St Mary, Wiggenhall St Mary, Norfolk
Simon Jenkins has noticed that the churches of the Ouse delta form most likely the greatest focus of late-medieval craftsmanship in England. Clearly, any cathedral would give them a operate for their funds, but you know what he implies. Here, there are at least a dozen or else nameless and workaday villages with merely huge church buildings, lots of of them replete with miracles in stone and wooden. There is remarkably minor medieval glass, and hardly a wall-portray at all possibly the natural puritanism of the Fen people dispatched these, but observed a useful use to the benches and the fonts. The biggest and grandest churches are at Walpole St Peter and Terrington St Clement, but neither are specially entire of treasures. St Peter is one particular of the most spectacular architectural documents of the late medieval period, and St Clement is whole of light and everyday living but below at Wiggenhall St Mary is the finest collection of 15th and 16th century benches in Norfolk, perhaps in England.
There are four Wiggenhalls: St Peter, St Germans, St Mary and St Mary Magdalene, now acknowledged merely as Magdalen. All of the villages are smaller, Magdalen currently being the greatest, and are mainly approached up slim straight streets in the fens. All four churches sit near to the banking companies of the Ouse – these financial institutions have been raised, since the drinking water degree is now greater than the encompassing land, but the towers even now variety startling landmarks for any boat heading upstream from Lynn. St Peter is a wreck, and St Mary is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Believe in. It sits to the north of Magdalen with a few of significant homes for corporation.
As with all CCT churches, St Mary is very well-stored. The rendering of the nave and chancel has a short while ago been renewed and painted. They hide a secret of this church, the volume of brick employed in its construction. The only expanse of brick nevertheless obvious is the upper part of the tower. The squatness of the tower belies its peak, and stair turrets lean deliciously into it in the north-west and south-west corners, coming out as castellated turrets at the top rated.
So, we may possibly believe that the leading third of the tower is modern with the late medieval rebuilding – but the builders stored the Early English doorway on both sides of the church. The south porch is massive, but functional there is nothing of the elaborate decoration you uncover at Walpole St Peter. Also functional is the considerable late Victorian restoration by George Avenue – all the roofs are his.
You stage inside to an interior that is at once massive but a small claustrophobic. This is due to the fact of the sheer volume of woodwork – selection after selection of solid, lengthy, benches with higher bench ends. Street’s crown-posted roof looks to push down to fulfill them devoid of their pierced and traceried backs they would sense oppressive. The dust in the air and the murky mild from the east window presents a feeling, just for a moment, of currently being underwater. There is a stillness, as if we have disturbed a thing that had very long remained undisturbed, as if we have been the initially people to enter listed here for ages.
The nave was filled with benches in two phases for starters in the mid-15th century, and then once more in the early 16th century. The more recent benches are those in the aisles. Benches are a symptom of what I have come to feel of as a proto-Reformation potentially a century in advance of the genuine a single, there is a major shift in the English Church from non-public devotions to corporate acts of worship. This would seem to have been partly a reaction to the Black Death, and a concentration of the head on building it via purgatory the breaking up of the aged estates brought forth a new wealthy middle class, who were most concerned that their souls ought to be prayed for. Portion of their job was a reinforcing of orthodox Catholic doctrine all through the 15th century, vast perpendicular windows changed the wall paintings, filling the churches with light-weight, and the excellent roods ended up elevated up to focus people’s minds on the central doctrine of the Christian religion. Features of Catholic doctrine – the sacraments, the functions of mercy, the deadly sins – appeared in glass and stone. Benches filled the rebuilt church buildings – no extended ended up there shadowy corners the place aged ladies could inform their beads, and the plowman his Paternoster, as Mass progressed. The initially pulpits appeared, and with the coming of the pulpit the Priest still left his chancel and entered the area of the persons, having it about. All eyes have been fixed on him now.
The bench ends at Wiggenhall St Mary are elaborate. Tiers occur every side flanking a large area of interest, which consists of a figure. The tiers each and every rise to a second and third determine, which are often relevant. Earlier mentioned all rises the sound poppyhead. You can devote an pleasant 50 percent hour just pottering about trying to establish them. Several are in Tudor dress, and are seated in each day attitudes. Some carry rosaries. Some are Saints, others depict animals, Labours of the Months, virtues or Christian symbols.
Relatively in contrast, there is an sophisticated Laudian font deal with with slender pillars, and the date 1624. I wondered if the pelican in her piety on top was a later on addition. As at a number of neighborhood church buildings, there is an early-16th century latten lectern, an eagle supported at the ft by 3 minimal grinning lions. The Jacobean pulpit however retains its hourglass stand. Smatterings of medieval glass are in the upper lights of the north aisle windows. The royal arms are dated 1791, and convey to us that the churchwarden that yr was J SUTTRBY.
There is an tasteful parclose monitor in the south aisle which now incorporates the elaborate memorial tomb of Sir Henry Kerville and his wife. They lie facet by side, arms in pious attitudes of prayer.He died in 1624 most going are the two tiny figures underneath them, a single in swaddling dresses these are their young children who died ahead of them.
The east finish of the nave was built for peak, for the excellent rood to attract everyone’s awareness. Perhaps to enable intensify this, the chancel arch is curiously narrow, and there are just eight panels on the dado of the screen, four figures on every single aspect flanking the entrance. From the north they are: St Mary of Magdala, St Dorothy, St Margaret, St Scholastica (twin sister of St Benedict), St Catherine, St Barbara, the Blessed Virgin and kid, and St John the Baptist. The chancel is rather very simple and empty, still left in its 19th century apparel. The grimy green glass of the east window is overpowering. For a minute, you may be any where. And then you change back again and see those people huge ranges of medieval benches yet again they really are most outstanding.
A hallmark of Churches Conservation Rely on church buildings is that they are cleared of clutter but that is unattainable right here, of study course, simply because the clutter is the factor you occur to see. They are intriguing, intriguing but this church is curiously missing in environment, specifically if you have just arrive from Wiggenhall St Germans or Walpole St Peter. It is lifeless you could be in no question that it is redundant, and now very little far more than a museum.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-15 19:00:19
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , St , Mary , Norfolk , East Anglia , church
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