St Mary Magdalen, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen, Norfolk
You cross the broad, lazy Terrific Ouse, and at after Norfolk modifications. The rippling countryside flattens out, the horizon straightens. Norfolk’s trees vanish, aside from the odd a single or two that flame like beacons below the perpendicular sky. There usually are not actually fields anymore, just large prairies, and the villages are perfunctory. This is the Marshland.
Pevsner mentions pretty several structures west of the Ouse – except the terrific church buildings, some of which are amid England’s best. In his ebook England’s Thousand Very best Church buildings, Simon Jenkins contains no significantly less than 10 of the Norfolk marshland churches. There are only nine for the total of Northumberland.
Magdalen is, maybe, shut sufficient to the relaxation of Norfolk to continue to be a correct East Anglian village, and a very a single at that. A person to savour if you are heading west and about to suggestion off the edge of the true county into that unusual, sinking landscape outside of inexorably, h2o spilt below would roll into Lincolnshire. But the church is a marshland church, significant bold and stunning with that air of chiarascuro common from its neighbours, a marginally decayed splendor with the scent of aged wood and damp in the air.
The village requires its title from St Mary of Magdala, of program, mainly because it is truly a single of the Wiggenhalls. Above the years, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalene has turn into a bit of a mouthful, especially presented the existence of the close by parish of Wiggenhall St Mary, in which there is no actual village. So, Magdalen it has turn into, incidentally providing its name to a railway station on the Cambridge to Kings Lynn line. St Mary of Magdala is 1 of my favorite Saints, and so it was a enjoyment to pay a visit to a entire village named right after her. The church is a gorgeous assemblage of purple brick, flint and stone, wholly natural as it rises venerably in the slender graveyard. It is all really a lot 15th century, built on wool income, even though as is frequent in East Anglia the great tower is previously, on the eve of the Black Demise. If it experienced at any time been rebuilt, this would have been one particular of the most magnificent churches in England.
You step into a big creating, total of light, a dusty air falling slowly and gradually. At the west conclude, there is a bizarre tiny door into the foundation of the tower – I wonder if the rebuilding of the nave raised the amount of the floor – and on both side of it the remains of the rood display are propped up, just four panels depicting the evangelistic symbols. Now, this is pretty curious – the symbols do not frequently seem on roodscreens. My instinct was that they could be later on, but the do the job definitely seems to be medieval, and the facial area of Matthew’s winged person has been scratched out.
Much of the character of the nave arrives from the woodwork, a satisfying combination of basic medieval benches and 19th century box pews beneath the original 15th century roof, which is alternatively rustic in character with alternating hammerbeams and queen posts.
Just as neighbouring Wiggenhall St Mary has the major collection of medieval bench ends in Norfolk, St Mary Magdalen has the biggest selection of 15th century stained glass figures. There are about forty of them, scattered in the higher lights of the north aisle. Nevertheless, they are fairly specialist selection, and not very easily identifiable to the untutored eye, since fairly than familiar Apostles and Saints they largely symbolize Bishops, Archbishops and Popes.
Simon Cotton, in the church guideline, offers an exceptional essential to them. Ann Eljenholm Nichols’ ebook Early Artwork of Norfolk, in all probability the very best e-book ever written about the medieval churches of Norfolk, exhibits that much more than a several of them are one of a kind representations in the county, and possibly in the Kingdom. Most of them have scrolls, and with binoculars you can decipher some of the inscriptions, but handful of have their acquainted symbols with them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-10 09:25:45
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , Mary , Magdalene , magdalen , Norfolk , East Anglia
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