St Mary Magdalen, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen, Norfolk
You cross the vast, lazy Great Ouse, and at the moment Norfolk modifications. The rippling countryside flattens out, the horizon straightens. Norfolk’s trees vanish, apart from the odd one or two that flame like beacons down below the perpendicular sky. There usually are not truly fields any more, just vast prairies, and the villages are perfunctory. This is the Marshland.
Pevsner mentions pretty few properties west of the Ouse – other than the terrific church buildings, some of which are amid England’s very best. In his e book England’s Thousand Very best Churches, Simon Jenkins incorporates no a lot less than 10 of the Norfolk marshland churches. There are only 9 for the whole of Northumberland.
Magdalen is, probably, shut plenty of to the relaxation of Norfolk to even now be a appropriate East Anglian village, and a very a single at that. Just one to savour if you are heading west and about to suggestion off the edge of the true county into that bizarre, sinking landscape beyond inexorably, water spilt listed here would roll into Lincolnshire. But the church is a marshland church, huge bold and lovely with that air of chiarascuro common from its neighbours, a slightly decayed attractiveness with the odor of previous wood and damp in the air.
The village takes its identify from St Mary of Magdala, of system, simply because it is genuinely a person of the Wiggenhalls. Around the a long time, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalene has turn out to be a little bit of a mouthful, specially provided the presence of the close by parish of Wiggenhall St Mary, wherever there is no actual village. So, Magdalen it has develop into, by the way giving its identify to a railway station on the Cambridge to Kings Lynn line. St Mary of Magdala is a single of my favourite Saints, and so it was a satisfaction to go to a entire village named soon after her. The church is a attractive assemblage of pink brick, flint and stone, wholly natural as it rises venerably in the narrow graveyard. It is all very significantly 15th century, constructed on wool cash, while as is common in East Anglia the wonderful tower is earlier, on the eve of the Black Dying. If it had ever been rebuilt, this would have been 1 of the most outstanding churches in England.
You phase into a big developing, complete of mild, a dusty air falling little by little. At the west conclude, there is a unusual little doorway into the foundation of the tower – I wonder if the rebuilding of the nave raised the amount of the flooring – and on both aspect of it the stays of the rood screen are propped up, just four panels depicting the evangelistic symbols. Now, this is really curious – the symbols do not frequently surface on roodscreens. My intuition was that they may possibly be later, but the work definitely appears to be medieval, and the facial area of Matthew’s winged guy has been scratched out.
A lot of the character of the nave comes from the woodwork, a satisfying mixture of straightforward medieval benches and 19th century box pews beneath the unique 15th century roof, which is fairly rustic in character with alternating hammerbeams and queen posts.
Just as neighbouring Wiggenhall St Mary has the biggest collection of medieval bench finishes in Norfolk, St Mary Magdalen has the most significant collection of 15th century stained glass figures. There are about forty of them, scattered in the higher lights of the north aisle. On the other hand, they are instead professional collection, and not effortlessly identifiable to the untutored eye, for the reason that somewhat than acquainted Apostles and Saints they largely depict Bishops, Archbishops and Popes.
Simon Cotton, in the church guide, delivers an outstanding important to them. Ann Eljenholm Nichols’ guide Early Artwork of Norfolk, probably the very best guide ever written about the medieval church buildings of Norfolk, reveals that more than a several of them are unique representations in the county, and probably in the Kingdom. Most of them have scrolls, and with binoculars you can decipher some of the inscriptions, but couple have their acquainted symbols with them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-10 09:25:23
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , Mary , Magdalene , magdalen , Norfolk , East Anglia
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