All Saints, Eyke, Suffolk
This village straggles the fast paced highway between Woodbridge and Snape since the closure of the close by American airbase, it is considerably quieter than it applied to be, even though when I arrived this way on a sub-zero day in January 2017 I was pleased to see that the village shop was continue to carrying out superior company. Throughout the highway, and established back again from it, All Saints sits quietly, with no tower to direct you to it from afar.
At first sight, this is a easy, if uneven, minimal church, somewhat barn-like in its historical graveyard. Tall elm trees all around it are dwelling to jackdaws and rooks their cries fill the air as they wheel previously mentioned you. A great yew caresses the south of the nave. The modern tiny porch presents no indication that you are about to enter a single of the extra interesting church buildings in this part of Suffolk.
As you move down into the square south aisle and nave (in fact, they surface wider than they are extensive!) the very first factor you see is a pair of stunning Norman arches, a person about 10 toes to the east of the other, at the base of what was when the central tower, while practically no indicator continues to be of it from the outside the house now. Further than them, the chancel opens up, its height accentuating the lowness of the arches which direct into it.
Sam Mortlock argues that All Saints was most likely a cruciform church as at Pakenham in west Suffolk, with the south chapel leading off from the south-east corner of the nave having up aspect of what was a south transept. Cautley regarded a tripartite arrangement far more probable, as at Newton-by-Castle-Acre in Norfolk, mostly on the energy of the arches only obtaining mouldings on the western side. One particular of the decreased tower windows can nevertheless be found on the japanese confront from inside the chancel, and appears most curious. A bell rope disappears up into the ceilure. Whilst the western arch only has 1 band of chevrons, the jap arch has two. If you appear carefully at the nave roof straight away in entrance of the western arch, you can see traces of paint, evidence of a one-time cover of honour to the now-vanished rood. There is a compact collection of medieval and continental glass in the chancel north window, including a higher high-quality scene of St Bridget feeding the beggars, two jolly mermaids and what look to be the arms of the Borough of Wonderful Yarmouth.
Edward Hakewill carried out the restoration right here in the 1860s. He is responsible for the angels on the wall plate of the nave. The south aisle isn’t truly an aisle at all, much more a completion of the sq. amongst first nave and south transept. The south transept (if this sort of it was) experienced been a chantry chapel, normally referred to as the Bavents Chantry. Lavers, Barraud & Westlake provided the glass for Hakewill’s west window, as perfectly as a lesser lancet on the east aspect of the south transept, but the woodwork in the church is rather more new, and an intriguing story pertains to it.
Like quite a few other Suffolk churches, like Waldringfield throughout the estuary, a family members dynasty of vicars was responsible for the Anglican revival in this parish. These were being the Darlings, James pere et fils. They held this residing for 80 a long time, involving 1859 and 1939. The father oversaw Hakewill’s restoration of what experienced become a around-derelict church. The son, who took more than in 1893, had a passion for woodcarving. He taught his parishioners the talent at night lessons in the village faculty. Concerning them, the villagers developed the benches, font include, organ scenario, chapel display and reredos. If you glance at the bench ends, you will locate James Darling’s pet puppy, and some other not likely animals together with a beaver, a snake, a squirrel and a penguin. A topped figure with a rosary on the poppyhead of a single bench almost certainly signifies the Blessed Virgin, and a seated cleric with a smile on his experience is in all probability James Darling himself. The pulpit is Darling’s memorial. The workshop’s bench ends can be found in fifty percent a dozen other east Suffolk churches.
The east window is a rather sombre affair, also by Lavers, Barraud & Westlake, exhibiting the small children coming to Christ although angels test and show what Charity appears to be like like. The parish’s most renowned treasure, the 15th century Eyke vital, is now in the British Museum. Its wards are formed to make the phrase IKE, an substitute sort of the village identify. I was dissatisfied to explore that the doorlock has been changed considering that, but I suppose retention of the original would have manufactured this the least difficult of all churches to split into. A fibre-glass copy hangs on the wall.
It pleases me to come back below. It is now seventeen decades given that my very first check out, on New Year’s Day 2000, I was the 1st individual of the century* to signal the readers ebook, and it was satisfying to flip again to it on my return in 2006 and 2010. But I have still left it as well extended, and on my most modern take a look at in 2017 I identified that a new visitor’s book had taken the place of the aged a person. Ah effectively. Back in 2000, the great girl practising the organ had told me that just one of the Reverend Darling’s daughters was even now alive, and from time to time visited to see yet again her father’s and grandfather’s handiwork. In 2010 I questioned if she still did, but now some seventeen a long time have handed, and I suppose she does not any much more.
*Sure, I know that pedants will tell you that the 21st Century started on New A long time Working day 2001. Don’t pay attention to them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2017-01-29 18:47:52
Tagged: , Eyke , East Anglia , suffolk , church , church buildings , nikon , d5300
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