I was last at St John one particular chilly Boxing Day morning, on a person of those dutiful excursions to see Mom at Xmas. At just after dawn, it was locked, but looked a high-quality church and one to revisit.
So it was last Thursday, traveling back to Suffolk, I arrived at Saxmundham as the sunlight was placing, placing the high-quality church tower bathed in warm golden mild.
As I stopped to consider a shot of the tower, I was unaware of the vicar making an attempt to get earlier in his vehicle, but he was client as I go my shot.
He was waiting for me at the porch, and proposed I hurry within to see the windows that were illuminated by the solar, this I did.
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Saxmundham is a wonderful town about halfway between Ipswich and Lowestoft. The A12 now bypasses it, which was regrettable for a while due to the fact, like numerous small towns in that problem, it shed the passing trade which experienced been just one of the good reasons for its existence. Saxmundham, or ‘Sax’ as locals call it, grew to prominence in the 18th and 19th generations, and it nevertheless has the character of a Victorian railway town, especially close to the station. But it is not a vacationer town, contrary to its fantastic rival Framlingham, or ‘Fram’, just across the A12.
I like Saxmundham a large amount there is an air of resilience about the spot, and any compact city with two second hand bookshops have to have a little something going for it. What it does pass up is a dominating medieval church, since St John the Baptist is absent from the principal avenue on the highway to Leiston.
The graveyard is a great place, full of the headstones of 18th and 19th century worthies. Most famous is the headstone to John Noller, which has its personal sundial.
There is a crisp 19th century come to feel to the church, since it was topic to an 1870s restoration at the arms of Diocesan architect Richard Phipson. However, Phipson was a lot more delicate to the need to have to preserve medieval survivals than his successor Herbert Eco-friendly, and so the church has plenty of fascinating issues to see. Nonetheless, Phipson wasn’t previously mentioned making them a lot more medieval than they presently ended up, and so the font, a single of the greatest Suffolk examples of the 15th century East Anglian style, is carefully recut. There are aggressive minimal wild adult men all over the base, and a person of the shields functions the devices of the passion.
Potentially the most exciting survival right here, and a exceptional a single, can be observed in the most easterly home windows of just about every of the clerestories. These are the stone corbel ledges that as soon as supported the canopy of honour over the rood. They are both equally carved elaborately, and the northern one is castellated. Sancta Johnannes, Ora Pro Nobis (‘St John pray for us’) is carved in a banner alongside that on the south aspect.
Inspite of these medieval survivals, the most significant artistic artefacts below are in the east window of the south aisle. This is a assortment of ovals of 17th century glass thought to occur from Innsbruck, depicting Saints and biblical scenes. It is of excellent excellent, and intriguing to appear at. Certainly, aside from the very poor east window there is a fantastic assortment of Victorian glass right here as well. I put in about 50 percent an hour documenting it all meticulously, and then missing the memory card from my camera that had all the photographs on. And so, I will have to go back. Sorry.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.united kingdom/saxmundham.html
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The church is much changed from the unique church which was recorded in the Domesday Survey of 1086. Tiny proof of this Norman or perhaps Saxon church stays, though some masonry to be noticed in the decreased stage of the tower may be of this day.
We also know that the church experienced a South porch that contained a uncomplicated 11th century doorway. Sadly, the porch and doorway disappeared in a major restoration and rebuilding in 1873. Even so, we do have a image of the porch from an etching in 1848.
A great deal of the church that we see right now stems from the 19th century restoration but the church nevertheless includes several first merchandise of an earlier date.
The Western tower (14th century) has diagonal buttresses at its western angles. The two light belfry home windows and the identical west window are in the Adorned fashion of the early 14th century. The restored west doorway is also of this date, despite the fact that some of the masonry in the reduce portion of the tower is organized differently from the relaxation and might have fashioned portion of the 11th century church.
The clock was specified in 1880 and was restored in 1938. The parapet has wonderful 15th century flint panelling (flushwork) with traceried panels. Beneath it is a band of bouquets (flearons) and carved heads, in addition to a massive head at the centre of the west facet and a gargoyle head on the south aspect.
The tower is home to a peal of six bells. Three of these bells have been solid c. 1480-1 510 by John Kebyll of London. One more was manufactured in 1609 by Brend, the Norwich bell-founder, and the tenor, weighing 8cwt.3qtr.7Ib, is by Lester and Pack of Whitechapel, manufactured in 1762. The ring was concluded by the addition of a new treble bell by John Warner of London in 1880. The second bell was recast in 1938, and the bells were rehung in new oak frames by Bowell of Ipswich.
A gem in the crown that is St John’s can be found in the churchyard on the tombstone of John Noller (1725), which can be identified south west of the church methods and in 8 yards. The east and west faces of the tombstone are smaller, inclined rectangular recesses which sort a straightforward and imaginative sundial. Every sundial needs a pointer or gnomon projecting in entrance of the dial to forged a shadow on to a marked scale. Any such projection low down on a tombstone would definitely, faster or later on, be ruined. To prevent this taking place, the designer of John Noller’s headstone strike on the ingenious plan of producing the edge of the headstone’s area the gnomon and obtained the relative projection by recessing the dial.
As the stone faces east and west, he carved a morning dial on one aspect (east deal with) and an evening one on the other (west deal with). If you search in the recesses on both of those 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 due to the fact at the moment of midday every single dial is wholly in shadow.
You will also discover that the dials are not upright on the stone but at a slant. The higher edge which functions as the gnomon is so slanted as to place just to the north star, or in other words and phrases, be parallel with the earth’s axis.
And why was it performed? Well, we are not sure, 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 before long passes. Or potentially it was choosing up on yet another imagined about time from the Bible:
“There is a time for everything, and a time for each individual
action beneath heaven: a time to be born and a time to die,”
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)
The Nave
The Font c 1400
This is a standard East Anglian style with octagonal panelled bowl carved with lions interspersed with angels holding shields on which are shown the devices of the Enthusiasm (East), the Cross (South), the emblem of the Trinity (West) and the 3 crowns of East Anglia (North). The bowl of the font is initial.
The Nave c 1500
Internally the creating is harmonious, light and effectively-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 6 two gentle clerestorey home windows.
At the West finish 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. Earlier mentioned the ringing chamber is a massive Sanctus bell window, which in mediaeval moments permitted the ringer of the Sanctus bell to see about the Rood Display screen to the main altar.
Stained Glass
The 19th century stained glass during the church is of desire mainly because of the subjects represented as nicely as the makers and artists associated.
The West window of the North aisle is explained in The Preferred Guidebook to Suffolk Church buildings as becoming “a relatively horrible solution of Ward and Hughes and features an outlandishly dressed centurion”. What else can be claimed? Natural beauty is obviously in the eye of the beholder.
The East window of the North aisle depicting two angels in opposition to patterned quarries is of interest mainly because of its nearby connections. It was made 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 naturally the West window of the South aisle, built by the Dowager Marchioness of Waterford, a mate of the poet John Ruskin, and a very well acknowledged artist and reserve 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 possibly facet. The drama of the scene is improved by the high-quality of the artist’s function and in distinct the facial functions.
Pews and Pulpit
The present pews and pulpit date from the restoration of 1873 and are produced from New Zealand kaurie pine. They switch the outdated box pews which had been so tall that numerous people applying them could neither see nor be seen.
The total of the nave is topped with a splendid 15th century solitary-hammerbeam arch braced roof, with castellated hammers and wood demi-figures as corbels beneath the wall posts.
In the course of the Georgian era, or most likely ahead of, the roof was lined in with a flat plaster ceiling. A church guide book of 1855 states that at the time only the “ends” of the roof were being obvious below the ceiling and that the complete inside was disfigured by galleries.
Fortunately the ceiling was removed in 1932 to reveal this splendid roof. It has been restored and the wall plates have been renewed, as have several of the other timbers. The ancient woodwork is less brown in look than the present day. The figures beneath the wall posts are generally original.
The Chancel
A single of the most distinctive attributes of St John’s is its weeping chancel. If you stand in the nave centre aisle and seem towards the altar, you will observe that the Chancel is crafted at a pronounced angle to the nave. This is pretty widespread in church buildings designed in the shape of a cross (cruciform) but is incredibly rare in a church of this sort. The primary attribute is not the angle, which is substantially higher than usual, but that it is to the South.
Other churches with weeping chancels incline to the North, symbolizing Jesus on the cross with his head in direction of the penitent thief on his right. Right here it is to his remaining, signifying that Jesus died for the impenitent as nicely as the penitent. Saxmundham church is one of the handful of in Europe to have this element.
The Chancel arch and the two bay arcade North and South ended up changed as part of the 1873 restoration, but we imagine that the restorers copied the primary kinds (Adorned model)
The organ by Albert Pease of Hackney was mounted below in the early 1950s. It has two manuals, pedals and 15 talking stops.
www.saxmundham.org/aboutsax/parishchurch.html
Posted by Jelltex on 2016-11-13 17:57:29
Tagged: , St. John the Baptist , Saxmundham , Suffolk , Church , Jelltex , Jelltecks
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