to-day attitudes. Some have rosaries. Some are Saints, many others depict animals, Labours of the Months, virtues or Christian symbols.
To some degree in contrast, there is an classy Laudian font deal with with slim pillars, and the date 1624. I wondered if the pelican in her piety on leading was a afterwards addition. As at many regional churches, there is an early-16th century latten lectern, an eagle supported at the toes by a few very little grinning lions. The Jacobean pulpit still retains its hourglass stand. Smatterings of medieval glass are in the higher lights of the north aisle windows. The royal arms are dated 1791, and inform us that the churchwarden that 12 months was J SUTTRBY.
There is an elegant parclose display in the south aisle which now is made up of the elaborate memorial tomb of Sir Henry Kerville and his wife. They lie aspect by side, arms in pious attitudes of prayer.He died in 1624 most transferring are the two small figures below them, 1 in swaddling clothing these are their youngsters who died in advance of them.
The east end of the nave was created for peak, for the terrific rood to attract everyone’s awareness. Maybe to aid accentuate this, the chancel arch is curiously slim, and there are just 8 panels on the dado of the display, four figures on just about every aspect flanking the entrance. From the north they are: St Mary of Magdala, St Dorothy, St Margaret, St Scholastica (twin sister of St Benedict), St Catherine, St Barbara, the Blessed Virgin and kid, and St John the Baptist. The chancel is fairly straightforward and empty, still left in its 19th century clothes. The dirty inexperienced glass of the east window is overpowering. For a second, you could possibly be anyplace. And then you transform again and see those people vast ranges of medieval benches once again they actually are most exceptional.
A hallmark of Church buildings Conservation Trust churches is that they are cleared of muddle but that is impossible here, of system, mainly because the muddle is the matter you occur to see. They are intriguing, fascinating but this church is curiously missing in atmosphere, particularly if you have just occur from Wiggenhall St Germans or Walpole St Peter. It is lifeless you could be in no question that it is redundant, and now little additional than a museum.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-15 18:59:15
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , St , Mary , Norfolk , East Anglia , church
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