I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I thought I understood individuals two counties. But of study course 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 close friend, Simon K, operates a wonderful web site, which I website link to on EA church buildings, and on his Suffolk Church web site he has frequented 707 Suffolk churches, and 909 Norfolk church buildings. That is a lot of church buildings for two counties to share, and many of these church buildings are ancient, flint developed, round towered or have wall paintings, wooden roof angels or anything well worth the exertion of likely to see or seeking out the keyholder to achieve access.
What I suggest is that there is no way somebody who only experienced their own motor vehicle right up until 1984, and had very little fascination in church buildings or parishes could have heard of most of the parishes in the two counties, and so a parish church like St George.
I observed St George from the principal street, I was having a limited slice to sign up for the A14 and from there to the A12 and south on what I hoped my my last excursion of the yr to lowestoft as Mother is now out of clinic and in the care of district nurses in get to get set again on her ft.
So I observed the tower of St George from about 50 percent a mile absent, and believed I experienced enough 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 walk up the bank to the gate into the churchyard, the thoroughly clean traces of the tower, nicely, towered in excess of me.
In the porch I tried out the doorway and uncovered it locked, but the keyholder record built it obvious that the closest 1, at Christmas Cottage, was just more than the road. So, why not try out, Ian?
I went to the cottage and rang the bell. I had to fill out my particulars in a ledger, a sensible evaluate. But I showed by driving licence to show that I was who I claimed. Little did I know the small village I lived in experienced been found. Much more of that in a minute.
Inside St George, you eye is stolen by the fantastic pew finishes animals of all varieties, true and imaginary, and most experienced not been defaced, only these of obvious human kind. One with the system of a hen but a apparent human confront experienced been still left alone, thus is the madness of the puritan’s brain.
I made the decision that I would history each individual pew close figure, and several whole pew ends so great that they were.
There is the feint outline of a substantial wall portray, Simon states it was of St. Christopher. It would have been most amazing when freshly painted. There is also a wonderful established of misericords.
St George’s glory is the altarpiece, into detail Simon goes beneath. It is alarmed, so you cannot appear at them as well carefully, unfortunately, but these types of is a signal of the situations.
I took the keys back, and the woman of the home came to converse to me as she experienced been advised by her husband that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is the place her family members is from. Unfortunately, I am not from, nor dwell in Cliffe. For after there was in fact two Cliffs in Kent, one on the Hoo Peninsular, where by her relatives is from, and a person in close proximity to to Dover. A lot of several years back, Cliffe in close proximity to to Dover was identified as WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake even more north. I explained this to her, but reported St Helen in Cliffe is 1 of my favorite Kent churches, created of alternate levels of black and mild flints and stone, in sunlight it glistens and sparkles.
While St George right here in Stowlangtoft is a great church, it is in a very poor point out of restore, and is due to be made redundant in the new year. Often unfortunate when that happens to a parish church, but it is very likely to be taken about by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to keep it tidy when the aged wardens and keyholders are as well previous.
Stowlangtoft is a amazing church and so glad am I that I spent 40 minutes of my time to stop by it. Go to see it now right before it is far too late!
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In the summertime of 2003, this site became a six-element series on BBC Radio Suffolk. One thing I said in the fourth programme, about Hessett, generated a good volume of correspondence. Referring to the way a lot of church buildings have 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 precise furnishings and fittings are medieval, the whole piece is nonetheless a Victorian conception.
Folks wrote to me and said factors 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 “believe that nothing is as it initial seems, as Sherlock Holmes mentioned”. And if he failed to, then he must have completed.
A primary example of a church that assumes a continuity that may possibly not really be the truth is below in the flat fields in between Woolpit and Ixworth. This aspect of Suffolk can be rather bleak, primarily in late Oct, but England’s best summertime and autumn for many years experienced left the churchyard here verdant and golden, as beautiful a area as any I might found that 12 months. The church is large, and sits on a mound that has been minimize down on one facet by the highway. I walked up the slope, past the memorial to the artwork critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which never ever fails to move me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett says of it that it cannot be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the classes of the mere head and sings to us of our further self.
Overwhelmed as you might be by it, never fail to place the broken window tracery that has been applied to establish the wall right here, for therefore hangs a tale.
St George, in case you don’t know, is just one of the wonderful Suffolk church buildings. Despite the fact that it might externally seem a little severe, and is by no usually means as grand as Blythburgh, Prolonged Melford and the rest, 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 windows are not yet entire of the ‘walls of glass’ assurance that the subsequent century would see. The tracery appears to have been repaired, and quite possibly even renewed, which might explain why there is broken medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. Even so, it will not get a lot to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but embellished. So it may be that the damaged tracery is from the primary church that the late 14th century church changed. But the wall isn’t medieval, so wherever had it been all these yrs?
An additional survival from the previously church is the font. It also asks some concerns. Unusually, it characteristics a Saint on seven of the panels, Christ being on the westwards deal with. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it exhibits are acquainted cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and much less commonly St George. The cult of St George was at its peak in the early a long time of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it surely just isn’t hunting its best. But I think there is a lot more heading on in this article than satisfies the eye. Fonts ended up plastered around in Elizabethan times, and only relief that stood proud of the plaster was mutilated. These are all shallow reliefs, and I do not believe they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at minimum, this stonework appears weathered. I ponder if this font was removed from the church, in all probability in the mid-17th century, and served an outdoor reason till it was returned in the 19th century.
The tale of this church in the 19th century is effectively-documented. In 1832, as aspect of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy frequented, and was delighted to discover that the church was at very last undergoing fix. The chancel had been roofless, and the nave used for expert services. A new Rectory was remaining developed. Who was the catalyst behind all this? His name was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector listed here for pretty much the middle forty a long time of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a excellent friend of John Henry Newman, the long run Cardinal, and they frequently corresponded on the subject matter of the pre-Reformation purchasing of English churches. It is appealing to feel how, at this seminal moment, Rickards could possibly have informed the thought of the Oxford Movement. Unfortunately, when Newman turned a Catholic Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
Throughout the study course of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards remodeled Stowlangtoft church. He obtained the terrific Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and comprehensive the marvellous set of bench ends – Ringham did the exact same matter at Woolpit, a few miles away. Ringham’s get the job done is so good that it is at times difficult for the inexperienced eye to detect it on the other hand, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals here, and the wierder stuff is all medieval, and possibly dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft’s bench ends is partly the sheer amount – there are possibly 60 carvings – but also that there are many one of a kind topics you can see some of them down below.
The carvings show up to be component of the very same team as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull participating in a harp, the hen with a man’s head, from related carvings somewhere else. And then ideally that minimal alarm bell in your heard ought to get started to go “Hmmmm…..” for the reason that some of the carvings here are evidently not from the exact same group. It is really hard to believe that that the mermaid and the owl, for case in point, are from the same workshop, or even from the same ten years. The benches themselves are no clue it was typical observe in the 19th century to switch medieval bench ends on modern-day benches, or on medieval benches, or even on modern benches designed out of medieval timber (as transpired at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards identified some of these bench ends somewhere else? Could he have been the sort of person to do a issue like that?
Effectively, yes he could. As Roy Tricker recalls, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is just one that Rickards acquired soon after getting it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the great 19th century restoration of our English churches, there was loads of medieval junk lying about, considerably of it likely begging. But was Samuel Rickards the type of particular person to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Perfectly, sure he in all probability was. Search at the medieval roundels in the center window on the south aspect of the nave. The 4 evangelists are higher than and below two excellent representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them beneath simply click on them to enlarge them. Regrettably, they are not medieval at all, and it is frequently acknowledged that they ended up painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is anything identical the other side of Bury at Hawstead.
Really medieval is the huge St Christopher wall-portray still discernible on the north wall. It was probably a single of the previous to be painted. The bench finishes are medieval, of class, as is the wonderful rood-monitor dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval glass in the higher tracery of some of the windows. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard’s fee, and the function of William White. What can Rickards have been thinking of? But we action by way of into the chancel, and out of the blue the whole thing moves up a equipment. For in this article are some factors that are certainly exceptional.
In a county popular for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. Guiding the rood display screen dado is Suffolk’s most comprehensive established of return stalls. Most hanging are the figures that type finials to the stall ends. They are contributors in the Mass, including two Clergymen, two servers and two acolytes. The determine of the Priest at a prayer desk have to be one particular of the best medieval illustrations or photos in Suffolk Mortlock believed the stalls the best in England. I was listed here with my close friend Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he had formerly photographed and composed about these carving a a few of yrs in the past. But even he observed something new to photograph, and a hush fell on the chancel as we explored.
The benches that encounter eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are wonderful things: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and crowned heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. Amongst the seats are odd oriental faces. Some of them are under click on on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am going to question future. How a lot of this is from this church originally? It all seems medieval do the job, and there is no reason to feel it may not have been moved in other places in the church when the chancel was open up to the features. What proof have we received?
First of all, we should discover that the only other Suffolk church with these types of a huge range of medieval misericords of this high-quality is just a mile absent, at Norton. I really don’t ask you to see this as important, basically to notice it in passing. Secondly, I am no carpenter, but it does glance to me as while two sets of furnishings have been cobbled with each other the stalls that back on to the display seem to have been integrated into the more substantial framework of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south partitions.
On the other hand, if you glance closely at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche people. The Ashfield arms also surface on the rood display screen, and the Ashfields have been the major donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on balance I am inclined to feel that the better element of the stall construction was in this church at first from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Very well, I don’t know. But I assume they have to be regarded as aspect of the exact same established as these at Norton. In which scenario they may perhaps have come from the exact church, which may possibly have been this one, but could not have been. Almost surely, the stalls at Norton did not occur from Norton church, and folklore has it that they were being originally in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other exceptional things in St George involve FE Howard’s wonderful war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the opposite corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s stunning St George, which serves the same reason. It is as very good as his do the job at Elveden. Back again up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was seemingly exhibited at, and acquired from, the Fantastic Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of system, most well-known for the Flemish carvings that flank the instead large altarpiece. They were provided to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Corridor, who allegedly located them in an Ixworth junk store. They present visuals from the crucifixion story, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides recommend. They day from the 1480s, and ended up nearly surely the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked through the French Revolution. I experienced seen some thing comparable at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a couple of months just before. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these once have been, and piled up in a block alternatively than spread out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches previously mentioned them, are 19th century. My favourite images are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Simply click on the visuals beneath.
A single chilly winter’s night in January 1977, a gang of robbers broke into this locked church and stole them. Nothing extra was noticed or heard of them right until 1982, when they were identified on display in an Amsterdam art gallery. Their journey experienced been a convoluted a single taken to Holland, they were applied as safety for a loan which was defaulted upon. The new operator was then burgled, and the carvings have been fenced to an Amsterdam junk supplier. They were being bought from his shop, and taken to the museum, which straight away recognized them as 15th century carvings. They place them on display, and a Dutch female who had read about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted lawful proceedings to get them again an injunction was taken out to end the new operator eliminating them from the museum. The parish lost the circumstance, leaving them with a monstrous legal invoice but the tale has a satisfied ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their purchase from the proprietor, paid out off the legal expenses, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Seemingly this was all at extensive price, but the businessman gave the gift in many thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Currently, the carvings are set firmly in location and alarmed, so they would not be going walkabout all over again. But a very little portion of me miracles if they actually should really be here at all. Sure, they are medieval, but they weren’t in this article originally they were not even in England at first. Wouldn’t it be far better if they were being exhibited someplace safer, where by individuals could fork out to see them, and present some profits for the routine maintenance of the church building? And then, whisper it, St George may well even be stored open.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village high street. 3 keyholders are outlined, two of them instantly opposite. I am informed that Wednesday is not a excellent time to attempt and get the essential – it is current market working day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.united kingdom/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2017-12-17 20:59:02
Tagged: , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , Church , Jelltex , Jelltecks
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