All Saints, Eyke, Suffolk
This village straggles the chaotic highway concerning Woodbridge and Snape considering that the closure of the nearby American airbase, it is much quieter than it utilized to be, nevertheless when I came this way on a sub-zero day in January 2017 I was delighted to see that the village store was nevertheless accomplishing excellent organization. Across the highway, and set again from it, All Saints sits quietly, with no tower to guide you to it from afar.
At initially sight, this is a uncomplicated, if uneven, tiny church, somewhat barn-like in its historical graveyard. Tall elm trees about it are house to jackdaws and rooks their cries fill the air as they wheel above you. A terrific yew caresses the south of the nave. The modern-day little porch gives no indication that you are about to enter one particular of the far more appealing churches in this section of Suffolk.
As you action down into the sq. south aisle and nave (in actuality, they appear broader than they are long!) the very first detail you discover is a pair of gorgeous Norman arches, one particular about 10 feet to the east of the other, at the base of what was at the time the central tower, though pretty much no sign continues to be of it from the outside now. Over and above them, the chancel opens up, its height accentuating the lowness of the arches which guide into it.
Sam Mortlock argues that All Saints was probably a cruciform church as at Pakenham in west Suffolk, with the south chapel leading off from the south-east corner of the nave getting up aspect of what was a south transept. Cautley considered a tripartite arrangement far more possible, as at Newton-by-Castle-Acre in Norfolk, mainly on the energy of the arches only having mouldings on the western side. Just one of the decreased tower home windows can however be witnessed on the jap facial area from within just the chancel, and looks most curious. A bell rope disappears up into the ceilure. Despite the fact that the western arch only has one band of chevrons, the japanese arch has two. If you glance carefully at the nave roof right away in front of the western arch, you can see traces of paint, evidence of a just one-time cover of honour to the now-vanished rood. There is a smaller selection of medieval and continental glass in the chancel north window, which include a substantial quality scene of St Bridget feeding the beggars, two jolly mermaids and what look to be the arms of the Borough of Great Yarmouth.
Edward Hakewill carried out the restoration right here in the 1860s. He is liable for the angels on the wall plate of the nave. The south aisle is just not truly an aisle at all, additional a completion of the square amongst original nave and south transept. The south transept (if these types of it was) had been a chantry chapel, normally referred to as the Bavents Chantry. Lavers, Barraud & Westlake equipped the glass for Hakewill’s west window, as properly as a smaller sized lancet on the east side of the south transept, but the woodwork in the church is alternatively more modern, and an intriguing story pertains to it.
Like numerous other Suffolk church buildings, including Waldringfield throughout the estuary, a relatives dynasty of vicars was liable for the Anglican revival in this parish. These ended up the Darlings, James pere et fils. They held this dwelling for 80 a long time, concerning 1859 and 1939. The father oversaw Hakewill’s restoration of what experienced come to be a in close proximity to-derelict church. The son, who took in excess of in 1893, had a passion for woodcarving. He taught his parishioners the talent at evening classes in the village university. Among them, the villagers created the benches, font go over, organ situation, chapel display screen and reredos. If you look at the bench ends, you will find James Darling’s pet pet, and some other unlikely animals like a beaver, a snake, a squirrel and a penguin. A topped determine with a rosary on the poppyhead of 1 bench most likely represents the Blessed Virgin, and a seated cleric with a smile on his encounter is most likely James Darling himself. The pulpit is Darling’s memorial. The workshop’s bench ends can be identified in 50 % a dozen other east Suffolk church buildings.
The east window is a relatively sombre affair, also by Lavers, Barraud & Westlake, displaying the children coming to Christ although angels test and demonstrate what Charity seems like. The parish’s most well known treasure, the 15th century Eyke critical, is now in the British Museum. Its wards are formed to make the word IKE, an substitute variety of the village title. I was unhappy to find that the doorlock has been transformed due to the fact, but I suppose retention of the first would have built this the most straightforward of all church buildings to split into. A fibre-glass duplicate hangs on the wall.
It pleases me to appear back here. It is now seventeen several years given that my first pay a visit to, on New Year’s Day 2000, I was the initial person of the century* to indicator the website visitors ebook, and it was pleasing to flip back again to it on my return in 2006 and 2010. But I have remaining it too very long, and on my most current go to in 2017 I observed that a new visitor’s guide experienced taken the spot of the aged a person. Ah nicely. Again in 2000, the wonderful girl practising the organ experienced advised me that a person of the Reverend Darling’s daughters was nonetheless alive, and once in a while frequented to see all over again her father’s and grandfather’s handiwork. In 2010 I questioned if she nonetheless did, but now some seventeen several years have handed, and I suppose she does not any more.
*Yes, I know that pedants will inform you that the 21st Century started on New Many years Day 2001. Do not pay attention to them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2017-01-29 18:39:32
Tagged: , Eyke , East Anglia , suffolk , church , churches , nikon , d5300
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