I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I believed I understood individuals two counties. But of class there is 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, runs a fabulous web-site, which I link to on EA churches, and on his Suffolk Church webpage he has visited 707 Suffolk churches, and 909 Norfolk churches. That is a lot of churches for two counties to share, and quite a few of all those church buildings are ancient, flint designed, spherical towered or have wall paintings, wood roof angels or anything truly worth the effort and hard work of likely to see or searching for out the keyholder to get entry.
What I indicate is that there is no way anyone who only had their possess auto till 1984, and had little 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 saw St George from the most important street, I was having a shorter slash to join the A14 and from there to the A12 and south on what I hoped my my last excursion of the 12 months to lowestoft as Mother is now out of hospital and in the care of district nurses in buy to get set back again on her feet.
So I observed the tower of St George from about half a mile absent, and believed I experienced plenty of time to go more than and see inside of if I could.
I parked at the finish of a cul-de-sac of new bungalows, and as I wander up the bank to the gate into the churchyard, the clean lines of the tower, perfectly, towered above me.
In the porch I tried the doorway and found it locked, but the keyholder record produced it apparent that the nearest just one, at Christmas Cottage, was just around the road. So, why not consider, Ian?
I went to the cottage and rang the bell. I had to fill out my facts in a ledger, a sensible measure. But I confirmed by driving licence to verify that I was who I claimed. Small did I know the small village I lived in had been noticed. Much more of that in a minute.
Within St George, you eye is stolen by the wonderful pew finishes animals of all kinds, true and imaginary, and most had not been defaced, only all those of clear human variety. One particular with the body of a rooster but a clear human encounter had been left by yourself, hence is the insanity of the puritan’s thoughts.
I resolved that I would report every single pew close figure, and quite a few whole pew ends so fantastic that they have been.
There is the feint define of a huge wall portray, Simon suggests it was of St. Christopher. It would have been most impressive when freshly painted. There is also a wonderful set of misericords.
St George’s glory is the altarpiece, into depth Simon goes down below. It is alarmed, so you are unable to glance at them much too intently, sadly, but these types of is a indicator of the periods.
I took the keys back again, and the woman of the dwelling came to converse to me as she had been instructed by her partner that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is wherever her loved ones is from. Regrettably, I am not from, nor dwell in Cliffe. For as soon as there was in truth two Cliffs in Kent, one on the Hoo Peninsular, exactly where her household is from, and one in the vicinity of to Dover. Quite a few a long time in the past, Cliffe around to Dover was termed WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake even more north. I spelled out this to her, but mentioned St Helen in Cliffe is just one of my favourite Kent church buildings, constructed of alternate levels of black and mild flints and stone, in sunlight it glistens and sparkles.
Even though St George below in Stowlangtoft is a wonderful church, it is in a poor condition of maintenance, and is due to be produced redundant in the new yr. Always unfortunate when that takes place to a parish church, but it is probable to be taken in excess of by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to maintain it tidy when the old wardens and keyholders are much too outdated.
Stowlangtoft is a fabulous church and so happy am I that I expended 40 minutes of my time to check out it. Go to see it now in advance of it is much too late!
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In the summer of 2003, this web-site grew to become a 6-portion series on BBC Radio Suffolk. A little something I stated in the fourth programme, about Hessett, created a truthful amount of money of correspondence. Referring to the way a lot of churches were being restored in the 19th century, I observed that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian vision of the medieval even when the true furnishings and fittings are medieval, the complete piece is nonetheless a Victorian conception.
Individuals wrote to me and said points like “but in that scenario, Simon, how do we know what was there at first and what was not?”. To which my reply was the enigmatic “presume that very little is as it initial seems, as Sherlock Holmes mentioned”. And if he did not, then he must have accomplished.
A primary illustration of a church that assumes a continuity that could not truly be the fact is here in the flat fields in between Woolpit and Ixworth. This part of Suffolk can be somewhat bleak, in particular in late October, but England’s finest summer time and autumn for a long time had still left the churchyard right here verdant and golden, as gorgeous a spot as any I would noticed that yr. The church is significant, and sits on a mound that has been reduce down on one aspect by the street. I walked up the slope, past the memorial to the artwork critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which never ever fails to transfer me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett says of it that it are unable to be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the categories of the mere mind and sings to us of our deeper self.
Overcome as you may be by it, never fail to location the damaged window tracery that has been used to create the wall right here, for thereby hangs a tale.
St George, in circumstance you you should not know, is a person of the terrific Suffolk churches. Although it might externally seem a minor severe, and is by no implies as grand as Blythburgh, Extensive Melford and the relaxation, it is a treasure dwelling of the medieval within. Unusually for a church of its date, it was all rebuilt in 1 go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular home windows are not nonetheless complete of the ‘walls of glass’ self confidence that the subsequent century would see. The tracery seems to have been repaired, and perhaps even renewed, which may possibly explain why there is broken medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. On the other hand, it does not take considerably to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but adorned. So it may well be that the damaged tracery is from the initial church that the late 14th century church changed. But the wall is not medieval, so exactly where had it been all all those several years?
Yet another survival from the earlier church is the font. It also asks some queries. Unusually, it characteristics a Saint on 7 of the panels, Christ becoming on the westwards confront. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it reveals are common cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and less normally St George. The cult of St George was at its height in the early a long time of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it undoubtedly isn’t searching its greatest. But I believe there is more heading on listed here than meets the eye. Fonts ended up plastered about in Elizabethan occasions, and only aid that stood happy 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 least, this stonework seems weathered. I question if this font was eradicated from the church, almost certainly in the mid-17th century, and served an out of doors intent till it was returned in the 19th century.
The tale of this church in the 19th century is well-documented. In 1832, as component of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy visited, and was delighted to find that the church was at previous going through fix. The chancel experienced been roofless, and the nave made use of for solutions. A new Rectory was remaining developed. Who was the catalyst behind all this? His name was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector here for virtually the center forty several years of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a excellent friend of John Henry Newman, the future Cardinal, and they usually corresponded on the topic of the pre-Reformation purchasing of English churches. It is interesting to imagine how, at this seminal moment, Rickards may have informed the imagined of the Oxford Movement. Unfortunately, when Newman turned a Catholic Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
Through the study course of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards transformed Stowlangtoft church. He received the terrific Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and entire the marvellous established of bench ends – Ringham did the identical matter at Woolpit, a number of miles absent. Ringham’s perform is so great that it is from time to time tricky for the inexperienced eye to detect it on the other hand, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals here, 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 amount – there are probably 60 carvings – but also that there are quite a few special subjects you can see some of them below.
The carvings surface to be part of the same team as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull playing a harp, the chook with a man’s head, from identical carvings in other places. And then with any luck , that little alarm bell in your listened to must commence to go “Hmmmm…..” for the reason that some of the carvings right here are plainly not from the exact team. It is difficult to consider that the mermaid and the owl, for example, are from the similar workshop, or even from the very same 10 years. The benches themselves are no clue it was typical follow in the 19th century to substitute medieval bench finishes on modern day benches, or on medieval benches, or even on present day benches designed out of medieval timber (as took place at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards located some of these bench finishes elsewhere? Could he have been the variety of particular person to do a issue like that?
Well, certainly he could. As Roy Tricker remembers, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is one particular that Rickards obtained just after discovering it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the wonderful 19th century restoration of our English church buildings, there was masses of medieval junk lying around, substantially of it likely begging. But was Samuel Rickards the variety of person to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Properly, yes he likely was. Glimpse at the medieval roundels in the middle window on the south facet of the nave. The four evangelists are over and below two superb representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them underneath click on them to enlarge them. Unfortunately, they are not medieval at all, and it is normally recognized that they ended up painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is anything related the other side of Bury at Hawstead.
Certainly medieval is the extensive St Christopher wall-portray still discernible on the north wall. It was most likely a single of the final to be painted. The bench finishes are medieval, of training course, as is the wonderful rood-screen dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval glass in the higher tracery of some of the home windows. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard’s fee, and the operate of William White. What can Rickards have been contemplating of? But we action by means of into the chancel, and out of the blue the entire factor moves up a equipment. For in this article are some items that are certainly remarkable.
In a county famous for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are spectacular, even awe-inspiring. Guiding the rood display screen dado is Suffolk’s most complete established of return stalls. Most striking are the figures that sort finials to the stall finishes. They are contributors in the Mass, which includes two Clergymen, two servers and two acolytes. The figure of the Priest at a prayer desk should be a single of the most effective medieval images in Suffolk Mortlock considered the stalls the greatest in England. I was below with my good friend Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he experienced beforehand photographed and written about these carving a a few of several years back. But even he identified some thing new to photograph, and a hush fell on the chancel as we explored.
The benches that confront eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are excellent things: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and topped heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. In between the seats are odd oriental faces. Some of them are down below simply click on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am likely to question following. How significantly of this is from this church initially? It all appears medieval operate, and there is no explanation to think it could possibly not have been moved somewhere else in the church when the chancel was open up to the components. What evidence have we got?
Firstly, we ought to see that the only other Suffolk church with such a large quantity of medieval misericords of this top quality is just a mile absent, at Norton. I don’t check with you to see this as considerable, simply to recognize it in passing. Secondly, I am no carpenter, but it does look to me as however two sets of furnishings have been cobbled alongside one another the stalls that back again on to the display look to have been integrated into the larger composition of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south partitions.
However, if you appear closely at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche households. The Ashfield arms also look on the rood screen, and the Ashfields had been the significant donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on balance I am inclined to imagine that the larger section of the stall composition was in this church originally from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Effectively, I you should not know. But I think they have to be regarded as as section of the same established as those people at Norton. In which situation they could have occur from the identical church, which may perhaps have been this just one, but could not have been. Nearly surely, the stalls at Norton did not occur from Norton church, and folklore has it that they ended up at first in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other remarkable items in St George involve FE Howard’s stunning war memorial in the previous north doorway, and in the reverse corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s gorgeous St George, which serves the identical goal. It is as great as his function at Elveden. Again up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was evidently exhibited at, and obtained from, the Excellent Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of study course, most well known for the Flemish carvings that flank the relatively weighty altarpiece. They had been offered to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Corridor, who allegedly discovered them in an Ixworth junk store. They exhibit illustrations or photos from the crucifixion story, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides recommend. They day from the 1480s, and had been virtually certainly the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked during the French Revolution. I had noticed a thing very similar at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a number of months prior to. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these once have been, and piled up in a block rather than unfold out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches above them, are 19th century. My favorite photos are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Simply click on the pictures below.
One chilly winter’s night in January 1977, a gang of burglars broke into this locked church and stole them. Very little a lot more was found or read of them until eventually 1982, when they were discovered on exhibit in an Amsterdam artwork gallery. Their journey experienced been a convoluted one particular taken to Holland, they had been utilised as stability for a bank loan which was defaulted on. The new operator was then burgled, and the carvings were being fenced to an Amsterdam junk vendor. They had been bought from his store, and taken to the museum, which right away identified them as 15th century carvings. They put them on screen, and a Dutch girl who experienced study about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted authorized proceedings to get them again an injunction was taken out to stop the new operator taking away them from the museum. The parish dropped the situation, leaving them with a monstrous authorized invoice but the tale has a happy ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their buy from the owner, paid off the authorized expenditures, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Evidently this was all at vast value, but the businessman gave the reward in many thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Right now, the carvings are set firmly in position and alarmed, so they is not going to be going walkabout once again. But a tiny aspect of me wonders if they genuinely must be right here at all. Sure, they are medieval, but they were not listed here initially they weren’t even in England originally. Wouldn’t it be greater if they ended up displayed someplace safer, wherever individuals could spend to see them, and give some earnings for the routine maintenance of the church developing? And then, whisper it, St George could possibly even be stored open up.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village substantial street. A few keyholders are shown, two of them straight away opposite. I am told that Wednesday is not a excellent time to consider and get the critical – it is market working day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.british isles/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2017-12-17 13:43:00
Tagged: , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , Church , Jelltex , Jelltecks
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