I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I thought I understood all those two counties. But of program there is extra 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 magnificent web-site, which I link to on EA churches, and on his Suffolk Church site he has frequented 707 Suffolk church buildings, and 909 Norfolk churches. That is a lot of churches for two counties to share, and lots of of individuals churches are historic, flint created, spherical towered or have wall paintings, picket roof angels or something value the hard work of heading to see or trying to find out the keyholder to gain accessibility.
What I imply is that there is no way someone who only experienced their possess auto until 1984, and experienced tiny interest in churches or parishes could have listened to of most of the parishes in the two counties, and so a parish church like St George.
I noticed St George from the major road, I was taking a small slash to be part of the A14 and from there to the A12 and south on what I hoped my my previous trip of the calendar year to lowestoft as Mother is now out of hospital and in the care of district nurses in purchase to get put back again on her toes.
So I observed the tower of St George from about 50 percent a mile absent, and considered I experienced adequate time to go above and see inside if I could.
I parked at the conclusion of a cul-de-sac of new bungalows, and as I walk up the financial institution to the gate into the churchyard, the clear lines of the tower, perfectly, towered over me.
In the porch I tried out the doorway and discovered it locked, but the keyholder checklist produced it distinct that the closest one, at Christmas Cottage, was just around the road. So, why not consider, Ian?
I went to the cottage and rang the bell. I experienced to fill out my particulars in a ledger, a smart measure. But I confirmed by driving licence to show that I was who I claimed. Minor did I know the modest village I lived in had been seen. A lot more of that in a moment.
Inside of St George, you eye is stolen by the incredible pew finishes animals of all varieties, serious and imaginary, and most had not been defaced, only these of noticeable human sort. One particular with the system of a rooster but a obvious human encounter had been remaining alone, hence is the madness of the puritan’s thoughts.
I made the decision that I would report every single pew finish determine, and many total pew ends so amazing that they were being.
There is the feint outline of a big wall portray, Simon states it was of St. Christopher. It would have been most impressive when freshly painted. There is also a fantastic set of misericords.
St George’s glory is the altarpiece, into detail Simon goes below. It is alarmed, so you can not look at them as well closely, regrettably, but these types of is a indication of the instances.
I took the keys again, and the woman of the dwelling arrived to communicate to me as she had been informed by her spouse that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is exactly where her relatives is from. Regrettably, I am not from, nor stay in Cliffe. For after there was certainly two Cliffs in Kent, a single on the Hoo Peninsular, wherever her household is from, and one close to to Dover. Several several years in the past, Cliffe close to to Dover was named WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake even more north. I defined this to her, but explained St Helen in Cliffe is a person of my favorite Kent church buildings, crafted of alternate layers of black and gentle flints and stone, in sunlight it glistens and sparkles.
While St George right here in Stowlangtoft is a fantastic church, it is in a inadequate condition of mend, and is thanks to be created redundant in the new yr. Usually unfortunate when that occurs to a parish church, but it is probable to be taken around by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to continue to keep it tidy when the aged wardens and keyholders are far too previous.
Stowlangtoft is a fantastic church and so glad am I that I used 40 minutes of my time to take a look at it. Go to see it now before it is as well late!
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In the summer months of 2003, this website became a 6-section collection on BBC Radio Suffolk. Some thing I reported in the fourth programme, about Hessett, produced a reasonable volume of correspondence. Referring to the way a lot of church buildings were being restored in the 19th century, I noticed that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian vision of the medieval even when the true furnishings and fittings are medieval, the whole piece is however a Victorian conception.
Folks wrote to me and stated matters like “but in that scenario, Simon, how do we know what was there at first and what was not?”. To which my reply was the enigmatic “suppose that nothing at all is as it to start with appears, as Sherlock Holmes mentioned”. And if he didn’t, then he must have performed.
A prime case in point of a church that assumes a continuity that may not essentially be the fact is in this article in the flat fields concerning Woolpit and Ixworth. This section of Suffolk can be fairly bleak, specifically in late Oct, but England’s greatest summertime and autumn for many years had still left the churchyard below verdant and golden, as beautiful a area as any I might found that calendar year. The church is massive, and sits on a mound that has been lower down on one aspect by the highway. I walked up the slope, past the memorial to the art critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which under no circumstances fails to move me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett says of it that it can’t be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the groups of the mere intellect and sings to us of our deeper self.
Overcome as you may possibly be by it, really don’t fall short to location the damaged window tracery that has been utilized to establish the wall here, for therefore hangs a tale.
St George, in scenario you do not know, is just one of the terrific Suffolk church buildings. Despite the fact that it may well externally show up a very little extreme, and is by no means as grand as Blythburgh, Extended Melford and the relaxation, it is a treasure residence of the medieval inside of. Unusually for a church of its day, it was all rebuilt in a person go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular windows are not however complete of the ‘walls of glass’ confidence that the subsequent century would see. The tracery seems to have been fixed, and probably even renewed, which may clarify why there is damaged medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. Nevertheless, it won’t consider substantially to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but decorated. So it may well be that the broken tracery is from the unique church that the late 14th century church replaced. But the wall is not medieval, so the place had it been all those many years?
An additional survival from the before church is the font. It also asks some thoughts. Unusually, it options a Saint on seven of the panels, Christ being on the westwards face. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it exhibits 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 height in the early many years of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it surely is just not seeking its finest. But I imagine there is much more likely on right here than meets the eye. Fonts have been plastered above in Elizabethan occasions, and only reduction that stood proud of the plaster was mutilated. These are all shallow reliefs, and I do not feel they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at the very least, this stonework appears weathered. I wonder if this font was removed from the church, in all probability in the mid-17th century, and served an outside function till it was returned in the 19th century.
The tale of this church in the 19th century is perfectly-documented. In 1832, as component of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy visited, and was happy to come across that the church was at previous undergoing restore. The chancel had been roofless, and the nave utilised for services. A new Rectory was becoming constructed. Who was the catalyst powering all this? His name was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector in this article for practically the center forty several years of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a very good buddy of John Henry Newman, the future Cardinal, and they often corresponded on the matter of the pre-Reformation purchasing of English church buildings. It is attention-grabbing to think how, at this seminal instant, Rickards might have educated the assumed of the Oxford Motion. Sadly, when Newman grew to become a Catholic Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
All through the training course of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards transformed Stowlangtoft church. He bought the great Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and comprehensive the marvellous established of bench finishes – Ringham did the similar matter at Woolpit, a handful of miles absent. Ringham’s perform is so good that it is in some cases challenging for the inexperienced eye to detect it on the other hand, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals listed here, and the wierder things is all medieval, and possibly dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft’s bench ends is partly the sheer amount – there are possibly 60 carvings – but also that there are quite a few special subjects you can see some of them below.
The carvings look to be part of the identical team as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull playing a harp, the chicken with a man’s head, from equivalent carvings elsewhere. And then ideally that little alarm bell in your read need to get started to go “Hmmmm…..” for the reason that some of the carvings in this article are obviously not from the very same group. It is tricky to believe that that the mermaid and the owl, for case in point, are from the very same workshop, or even from the exact ten years. The benches them selves are no clue it was frequent exercise in the 19th century to exchange medieval bench finishes on modern day benches, or on medieval benches, or even on modern day benches built out of medieval timber (as happened at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards discovered some of these bench finishes elsewhere? Could he have been the kind of human being to do a detail like that?
Well, certainly he could. As Roy Tricker recalls, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is 1 that Rickards acquired right after discovering it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the great 19th century restoration of our English churches, there was loads of medieval junk lying all-around, significantly of it heading begging. But was Samuel Rickards the variety of human being to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Effectively, certainly he probably was. Glance at the medieval roundels in the center window on the south facet of the nave. The four evangelists are over and down below two fantastic representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them beneath simply click on them to enlarge them. Sadly, they are not medieval at all, and it is generally accepted that they had been painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is anything related the other side of Bury at Hawstead.
Truly medieval is the extensive St Christopher wall-portray even now discernible on the north wall. It was likely a single of the final to be painted. The bench ends are medieval, of system, as is the fine rood-monitor 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 wondering of? But we stage by way of into the chancel, and all of a sudden the full thing moves up a gear. For listed here are some points that are truly outstanding.
In a county renowned for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. At the rear of the rood monitor dado is Suffolk’s most finish established of return stalls. Most striking are the figures that sort finials to the stall finishes. They are individuals in the Mass, like two Priests, two servers and two acolytes. The figure of the Priest at a prayer desk will have to be just one of the very best medieval illustrations or photos in Suffolk Mortlock imagined the stalls the greatest in England. I was in this article with my buddy Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he experienced earlier photographed and created about these carving a a couple of decades back. But even he uncovered 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 fantastic 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 weird oriental faces. Some of them are below simply click on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am heading to request up coming. How considerably of this is from this church originally? It all appears medieval do the job, and there is no reason to believe that it may possibly not have been moved in other places in the church when the chancel was open to the elements. What proof have we acquired?
For starters, we must recognize that the only other Suffolk church with these types of a huge range of medieval misericords of this high-quality is just a mile absent, at Norton. I never inquire you to see this as important, just to see it in passing. Secondly, I am no carpenter, but it does appear to me as although two sets of furnishings have been cobbled with each other the stalls that back again on to the display show up to have been integrated into the larger framework of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south partitions.
Even so, if you glimpse intently at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche families. The Ashfield arms also look on the rood monitor, and the Ashfields were being the big donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on harmony I am inclined to assume that the increased aspect of the stall composition was in this church initially from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Very well, I really don’t know. But I feel they have to be considered as section of the exact same set as individuals at Norton. In which case they might have arrive from the identical church, which may possibly have been this a single, but may not have been. Pretty much absolutely, the stalls at Norton did not arrive from Norton church, and folklore has it that they have been at first in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other amazing points in St George include things like FE Howard’s lovely war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the opposite corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s gorgeous St George, which serves the similar reason. It is as very good as his work at Elveden. Again up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was evidently exhibited at, and acquired from, the Good Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of program, most renowned for the Flemish carvings that flank the alternatively hefty altarpiece. They were being specified to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Corridor, who allegedly discovered them in an Ixworth junk store. They exhibit images from the crucifixion story, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides propose. They day from the 1480s, and ended up pretty much unquestionably the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked all through the French Revolution. I experienced noticed something equivalent at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a number of weeks prior to. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these once have been, and piled up in a block alternatively than spread out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches earlier mentioned them, are 19th century. My favourite visuals are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Simply click on the visuals down below.
A person chilly winter’s night in January 1977, a gang of robbers broke into this locked church and stole them. Almost nothing more was found or listened to of them until 1982, when they were found out on exhibit in an Amsterdam art gallery. Their journey experienced been a convoluted one particular taken to Holland, they have been employed as security for a personal loan which was defaulted upon. The new owner was then burgled, and the carvings had been fenced to an Amsterdam junk dealer. They have been purchased from his shop, and taken to the museum, which promptly determined them as 15th century carvings. They place them on display screen, and a Dutch female who had read about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted legal proceedings to get them back again an injunction was taken out to quit the new owner eliminating them from the museum. The parish dropped the situation, leaving them with a monstrous authorized bill but the tale has a joyful ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their invest in from the operator, compensated off the legal payments, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Evidently this was all at huge charge, but the businessman gave the gift in thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
These days, the carvings are set firmly in location and alarmed, so they will not likely be likely walkabout once more. But a minor section of me wonders if they really must be right here at all. Absolutely sure, they are medieval, but they weren’t below at first they weren’t even in England originally. Wouldn’t it be better if they had been exhibited someplace safer, in which persons could pay to see them, and supply some cash flow for the servicing of the church developing? And then, whisper it, St George might even be stored open up.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village higher road. A few keyholders are mentioned, two of them straight away reverse. I am instructed that Wednesday is not a very good time to attempt and get the vital – it is market working day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2017-12-17 14:43:19
Tagged: , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , pew , ends , carved pew ends , Jelltex , Jelltecks , church
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