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 person or two that flame like beacons under the perpendicular sky. There aren’t actually fields any longer, just broad prairies, and the villages are perfunctory. This is the Marshland.
Pevsner mentions incredibly couple structures west of the Ouse – except the terrific church buildings, some of which are among the England’s best. In his ebook England’s Thousand Very best Church buildings, Simon Jenkins involves no a lot less than ten of the Norfolk marshland church buildings. There are only 9 for the entire of Northumberland.
Magdalen is, potentially, near sufficient to the relaxation of Norfolk to however be a good East Anglian village, and a very a single at that. One to savour if you are heading west and about to tip off the edge of the authentic county into that odd, sinking landscape beyond inexorably, h2o spilt below would roll into Lincolnshire. But the church is a marshland church, massive daring and lovely with that air of chiarascuro common from its neighbours, a a bit decayed splendor with the scent of old wood and damp in the air.
The village normally takes its name from St Mary of Magdala, of training course, mainly because it is truly just one of the Wiggenhalls. Around the years, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalene has become a little bit of a mouthful, specifically presented the existence of the close by parish of Wiggenhall St Mary, where by there is no actual village. So, Magdalen it has turn into, incidentally supplying its name to a railway station on the Cambridge to Kings Lynn line. St Mary of Magdala is one particular of my favorite Saints, and so it was a enjoyment to pay a visit to a whole village named after her. The church is a magnificent assemblage of pink brick, flint and stone, wholly natural and organic as it rises venerably in the slender graveyard. It is all very a great deal 15th century, constructed on wool income, whilst as is widespread in East Anglia the good tower is previously, on the eve of the Black Death. If it experienced ever been rebuilt, this would have been one of the most superb churches in England.
You action into a big constructing, full of light-weight, a dusty air slipping slowly and gradually. At the west close, there is a strange tiny doorway into the foundation of the tower – I marvel if the rebuilding of the nave raised the degree of the floor – and on possibly aspect of it the stays of the rood display screen are propped up, just four panels depicting the evangelistic symbols. Now, this is very curious – the symbols do not generally seem on roodscreens. My instinct was that they could possibly be afterwards, but the function certainly appears medieval, and the deal with of Matthew’s winged guy has been scratched out.
Much of the character of the nave arrives from the woodwork, a satisfying combination of straightforward medieval benches and 19th century box pews beneath the primary 15th century roof, which is rather rustic in character with alternating hammerbeams and queen posts.
Just as neighbouring Wiggenhall St Mary has the largest selection of medieval bench finishes in Norfolk, St Mary Magdalen has the greatest assortment 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 assortment, and not easily identifiable to the untutored eye, since rather than common Apostles and Saints they generally stand for Bishops, Archbishops and Popes.
Simon Cotton, in the church guide, gives an outstanding crucial to them. Ann Eljenholm Nichols’ e book Early Art of Norfolk, in all probability the greatest e-book at any time written about the medieval churches of Norfolk, reveals that a lot more than a several of them are one of a kind representations in the county, and probably in the Kingdom. Most of them have scrolls, and with binoculars you can decipher some of the inscriptions, but several have their common symbols with them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-10 09:25:32
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , Mary , Magdalene , magdalen , Norfolk , East Anglia
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