I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I assumed I knew individuals two counties. But of system there is far more to Norfolk than Norwich, Cromer, Yarmouth and Kings Lynn, as there is to Suffolk than Ipswich, Lowestoft, Stowmarket and Bury St. Edmunds. And so on My good friend, Simon K, operates a amazing web site, which I hyperlink to on EA church buildings, and on his Suffolk Church site he has visited 707 Suffolk churches, and 909 Norfolk churches. That is a whole lot of church buildings for two counties to share, and lots of of these churches are ancient, flint constructed, round towered or have wall paintings, picket roof angels or a thing value the hard work of going to see or looking for out the keyholder to get entry.
What I necessarily mean is that there is no way anyone who only had their individual car or truck until 1984, and had tiny desire in church buildings or parishes could have read of most of the parishes in the two counties, and so a parish church like St George.
I observed St George from the key street, I was taking a brief minimize to join the A14 and from there to the A12 and south on what I hoped my my final vacation of the 12 months to lowestoft as Mom is now out of medical center and in the treatment of district nurses in purchase to get set again on her toes.
So I saw the tower of St George from about 50 percent a mile absent, and imagined I had ample time to go around and see inside if I could.
I parked at the conclude of a cul-de-sac of new bungalows, and as I wander up the lender to the gate into the churchyard, the clean up lines of the tower, well, towered in excess of me.
In the porch I tried the doorway and observed it locked, but the keyholder list created it crystal clear that the nearest a person, at Christmas Cottage, was just about the street. So, why not test, Ian?
I went to the cottage and rang the bell. I had to fill out my details in a ledger, a reasonable evaluate. But I showed by driving licence to verify that I was who I claimed. Tiny did I know the modest village I lived in had been recognized. More of that in a moment.
Inside of St George, you eye is stolen by the wonderful pew ends animals of all kinds, actual and imaginary, and most had not been defaced, only those people of clear human kind. A person with the system of a chicken but a crystal clear human encounter experienced been remaining by itself, thus is the insanity of the puritan’s thoughts.
I made the decision that I would document just about every pew conclude determine, and quite a few total pew finishes so amazing that they ended up.
There is the feint define of a big wall painting, Simon says it was of St. Christopher. It would have been most outstanding when freshly painted. There is also a fantastic established of misericords.
St George’s glory is the altarpiece, into element Simon goes under. It is alarmed, so you are not able to search at them too carefully, regrettably, but these is a indicator of the occasions.
I took the keys back, and the girl of the house arrived to talk to me as she had been advised by her partner that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is where her relatives is from. Sadly, I am not from, nor live in Cliffe. For once there was certainly two Cliffs in Kent, a person on the Hoo Peninsular, where her loved ones is from, and just one in the vicinity of to Dover. Several years in the past, Cliffe in the vicinity of to Dover was referred to as WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake further more north. I stated this to her, but said St Helen in Cliffe is 1 of my favourite Kent churches, crafted of alternate layers of black and mild flints and stone, in sunlight it glistens and sparkles.
Even though St George below in Stowlangtoft is a good church, it is in a poor condition of fix, and is thanks to be designed redundant in the new calendar year. Usually unfortunate when that happens to a parish church, but it is most likely to be taken above by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to retain it tidy when the old wardens and keyholders are much too outdated.
Stowlangtoft is a fantastic church and so happy am I that I invested 40 minutes of my time to check out it. Go to see it now prior to it is also late!
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In the summer time of 2003, this site turned a six-element collection on BBC Radio Suffolk. Anything I stated in the fourth programme, about Hessett, produced a good sum of correspondence. Referring to the way numerous church buildings had been restored in the 19th century, I observed that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian eyesight of the medieval even when the actual furnishings and fittings are medieval, the full piece is continue to a Victorian conception.
Individuals wrote to me and mentioned things like “but in that circumstance, Simon, how do we know what was there initially and what wasn’t?”. To which my reply was the enigmatic “suppose that almost nothing is as it first seems, as Sherlock Holmes claimed”. And if he didn’t, then he should have completed.
A primary illustration of a church that assumes a continuity that may perhaps not actually be the reality is right here in the flat fields amongst Woolpit and Ixworth. This section of Suffolk can be somewhat bleak, primarily in late October, but England’s greatest summertime and autumn for a long time experienced left the churchyard here verdant and golden, as gorgeous a position as any I might found that 12 months. The church is huge, and sits on a mound that has been minimize down on just one side by the road. I walked up the slope, earlier the memorial to the art critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which by no means fails to shift me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett claims of it that it simply cannot be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the classes of the mere brain and sings to us of our deeper self.
Overcome as you may well be by it, really don’t fail to spot the damaged window tracery that has been applied to make the wall right here, for thereby hangs a tale.
St George, in scenario you do not know, is one particular of the wonderful Suffolk church buildings. Though it may possibly externally surface a little intense, and is by no implies as grand as Blythburgh, Extensive Melford and the relaxation, it is a treasure home of the medieval inside of. Unusually for a church of its date, it was all rebuilt in a person go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular home windows are not nonetheless complete of the ‘walls of glass’ self-assurance that the subsequent century would see. The tracery appears to have been fixed, and perhaps even renewed, which could make clear why there is damaged medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. On the other hand, it will not get considerably to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but embellished. So it may possibly be that the damaged tracery is from the authentic church that the late 14th century church changed. But the wall is not medieval, so the place had it been all people yrs?
A further survival from the earlier church is the font. It also asks some questions. Unusually, it features a Saint on 7 of the panels, Christ remaining on the westwards facial area. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it reveals are acquainted cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and much less usually St George. The cult of St George was at its peak in the early years of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it certainly isn’t on the lookout its very best. But I assume there is much more heading on in this article than satisfies the eye. Fonts were being plastered above in Elizabethan situations, and only reduction that stood proud of the plaster was mutilated. These are all shallow reliefs, and I do not assume they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at minimum, this stonework appears weathered. I marvel if this font was taken off from the church, possibly in the mid-17th century, and served an out of doors objective right up until it was returned in the 19th century.
The tale of this church in the 19th century is nicely-documented. In 1832, as part of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy frequented, and was delighted to find that the church was at last going through mend. The chancel experienced been roofless, and the nave employed for providers. A new Rectory was staying constructed. Who was the catalyst guiding all this? His title was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector here for nearly the center forty years of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a very good pal of John Henry Newman, the upcoming Cardinal, and they often corresponded on the issue of the pre-Reformation ordering of English churches. It is appealing to feel how, at this seminal minute, Rickards may well have informed the thought of the Oxford Motion. Unfortunately, when Newman became a Catholic Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
All through the study course of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards transformed Stowlangtoft church. He bought the excellent Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and full the marvellous set of bench finishes – Ringham did the same issue at Woolpit, a couple of miles away. Ringham’s function is so fantastic that it is in some cases difficult for the inexperienced eye to detect it nevertheless, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals in this article, and the wierder things is all medieval, and in all probability dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft’s bench ends is partly the sheer quantity – there are perhaps 60 carvings – but also that there are many exceptional subjects you can see some of them below.
The carvings show up to be aspect of the exact same group as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull taking part in a harp, the chook with a man’s head, from identical carvings in other places. And then with any luck , that small alarm bell in your listened to must commence to go “Hmmmm…..” for the reason that some of the carvings listed here are clearly not from the exact group. It is tricky to imagine that the mermaid and the owl, for example, are from the same workshop, or even from the exact decade. The benches them selves are no clue it was typical apply in the 19th century to switch medieval bench finishes on contemporary benches, or on medieval benches, or even on fashionable benches made out of medieval timber (as happened at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards identified some of these bench finishes somewhere else? Could he have been the kind of individual to do a point like that?
Effectively, of course he could. As Roy Tricker remembers, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is 1 that Rickards obtained just after obtaining it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the terrific 19th century restoration of our English church buildings, there was masses of medieval junk lying all over, much of it going begging. But was Samuel Rickards the type of human being to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Nicely, yes he possibly was. Glance at the medieval roundels in the center window on the south aspect of the nave. The 4 evangelists are above and down below two exceptional representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them underneath click on them to enlarge them. Regrettably, they are not medieval at all, and it is normally acknowledged that they were painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is one thing very similar the other aspect of Bury at Hawstead.
Really medieval is the extensive St Christopher wall-portray continue to discernible on the north wall. It was possibly a person of the last to be painted. The bench finishes are medieval, of course, as is the great rood-display screen dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval glass in the upper tracery of some of the home windows. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard’s fee, and the function of William White. What can Rickards have been contemplating of? But we step by means of into the chancel, and quickly the whole point moves up a gear. For in this article are some items that are really impressive.
In a county renowned for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. Powering the rood display screen dado is Suffolk’s most finish established of return stalls. Most hanging are the figures that sort finials to the stall ends. They are contributors in the Mass, which includes two Clergymen, two servers and two acolytes. The figure of the Priest at a prayer desk will have to be just one of the finest medieval photographs in Suffolk Mortlock assumed the stalls the finest in England. I was right here with my good friend Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he had beforehand photographed and prepared about these carving a a pair of decades back. But even he found one thing new to photograph, and a hush fell on the chancel as we explored.
The benches that experience eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are great points: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and topped heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. Among the seats are strange oriental faces. Some of them are down below click on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am likely to inquire future. How substantially of this is from this church originally? It all appears medieval do the job, and there is no reason to believe it may well not have been moved elsewhere in the church when the chancel was open up to the features. What evidence have we received?
To start with, we ought to observe that the only other Suffolk church with this sort of a massive quantity of medieval misericords of this high-quality is just a mile away, at Norton. I will not question you to see this as major, merely to see it in passing. Next, I am no carpenter, but it does appear to me as while two sets of furnishings have been cobbled collectively the stalls that again on to the monitor surface to have been built-in into the larger sized construction of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south walls.
Nevertheless, if you look intently at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche families. The Ashfield arms also surface on the rood screen, and the Ashfields had been the main donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on stability I am inclined to feel that the increased section of the stall structure was in this church initially from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Properly, I never know. But I imagine they have to be regarded as as portion of the same set as all those at Norton. In which situation they may possibly have arrive from the similar church, which might have been this a person, but might not have been. Almost surely, the stalls at Norton did not come from Norton church, and folklore has it that they were at first in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other remarkable things in St George contain FE Howard’s beautiful war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the reverse corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s stunning St George, which serves the similar purpose. It is as good as his function at Elveden. Again up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was seemingly exhibited at, and obtained from, the Great Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of study course, most well known for the Flemish carvings that flank the instead major altarpiece. They have been provided to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Corridor, who allegedly found them in an Ixworth junk shop. They exhibit visuals from the crucifixion tale, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides counsel. They day from the 1480s, and ended up virtually surely the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked all through the French Revolution. I had seen anything similar at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a handful of weeks in advance of. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these as soon as were, and piled up in a block somewhat than distribute out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches above them, are 19th century. My favourite illustrations or photos are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Click on on the illustrations or photos underneath.
1 chilly winter’s night time in January 1977, a gang of thieves broke into this locked church and stole them. Nothing at all far more was observed or listened to of them right up until 1982, when they ended up learned on show in an Amsterdam artwork gallery. Their journey had been a convoluted a single taken to Holland, they had been employed as security for a financial loan which was defaulted on. The new owner was then burgled, and the carvings were fenced to an Amsterdam junk dealer. They ended up acquired from his shop, and taken to the museum, which quickly discovered them as 15th century carvings. They put them on show, and a Dutch woman who had read through about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted authorized proceedings to get them back an injunction was taken out to cease the new owner eliminating them from the museum. The parish missing the situation, leaving them with a monstrous lawful bill but the story has a content ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their obtain from the owner, compensated off the authorized charges, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Seemingly this was all at extensive expense, but the businessman gave the reward in thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Today, the carvings are fastened firmly in area and alarmed, so they would not be heading walkabout again. But a little section of me miracles if they seriously really should be right here at all. Sure, they are medieval, but they weren’t in this article at first they weren’t even in England originally. Wouldn’t it be greater if they had been shown somewhere safer, where people could pay to see them, and provide some money for the servicing of the church setting up? And then, whisper it, St George may well even be retained open.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village large avenue. 3 keyholders are outlined, two of them promptly opposite. I am advised that Wednesday is not a good time to try out and get the crucial – it is marketplace day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2020-05-05 05:06:27
Tagged: , Carved wooden pew ends , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , Church , Jelltecks , Jelltex
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