I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I believed I knew individuals two counties. But of study course there is much more to Norfolk than Norwich, Cromer, Yarmouth and Kings Lynn, as there is to Suffolk than Ipswich, Lowestoft, Stowmarket and Bury St. Edmunds. And so on My good friend, Simon K, runs a incredible site, which I backlink to on EA church buildings, and on his Suffolk Church site he has frequented 707 Suffolk church buildings, and 909 Norfolk church buildings. That is a large amount of church buildings for two counties to share, and a lot of of all those churches are historical, flint constructed, round towered or have wall paintings, wooden roof angels or something truly worth the exertion of going to see or trying to find out the keyholder to acquire obtain.
What I indicate is that there is no way a person who only had their very own motor vehicle till 1984, and had minor interest in church buildings or parishes could have read of most of the parishes in the two counties, and so a parish church like St George.
I saw St George from the principal street, I was taking a small lower to be a part of the A14 and from there to the A12 and south on what I hoped my my last trip of the year to lowestoft as Mom is now out of hospital and in the care of district nurses in buy to get place again on her feet.
So I noticed the tower of St George from about half a mile absent, and considered I had more than enough time to go more than and see inside if I could.
I parked at the end of a cul-de-sac of new bungalows, and as I walk up the bank to the gate into the churchyard, the clean traces of the tower, effectively, towered more than me.
In the porch I tried the doorway and identified it locked, but the keyholder list built it clear that the nearest one, at Christmas Cottage, was just more than the street. So, why not consider, Ian?
I went to the cottage and rang the bell. I experienced to fill out my details in a ledger, a reasonable evaluate. But I confirmed by driving licence to demonstrate that I was who I claimed. Tiny did I know the compact village I lived in had been found. Much more of that in a minute.
Inside St George, you eye is stolen by the magnificent pew finishes animals of all kinds, serious and imaginary, and most had not been defaced, only those of clear human kind. A person with the physique of a hen but a crystal clear human encounter experienced been remaining by itself, as a result is the madness of the puritan’s thoughts.
I made a decision that I would history each and every pew finish figure, and quite a few entire pew ends so superb that they had been.
There is the feint outline of a huge wall painting, Simon states it was of St. Christopher. It would have been most extraordinary when freshly painted. There is also a fine set of misericords.
St George’s glory is the altarpiece, into element Simon goes down below. It is alarmed, so you can’t glance at them far too closely, regrettably, but such is a signal of the instances.
I took the keys back again, and the woman of the property arrived to talk to me as she experienced been instructed by her spouse that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is where her family members is from. Regrettably, I am not from, nor reside in Cliffe. For the moment there was in fact two Cliffs in Kent, a person on the Hoo Peninsular, exactly where her loved ones is from, and 1 in the vicinity of to Dover. Lots of many years ago, Cliffe close to to Dover was named WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake even more north. I explained this to her, but said St Helen in Cliffe is one of my favourite Kent churches, created of alternate layers of black and mild flints and stone, in daylight it glistens and sparkles.
Despite the fact that St George right here in Stowlangtoft is a high-quality church, it is in a bad state of restore, and is due to be designed redundant in the new 12 months. Generally unfortunate when that transpires to a parish church, but it is probably to be taken about by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to maintain it tidy when the previous wardens and keyholders are far too aged.
Stowlangtoft is a fabulous church and so happy am I that I expended 40 minutes of my time to go to it. Go to see it now in advance of it is too late!
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In the summer time of 2003, this website became a 6-component series on BBC Radio Suffolk. Something I stated in the fourth programme, about Hessett, produced a honest amount of money of correspondence. Referring to the way quite a few churches were being restored in the 19th century, I noticed that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian eyesight of the medieval even when the real furnishings and fittings are medieval, the total piece is nonetheless a Victorian conception.
Men and women wrote to me and explained issues like “but in that situation, Simon, how do we know what was there initially and what wasn’t?”. To which my reply was the enigmatic “think that nothing is as it first seems, as Sherlock Holmes claimed”. And if he didn’t, then he ought to have accomplished.
A primary example of a church that assumes a continuity that might not really be the truth of the matter is here in the flat fields amongst Woolpit and Ixworth. This element of Suffolk can be rather bleak, especially in late Oct, but England’s best summertime and autumn for decades experienced left the churchyard listed here verdant and golden, as attractive a spot as any I would observed that 12 months. The church is huge, and sits on a mound that has been slice down on 1 side by the street. I walked up the slope, past the memorial to the artwork critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which hardly ever fails to transfer me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett states of it that it simply cannot be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the types of the mere intellect and sings to us of our deeper self.
Confused as you may well be by it, don’t fall short to place the damaged window tracery that has been applied to construct the wall below, for therefore hangs a tale.
St George, in circumstance you don’t know, is just one of the good Suffolk church buildings. Although it might externally show up a small severe, and is by no signifies as grand as Blythburgh, Extended Melford and the relaxation, it is a treasure household of the medieval inside of. Unusually for a church of its date, it was all rebuilt in one go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular home windows are not nonetheless full of the ‘walls of glass’ confidence that the subsequent century would see. The tracery appears to have been fixed, and possibly even renewed, which may possibly explain why there is broken medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. Even so, it isn’t going to get much to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but decorated. So it may well be that the damaged tracery is from the primary church that the late 14th century church replaced. But the wall is not medieval, so where experienced it been all people many years?
One more survival from the earlier church is the font. It also asks some questions. Unusually, it features a Saint on 7 of the panels, Christ becoming on the westwards experience. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it demonstrates are familiar cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and considerably less typically St George. The cult of St George was at its top in the early many years of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it certainly just isn’t wanting its most effective. But I assume there is additional going on below than meets the eye. Fonts were plastered around in Elizabethan instances, and only relief that stood happy 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 least, this stonework seems weathered. I surprise if this font was removed from the church, likely in the mid-17th century, and served an out of doors objective until eventually it was returned in the 19th century.
The story of this church in the 19th century is perfectly-documented. In 1832, as part of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy frequented, and was pleased to uncover that the church was at final undergoing repair service. The chancel had been roofless, and the nave applied for products and services. A new Rectory was remaining constructed. Who was the catalyst at the rear of all this? His title was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector in this article for practically the center forty many years of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a very good mate of John Henry Newman, the future Cardinal, and they often corresponded on the subject matter of the pre-Reformation ordering of English churches. It is intriguing to assume how, at this seminal second, Rickards could have informed the thought of the Oxford Movement. Sadly, when Newman turned a Catholic Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
Through the course of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards transformed Stowlangtoft church. He bought the wonderful Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and total the marvellous established of bench finishes – Ringham did the same point at Woolpit, a couple miles absent. Ringham’s work is so good that it is often difficult for the inexperienced eye to detect it nevertheless, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals listed here, and the wierder stuff is all medieval, and probably dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft’s bench ends is partly the sheer quantity – there are most likely 60 carvings – but also that there are various exclusive topics you can see some of them down below.
The carvings seem to be component of the very same group as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull enjoying a harp, the bird with a man’s head, from identical carvings somewhere else. And then with any luck , that minimal alarm bell in your heard need to start off to go “Hmmmm…..” due to the fact some of the carvings here are clearly not from the exact same group. It is really hard to believe that that the mermaid and the owl, for case in point, are from the same workshop, or even from the very same 10 years. The benches themselves are no clue it was popular practice in the 19th century to swap medieval bench finishes on fashionable benches, or on medieval benches, or even on modern day benches manufactured out of medieval timber (as took place at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards discovered some of these bench finishes in other places? Could he have been the sort of man or woman to do a issue like that?
Properly, certainly he could. As Roy Tricker recalls, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is a single that Rickards acquired immediately after acquiring it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the terrific 19th century restoration of our English church buildings, there was loads of medieval junk lying all-around, a lot of it likely begging. But was Samuel Rickards the sort of particular person to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Very well, of course he probably was. Glimpse at the medieval roundels in the middle window on the south aspect of the nave. The 4 evangelists are higher than and beneath two fantastic representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them underneath click on on them to enlarge them. Sadly, they are not medieval at all, and it is usually accepted that they were being painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is anything similar the other side of Bury at Hawstead.
Truly medieval is the wide St Christopher wall-painting continue to discernible on the north wall. It was in all probability 1 of the past to be painted. The bench ends are medieval, of program, as is the wonderful rood-display screen dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval glass in the higher tracery of some of the windows. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard’s fee, and the operate of William White. What can Rickards have been pondering of? But we move through into the chancel, and quickly the complete factor moves up a gear. For right here are some things that are definitely remarkable.
In a county well known for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. Driving the rood display dado is Suffolk’s most finish set of return stalls. Most striking are the figures that type finials to the stall ends. They are contributors in the Mass, including two Priests, two servers and two acolytes. The determine of the Priest at a prayer desk have to be one of the finest medieval visuals in Suffolk Mortlock considered the stalls the very best in England. I was listed here with my good friend Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he had previously photographed and prepared about these carving a a pair of a long time ago. But even he located a little something new to photograph, and a hush fell on the chancel as we explored.
The benches that confront eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are wonderful items: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and crowned heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. In between the seats are strange oriental faces. Some of them are under click on on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am likely to inquire up coming. How a great deal of this is from this church initially? It all appears medieval get the job done, and there is no motive to believe that it may possibly not have been moved elsewhere in the church when the chancel was open to the features. What proof have we bought?
To start with, we must see that the only other Suffolk church with these a large quantity of medieval misericords of this quality is just a mile away, at Norton. I don’t ask you to see this as significant, just to notice it in passing. Next, I am no carpenter, but it does seem to me as though two sets of furnishings have been cobbled jointly the stalls that back again on to the display look to have been built-in into the larger sized construction of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south partitions.
Nevertheless, if you glimpse closely 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 surface on the rood monitor, and the Ashfields have been the important donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on balance I am inclined to assume that the higher component of the stall structure was in this church at first from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Very well, I really don’t know. But I assume they have to be viewed as as element of the identical set as those people at Norton. In which circumstance they may perhaps have arrive from the same church, which might have been this a single, but may not have been. Just about surely, the stalls at Norton did not come from Norton church, and folklore has it that they ended up originally in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other impressive matters in St George include things like FE Howard’s lovely war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the reverse corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s stunning St George, which serves the very same reason. It is as good as his operate at Elveden. Back again up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was evidently exhibited at, and acquired from, the Fantastic Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of training course, most renowned for the Flemish carvings that flank the somewhat significant altarpiece. They ended up provided to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Hall, who allegedly identified them in an Ixworth junk store. They clearly show illustrations or photos from the crucifixion tale, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides counsel. They date from the 1480s, and were just about definitely the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked throughout the French Revolution. I had noticed a little something very similar at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a couple weeks just before. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these the moment were being, and piled up in a block rather than spread out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches above them, are 19th century. My favourite illustrations or photos are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Click on the photographs beneath.
Just one chilly winter’s night time 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 until 1982, when they ended up found on screen in an Amsterdam art gallery. Their journey had been a convoluted one particular taken to Holland, they had been made use of as stability for a personal loan which was defaulted on. The new operator was then burgled, and the carvings were being fenced to an Amsterdam junk supplier. They were acquired from his store, and taken to the museum, which promptly identified them as 15th century carvings. They set them on exhibit, and a Dutch female who experienced read through about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted authorized proceedings to get them again an injunction was taken out to end the new operator eradicating them from the museum. The parish misplaced the case, leaving them with a monstrous lawful bill but the tale has a happy ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their purchase from the owner, paid out off the authorized expenditures, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Apparently this was all at wide value, but the businessman gave the gift in thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Currently, the carvings are set firmly in area and alarmed, so they would not be heading walkabout once more. But a little portion of me miracles if they really should really be listed here at all. Guaranteed, they are medieval, but they were not right here originally they were not even in England initially. Would not it be far better if they had been exhibited somewhere safer, wherever individuals could spend to see them, and supply some money for the upkeep of the church making? And then, whisper it, St George may well even be saved open.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village large avenue. 3 keyholders are listed, two of them promptly reverse. I am informed that Wednesday is not a superior time to test and get the important – it is sector working day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.british isles/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2017-12-17 14:43:43
Tagged: , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , pew , ends , carved pew finishes , Jelltex , Jelltecks , church
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