St George, Stowlangtoft, Suffolk
Specified that our parish churches almost without exception underwent restorations in the 19th Century, it really should be evident that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian vision of the medieval. Even when the real furnishings and fittings are medieval, the entire piece is nonetheless a Victorian conception.
Inevitably, the problem arises of what was there prior to the restoration and what was not. The obvious solution is that we must presume that very little is as it 1st seems.
A key illustration of a church that assumes a continuity that may well not in fact be the real truth is right here in the flat fields concerning Woolpit and Ixworth. This component of Suffolk can be alternatively bleak in winter season, but in summer the churchyard in this article is verdant and golden, as attractive a location as any in the county. The church is substantial, and yet unusually slim. It sits on a mound that has been minimize down on one particular facet by the highway. In the churchyard you may uncover the properly-identified memorial to the art critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, killed in a vehicle crash in 1990.
In the churchyard wall there is what appears to be broken medieval window tracery, which is really worth noticing, for hereby hangs a tale.
St George is one of the terrific Suffolk church buildings. Even though it may perhaps externally show up a little severe, and is by no suggests as grand as Blythburgh, Prolonged Melford and the relaxation, it is a treasure residence of the medieval inside. Unusually for a church of its date, it was all rebuilt in 1 go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular home windows are not nevertheless complete of the ‘walls of glass’ self-assurance that the subsequent century would see. The tracery seems to have been fixed, and probably even renewed, which may perhaps clarify the tracery in the churchyard wall. Having said that, it would not just take a great deal to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but embellished. So it may possibly be that the broken tracery is from the initial church that the late 14th century church changed. But the wall by itself just isn’t medieval, so in which had it been all people a long time? Is it feasible that the existing window tracery is not medieval at all?
Stowlangtoft church showcased in Simon Jenkins’ e-book England’s Thousand Ideal Churches, which sends loads of readers to its locked doorway, and might enable stave off the inescapable for a although, for there is no real congregation in this article any additional and the church is moribund. Regular expert services are held across the fields at Pakenham, and St George is now only employed on distinctive events. The vital is stored throughout the road, wherever the incredibly nice woman told me in February 2018 that the church is now headed for redundancy. It would seem possible that care of it will be conveyed into the fingers of the Churches Conservation Have confidence in.
You action in through the chancel doorway (the lock in this article is very uncomfortable, but do persevere) and if you are anything at all like me you will head straight down to the west conclude the place you will find the font. Likethe window tracery, it asks some queries. Unusually, it features a Saint on seven of the panels, Christ currently being on the westwards facial area. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it shows are acquainted cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and significantly less typically St George. The cult of St George was at its peak in the early years of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it absolutely just isn’t searching its very best. But I imagine there is more going on in this article than fulfills the eye. Fonts ended up plastered over in Elizabethan instances, and only aid that stood very pleased of the plaster was mutilated. These are all shallow reliefs, and I do not imagine they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at the very least, this stonework seems weathered. I ponder if this font was taken off from the church, most likely in the mid-17th century, and served an outdoor function till it was returned in the 19th century.
The tale of this church in the 19th century is very well-documented. In 1832, as part of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy visited, and was pleased to come across that the church was at final going through restore. The chancel had been roofless, and the nave utilised for providers. A new Rectory was remaining designed. Who was the catalyst driving all this? His title was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector below for almost the middle forty yrs of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a great close friend of John Henry Newman, the potential Cardinal, and they frequently corresponded on the topic of the pre-Reformation buying of English churches. It is appealing to assume how, at this seminal moment, Rickards could possibly have informed the believed of the Oxford Movement. Unfortunately, when Newman became a Catholic, Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
During the system of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards reworked Stowlangtoft church. He obtained the good Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and comprehensive the marvellous set of bench finishes – Ringham did the identical thing at Woolpit, a couple of miles away. Ringham’s get the job done is so excellent that it is at times challenging for the inexperienced eye to detect it. On the other hand, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals right here, and the weirder things is all medieval, and likely dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft’s bench finishes is partly the sheer amount – there are most likely 60 carvings – but also that there are various exclusive topics.
The carvings look to be section of the very same group as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull actively playing a harp, the hen with a man’s head, from related carvings elsewhere. And then hopefully that little alarm bell in your read should begin to go “Hmmmm…..” mainly because some of the carvings in this article are plainly not from the exact same group. It is tricky to consider that the mermaid and the owl, for illustration, are from the identical workshop, or even from the very same decade. The benches them selves are no clue, as it was prevalent observe in the 19th century to substitute medieval bench finishes on modern benches, or on medieval benches, or even on modern benches produced out of medieval timber (as happened at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards located some of these bench finishes elsewhere? Could he have been the sort of individual to do a detail like that?
Very well, of course he could. As Roy Tricker recollects, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is East Anglian. Rickards acquired it following acquiring it in storage in Ipswich docks. It presumably came from one of the Ipswich churches. In the ferment of the excellent 19th century restoration of our English churches, there was loads of medieval junk lying close to, considerably of it heading begging. But was Samuel Rickards the variety of individual to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Effectively, certainly he likely was. The fake-medieval roundels in the windows of the nave are plainly not medieval at all, but ended up in truth the get the job done of the young Lucy Rickards, daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. Some are obviously to the young girl’s style and design, and Pevsner notes that many others are copied from medieval manuscript illustrations in the British Museum, even though the Holy Kinship and Presentation in the Temple roundels at minimum are extremely near copies of the Flemish roundels of the similar topics in Nowton church on the other aspect of Bury St Edmunds.
Certainly medieval is the wide St Christopher wall-portray nonetheless discernible on the north wall. It was likely one particular of the previous to be painted. The bench ends are medieval, of course, as is the fantastic rood-screen dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval determine glass in the higher tracery of some of the home windows, including St Agnes holding a lamb and 4 Previous Testament prophets. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard’s fee, and the work of William White. What can Rickards have been considering of? But we action via into the chancel, and instantly the complete factor moves up a equipment. For right here are some items that are truly remarkable.
In a county popular for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are spectacular, even awe-inspiring. Guiding the rood display screen dado is Suffolk’s most complete established of return stalls. Most striking are the figures that sort finials to the stall finishes. They are members in the Mass, like two Priests, two servers and two acolytes. The determine of the Priest at a prayer desk need to be 1 of the greatest medieval photos in Suffolk, and Mortlock assumed the stalls the greatest in England.
The benches that face eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are excellent items: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and crowned heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. Amongst the seats are bizarre oriental faces.
Now, you know what I am heading to ask upcoming. How significantly of this is from this church originally? It all appears medieval operate, and there is no purpose to believe it may possibly not have been moved in other places in the church when the chancel was open to the things. What proof have we obtained?
For starters, we should really observe that the only other Suffolk church with such a large range of medieval misericords of this top quality is just a mile away, at Norton. I do not request you to see this as substantial, merely to observe it in passing. Next, I am no carpenter, but it does glimpse to me as though two sets of furnishings have been cobbled alongside one another the stalls that again on to the screen appear to have been built-in into the more substantial structure of stalls and desks that entrance them and the north and south partitions.
Nonetheless, if you glance carefully at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche households. The Ashfield arms also appear on the rood screen, and the Ashfields ended up the significant donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on balance I am inclined to consider that the better component of the stall construction was in this church originally from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Very well, I you should not know. But I think they have to be regarded as portion of the identical established as those at Norton. In which scenario they could have arrive from the same church, which may perhaps have been this one particular, but may perhaps not have been. Pretty much absolutely, the stalls at Norton did not arrive from Norton church, and folklore has it that they have been initially in the quire of Bury Abbey.
Other remarkable items in St George involve FE Howard’s wonderful war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the reverse corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s unexpectedly lovely St George, which serves the same intent. He’s not an artist I usually admire, but it is as very good as his function at Elveden. Again up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was seemingly exhibited at, and obtained from, the Excellent Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of program, most famed for the Flemish carvings that flank the alternatively large altarpiece. They have been specified to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Corridor, who allegedly identified them in an Ixworth junk store. They present illustrations or photos from the crucifixion tale, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides recommend. They day from the 1480s, and have been just about definitely the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked through the French Revolution. The carvings were as soon as brightly painted, and piled up in a block rather than spread out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches previously mentioned them, are 19th century.
A single chilly winter’s evening in January 1977, a gang of thieves broke into this locked church and stole them. Practically nothing more was seen or listened to of them right up until 1982, when they were uncovered on exhibit in an Amsterdam artwork gallery. Their journey had been a convoluted a single. Taken to Holland, they were being utilized as security for a bank loan which was defaulted on. The new proprietor was then burgled, and the carvings have been fenced to an Amsterdam junk supplier. They were purchased from his store, and taken to the museum, which promptly recognized them as 15th century carvings. They set them on exhibit, and a Dutch girl who had go through about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted legal proceedings to get them again. An injunction was taken out to end the new proprietor taking away them from the museum. The parish misplaced the circumstance, leaving them with a monstrous authorized invoice, but the story has a joyful ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their order from the owner, paid out off the authorized costs, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Apparently this was all at large price tag, but the businessman gave the present in thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland from the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Currently, the carvings are set firmly in position and alarmed, so they will not be going walkabout all over again. But a small part of me miracles if they seriously should really be right here at all. Positive, they are medieval, but they weren’t here initially, and they weren’t even in England initially. Wouldn’t it be far better if they were displayed somewhere safer, where by people could pay out to see them, and present some cash flow for the upkeep of the church building? And then, whisper it, when St George is taken on by the CCT they may possibly even be ready to leave it open up.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2018-02-13 17:26:07
Tagged: , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , east anglia , church
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