I was final at St John a person chilly Boxing Working day morning, on a single of individuals dutiful trips to see Mother at Xmas. At just right after dawn, it was locked, but appeared a good church and a single to revisit.
So it was previous Thursday, touring back again to Suffolk, I arrived at Saxmundham as the sunlight was setting, location the great church tower bathed in heat golden mild.
As I stopped to take a shot of the tower, I was unaware of the vicar attempting to get past in his motor vehicle, but he was individual as I go my shot.
He was waiting for me at the porch, and proposed I hurry within to see the windows that ended up illuminated by the sunlight, this I did.
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Saxmundham is a fine city about halfway in between Ipswich and Lowestoft. The A12 now bypasses it, which was unlucky for a even though since, like quite a few compact cities in that circumstance, it missing the passing trade which had been a single of the explanations for its existence. Saxmundham, or ‘Sax’ as locals phone it, grew to prominence in the 18th and 19th centuries, and it nonetheless has the character of a Victorian railway town, specifically close to the station. But it is not a vacationer town, unlike its good rival Framlingham, or ‘Fram’, just throughout the A12.
I like Saxmundham a lot there is an air of resilience about the area, and any modest city with two next hand bookshops have to have a little something likely for it. What it does pass up is a dominating medieval church, mainly because St John the Baptist is absent from the key avenue on the street to Leiston.
The graveyard is a high-quality spot, whole of the headstones of 18th and 19th century worthies. Most famed is the headstone to John Noller, which has its own sundial.
There is a crisp 19th century really feel to the church, since it was matter to an 1870s restoration at the arms of Diocesan architect Richard Phipson. Nevertheless, Phipson was more delicate to the will need to protect medieval survivals than his successor Herbert Inexperienced, and so the church has lots of fascinating points to see. Even so, Phipson wasn’t over producing them much more medieval than they now were being, and so the font, a person of the greatest Suffolk illustrations of the 15th century East Anglian design and style, is totally recut. There are intense minimal wild gentlemen close to the base, and a single of the shields functions the instruments of the enthusiasm.
Maybe the most appealing survival in this article, and a unusual 1, can be observed in the most easterly home windows of each and every of the clerestories. These are the stone corbel ledges that as soon as supported the canopy of honour about the rood. They are both carved elaborately, and the northern 1 is castellated. Sancta Johnannes, Ora Pro Nobis (‘St John pray for us’) is carved in a banner alongside that on the south aspect.
Even with these medieval survivals, the most vital artistic artefacts below are in the east window of the south aisle. This is a collection of ovals of 17th century glass thought to come from Innsbruck, depicting Saints and biblical scenes. It is of excellent excellent, and interesting to glance at. In truth, aside from the weak east window there is a excellent collection of Victorian glass below as very well. I invested about half an hour documenting it all meticulously, and then lost the memory card from my digicam that had all the visuals on. And so, I will have to go back again. Sorry.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.british isles/saxmundham.html
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The church is a great deal changed from the initial church which was recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Minor evidence of this Norman or possibly Saxon church continues to be, even though some masonry to be observed in the lower stage of the tower might be of this day.
We also know that the church experienced a South porch that contained a simple 11th century doorway. Sad to say, the porch and doorway disappeared in a significant restoration and rebuilding in 1873. Having said that, we do have a photo of the porch from an etching in 1848.
Substantially of the church that we see right now stems from the 19th century restoration but the church even now incorporates a lot of unique goods of an before day.
The Western tower (14th century) has diagonal buttresses at its western angles. The two light-weight belfry windows and the identical west window are in the Decorated style of the early 14th century. The restored west doorway is also of this day, though some of the masonry in the lower aspect of the tower is arranged in another way from the rest and may possibly have shaped aspect of the 11th century church.
The clock was specified in 1880 and was restored in 1938. The parapet has beautiful 15th century flint panelling (flushwork) with traceried panels. Beneath it is a band of flowers (flearons) and carved heads, in addition to a significant head at the centre of the west aspect and a gargoyle head on the south aspect.
The tower is household to a peal of six bells. 3 of these bells had been forged c. 1480-1 510 by John Kebyll of London. A different was made in 1609 by Brend, the Norwich bell-founder, and the tenor, weighing 8cwt.3qtr.7Ib, is by Lester and Pack of Whitechapel, designed in 1762. The ring was concluded by the addition of a new treble bell by John Warner of London in 1880. The 2nd bell was recast in 1938, and the bells ended up rehung in new oak frames by Bowell of Ipswich.
A gem in the crown that is St John’s can be uncovered in the churchyard on the tombstone of John Noller (1725), which can be located south west of the church techniques and in eight yards. The east and west faces of the tombstone are compact, inclined rectangular recesses which variety a basic and imaginative sundial. Every single sundial requires a pointer or gnomon projecting in front of the dial to solid a shadow on to a marked scale. Any this kind of projection reduced down on a tombstone would surely, quicker or afterwards, be damaged. To avoid this occurring, the designer of John Noller’s headstone hit on the ingenious concept of creating the edge of the headstone’s area the gnomon and acquired the relative projection by recessing the dial.
As the stone faces east and west, he carved a morning dial on one aspect (east encounter) and an night just one on the other (west experience). If you search in the recesses on equally faces you will see the hour markings 1,2,3,4,5 on the west recess and 7,8,9,10,11 on the east recess. 12 o’clock is not marked for the reason that at the instant of noon each and every dial is wholly in shadow.
You will also discover that the dials are not upright on the stone but at a slant. The upper edge which functions as the gnomon is so slanted as to level just to the north star, or in other words, be parallel with the earth’s axis.
And why was it completed? Well, we are not certain, but just as some clocks are marked with tile inscription “Tempus fugit” or time flies, so this gravestone with its sundial marking the passing of time also reminds us, the residing, that our time soon passes. Or most likely it was choosing up on a different thought about time from the Bible:
“There is a time for every thing, and a year for every single
action less than heaven: a time to be born and a time to die,”
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)
The Nave
The Font c 1400
This is a normal East Anglian design with octagonal panelled bowl carved with lions interspersed with angels keeping shields on which are shown the instruments of the Enthusiasm (East), the Cross (South), the emblem of the Trinity (West) and the three crowns of East Anglia (North). The bowl of the font is original.
The Nave c 1500
Internally the building is harmonious, gentle and well-proportioned. The aisles are separated from the nave by 15th century (Perpendicular) arcades of four bays, with octagonal piers which have moulded capitals and bases. These are topped by six two light-weight clerestorey home windows.
At the West stop of the nave is the comparatively fashionable glazed gallery, from which the church’s peal of six bells are rung. The west window of the tower ringing chamber has the only piece of medieval glass, the head of an angel, to survive in this church. Above the ringing chamber is a massive Sanctus bell window, which in mediaeval periods permitted the ringer of the Sanctus bell to see in excess of the Rood Display screen to the principal altar.
Stained Glass
The 19th century stained glass in the course of the church is of desire due to the fact of the subjects represented as very well as the makers and artists associated.
The West window of the North aisle is described in The Popular Manual to Suffolk Churches as getting “a relatively awful solution of Ward and Hughes and attributes an outlandishly dressed centurion”. What else can be explained? Magnificence is naturally in the eye of the beholder.
The East window of the North aisle depicting two angels in opposition to patterned quarries is of interest simply because of its nearby connections. It was intended and painted by Mary and Bessie McKean of Saxmundham in 1872 and put in by Mr Howlett, a Saxmundham glazier.
The Victorian tour de power is certainly the West window of the South aisle, intended by the Dowager Marchioness of Waterford, a good friend of the poet John Ruskin, and a well identified artist and e-book illustrator. The glass is by O’Connor and Taylor and illustrates Jesus’s ascension into heaven, in outstanding color. Jesus stands in the centre, and the disciples kneel on either side. The drama of the scene is improved by the top quality of the artist’s do the job and in specific the facial options.
Pews and Pulpit
The present pews and pulpit date from the restoration of 1873 and are manufactured from New Zealand kaurie pine. They substitute the old box pews which were being so tall that several people employing them could neither see nor be noticed.
The total of the nave is crowned with a splendid 15th century one-hammerbeam arch braced roof, with castellated hammers and wooden demi-figures as corbels beneath the wall posts.
All through the Georgian period, or potentially just before, the roof was included in with a flat plaster ceiling. A church information book of 1855 states that at the time only the “finishes” of the roof ended up obvious underneath the ceiling and that the complete interior was disfigured by galleries.
Happily the ceiling was removed in 1932 to expose this splendid roof. It has been restored and the wall plates have been renewed, as have quite a few of the other timbers. The historical woodwork is fewer brown in visual appearance than the modern day. The figures beneath the wall posts are mostly primary.
The Chancel
1 of the most distinctive options of St John’s is its weeping chancel. If you stand in the nave centre aisle and look toward the altar, you will detect that the Chancel is created at a pronounced angle to the nave. This is quite common in church buildings constructed in the form of a cross (cruciform) but is quite rare in a church of this style. The primary attribute is not the angle, which is significantly greater than regular, but that it is to the South.
Other church buildings with weeping chancels incline to the North, representing Jesus on the cross with his head in the direction of the penitent thief on his ideal. Below it is to his left, signifying that Jesus died for the impenitent as well as the penitent. Saxmundham church is a person of the handful of in Europe to have this aspect.
The Chancel arch and the two bay arcade North and South ended up replaced as component of the 1873 restoration, but we imagine that the restorers copied the authentic varieties (Embellished model)
The organ by Albert Pease of Hackney was mounted below in the early 1950s. It has two manuals, pedals and 15 speaking stops.
www.saxmundham.org/aboutsax/parishchurch.html
Posted by Jelltex on 2016-11-14 20:44:09
Tagged: , St. John the Baptist , Saxmundham , Suffolk , Church , Jelltex , Jelltecks
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