St Mary Magdalen, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen, Norfolk
You cross the wide, lazy Wonderful Ouse, and at once Norfolk improvements. The rippling countryside flattens out, the horizon straightens. Norfolk’s trees vanish, apart from the odd a single or two that flame like beacons beneath the perpendicular sky. There aren’t definitely fields any more, just broad prairies, and the villages are perfunctory. This is the Marshland.
Pevsner mentions very couple properties west of the Ouse – except the excellent church buildings, some of which are among England’s best. In his ebook England’s Thousand Ideal Church buildings, Simon Jenkins includes no fewer than 10 of the Norfolk marshland churches. There are only nine for the full of Northumberland.
Magdalen is, perhaps, near enough to the rest of Norfolk to still be a appropriate East Anglian village, and a fairly a person at that. One particular to savour if you are heading west and about to idea off the edge of the actual county into that peculiar, sinking landscape beyond inexorably, drinking water spilt here would roll into Lincolnshire. But the church is a marshland church, significant daring and gorgeous with that air of chiarascuro acquainted from its neighbours, a somewhat decayed magnificence with the scent of previous wood and damp in the air.
The village takes its identify from St Mary of Magdala, of training course, for the reason that it is truly one particular of the Wiggenhalls. Around the yrs, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalene has become a bit of a mouthful, notably provided the presence of the close by parish of Wiggenhall St Mary, exactly where there is no true village. So, Magdalen it has become, 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 satisfaction to take a look at a entire village named just after her. The church is a attractive assemblage of purple brick, flint and stone, wholly organic and natural as it rises venerably in the slim graveyard. It is all pretty a lot 15th century, constructed on wool cash, although as is popular in East Anglia the excellent tower is before, on the eve of the Black Loss of life. If it had at any time been rebuilt, this would have been a single of the most outstanding church buildings in England.
You step into a massive making, entire of gentle, a dusty air slipping slowly. At the west conclusion, there is a odd minor door into the base of the tower – I marvel if the rebuilding of the nave raised the stage of the ground – and on possibly facet of it the remains of the rood screen are propped up, just four panels depicting the evangelistic symbols. Now, this is extremely curious – the symbols do not generally surface on roodscreens. My instinct was that they could be later on, but the perform undoubtedly seems to be medieval, and the encounter of Matthew’s winged gentleman has been scratched out.
A lot of the character of the nave comes from the woodwork, a satisfying combination of uncomplicated medieval benches and 19th century box pews beneath the initial 15th century roof, which is instead rustic in character with alternating hammerbeams and queen posts.
Just as neighbouring Wiggenhall St Mary has the biggest assortment of medieval bench ends in Norfolk, St Mary Magdalen has the greatest selection of 15th century stained glass figures. There are about forty of them, scattered in the higher lights of the north aisle. Even so, they are instead professional collection, and not very easily identifiable to the untutored eye, due to the fact relatively than common Apostles and Saints they primarily signify Bishops, Archbishops and Popes.
Simon Cotton, in the church guideline, presents an outstanding vital to them. Ann Eljenholm Nichols’ e book Early Art of Norfolk, probably the ideal book at any time written about the medieval churches of Norfolk, demonstrates that additional than a number of of them are exclusive representations in the county, and potentially in the Kingdom. Most of them have scrolls, and with binoculars you can decipher some of the inscriptions, but couple of have their familiar symbols with them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-10 09:25:42
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , Mary , Magdalene , magdalen , Norfolk , East Anglia
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