I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I believed I knew individuals two counties. But of program there is 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 pal, Simon K, runs a incredible site, which I hyperlink to on EA churches, and on his Suffolk Church site he has frequented 707 Suffolk church buildings, and 909 Norfolk churches. That is a good deal of church buildings for two counties to share, and a lot of of people church buildings are historic, flint developed, spherical towered or have wall paintings, wooden roof angels or one thing worthy of the effort of heading to see or looking for out the keyholder to obtain entry.
What I necessarily mean is that there is no way someone who only had their very own car right until 1984, and experienced little interest in church buildings or parishes could have listened to of most of the parishes in the two counties, and so a parish church like St George.
I saw St George from the main road, I was taking a small cut to join 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 healthcare facility and in the care of district nurses in purchase to get put again on her feet.
So I observed the tower of St George from about 50 % a mile absent, and imagined I experienced sufficient 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 stroll up the lender to the gate into the churchyard, the cleanse strains of the tower, nicely, towered over me.
In the porch I experimented with the door and identified it locked, but the keyholder listing built it very clear that the closest a single, at Xmas Cottage, was just above the road. So, why not try out, Ian?
I went to the cottage and rang the bell. I had to fill out my specifics in a ledger, a sensible measure. But I confirmed by driving licence to confirm that I was who I claimed. Tiny did I know the modest village I lived in had been observed. Much more of that in a moment.
Inside St George, you eye is stolen by the incredible pew ends animals of all types, actual and imaginary, and most experienced not been defaced, only these of apparent human variety. A person with the human body of a rooster but a crystal clear human facial area had been left by yourself, as a result is the insanity of the puritan’s head.
I made a decision that I would report every single pew stop figure, and a lot of total pew finishes so wonderful that they ended up.
There is the feint define of a big wall painting, Simon states it was of St. Christopher. It would have been most outstanding 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 are unable to glance at them also carefully, unfortunately, but these is a indicator of the occasions.
I took the keys back again, and the girl of the house arrived to speak to me as she experienced been informed by her partner that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is exactly where her relatives is from. Regrettably, I am not from, nor reside in Cliffe. For when there was indeed two Cliffs in Kent, a person on the Hoo Peninsular, in which her spouse and children is from, and a single in the vicinity of to Dover. Many decades in the past, Cliffe in the vicinity of to Dover was called WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake further north. I spelled out this to her, but mentioned St Helen in Cliffe is just one of my favorite Kent churches, created of alternate levels of black and gentle flints and stone, in sunlight it glistens and sparkles.
While St George in this article in Stowlangtoft is a high-quality church, it is in a lousy point out of fix, and is thanks to be built redundant in the new calendar year. Usually unhappy when that takes place to a parish church, but it is probably to be taken above by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to keep it tidy when the outdated wardens and keyholders are as well previous.
Stowlangtoft is a wonderful church and so glad am I that I invested 40 minutes of my time to stop by it. Go to see it now in advance of it is far too late!
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In the summer time of 2003, this web page turned a six-portion collection on BBC Radio Suffolk. One thing I said in the fourth programme, about Hessett, produced a good amount of money of correspondence. Referring to the way quite a few church buildings have been restored in the 19th century, I observed that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian eyesight of the medieval even when the precise furnishings and fittings are medieval, the complete piece is nevertheless a Victorian conception.
People today wrote to me and claimed issues like “but in that situation, Simon, how do we know what was there at first and what wasn’t?”. To which my reply was the enigmatic “presume that almost nothing is as it to start with appears, as Sherlock Holmes explained”. And if he failed to, then he really should have performed.
A primary case in point of a church that assumes a continuity that may perhaps not essentially be the fact is listed here in the flat fields in between Woolpit and Ixworth. This portion of Suffolk can be fairly bleak, primarily in late October, but England’s greatest summertime and autumn for a long time had remaining the churchyard right here verdant and golden, as attractive a put as any I’d witnessed that yr. The church is huge, and sits on a mound that has been slice down on a person facet by the street. I walked up the slope, earlier the memorial to the art critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which hardly ever fails to shift me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett claims of it that it can’t be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the categories of the mere head and sings to us of our further self.
Confused as you may possibly be by it, don’t fail to spot the broken window tracery that has been applied to establish the wall right here, for thus hangs a tale.
St George, in circumstance you really don’t know, is just one of the excellent Suffolk church buildings. Despite the fact that it may well externally appear a tiny significant, and is by no suggests as grand as Blythburgh, Extended Melford and the rest, it is a treasure household of the medieval within. Unusually for a church of its day, it was all rebuilt in one go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular windows are not but comprehensive of the ‘walls of glass’ assurance that the subsequent century would see. The tracery appears to have been repaired, and quite possibly even renewed, which may perhaps clarify why there is broken medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. However, it would not consider considerably 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 unique church that the late 14th century church changed. But the wall isn’t really medieval, so wherever experienced it been all people years?
A different survival from the previously church is the font. It also asks some questions. Unusually, it attributes a Saint on 7 of the panels, Christ staying on the westwards encounter. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it exhibits are acquainted cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and a lot less usually St George. The cult of St George was at its height in the early a long time of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it certainly isn’t seeking its very best. But I consider there is far more heading on below than meets the eye. Fonts ended up plastered around in Elizabethan moments, 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 least, this stonework appears weathered. I surprise if this font was taken off from the church, in all probability in the mid-17th century, and served an out of doors objective until finally it was returned in the 19th century.
The tale of this church in the 19th century is properly-documented. In 1832, as element of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy visited, and was delighted to obtain that the church was at previous going through repair service. The chancel had been roofless, and the nave applied for providers. A new Rectory was being constructed. Who was the catalyst behind all this? His title was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector below for virtually the center forty several years of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a great friend of John Henry Newman, the foreseeable future Cardinal, and they typically corresponded on the subject of the pre-Reformation ordering of English churches. It is attention-grabbing to assume how, at this seminal moment, Rickards might have educated 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 transformed Stowlangtoft church. He obtained the excellent Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and entire the marvellous established of bench ends – Ringham did the similar factor at Woolpit, a few miles away. Ringham’s function is so fantastic that it is sometimes tricky for the inexperienced eye to detect it however, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals here, and the wierder things is all medieval, and most likely dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft’s bench ends is partly the sheer quantity – there are maybe 60 carvings – but also that there are many unique subjects you can see some of them under.
The carvings appear to be portion of the exact same group 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 very similar carvings somewhere else. And then with any luck , that tiny alarm bell in your read must commence to go “Hmmmm…..” since some of the carvings in this article are evidently not from the exact group. It is tough to believe that that the mermaid and the owl, for illustration, are from the very same workshop, or even from the similar ten years. The benches themselves are no clue it was popular follow in the 19th century to exchange medieval bench ends on modern-day benches, or on medieval benches, or even on contemporary benches built out of medieval timber (as took place at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards observed some of these bench finishes somewhere else? Could he have been the kind of man or woman to do a thing like that?
Effectively, indeed he could. As Roy Tricker recalls, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is one that Rickards obtained right after getting it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the excellent 19th century restoration of our English church buildings, there was hundreds of medieval junk lying all-around, significantly of it likely begging. But was Samuel Rickards the variety of individual to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Nicely, of course he probably was. Search at the medieval roundels in the center window on the south aspect of the nave. The four evangelists are previously mentioned and under two superb representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them under simply click on them to enlarge them. Unfortunately, they are not medieval at all, and it is usually recognized that they have been painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is one thing identical the other aspect of Bury at Hawstead.
Definitely medieval is the huge St Christopher wall-portray nonetheless discernible on the north wall. It was likely 1 of the last to be painted. The bench finishes are medieval, of system, as is the good rood-monitor dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval glass in the upper tracery of some of the windows. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard’s commission, and the work of William White. What can Rickards have been contemplating of? But we action via into the chancel, and quickly the entire matter moves up a equipment. For right here are some points that are certainly impressive.
In a county famed for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. Powering the rood monitor dado is Suffolk’s most total set of return stalls. Most placing are the figures that variety finials to the stall ends. They are members in the Mass, together with two Monks, two servers and two acolytes. The determine of the Priest at a prayer desk should be just one of the ideal medieval pictures in Suffolk Mortlock considered the stalls the finest in England. I was in this article with my friend Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he experienced beforehand photographed and prepared about these carving a a few of several years ago. But even he identified one thing new to photograph, and a hush fell on the chancel as we explored.
The benches that encounter eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are superb matters: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and topped heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. Amongst the seats are bizarre oriental faces. Some of them are beneath simply click on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am heading to ask following. How a lot of this is from this church at first? It all seems medieval do the job, and there is no purpose to imagine it may not have been moved in other places in the church when the chancel was open up to the factors. What proof have we acquired?
To begin with, we must recognize that the only other Suffolk church with this kind of a big range of medieval misericords of this high-quality is just a mile absent, at Norton. I will not inquire you to see this as major, basically to discover it in passing. Secondly, I am no carpenter, but it does appear to me as while two sets of furnishings have been cobbled alongside one another the stalls that back on to the monitor surface to have been integrated into the larger sized framework of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south walls.
However, if you glance 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 appear on the rood display screen, and the Ashfields ended up the significant donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on stability I am inclined to think that the larger component of the stall structure was in this church initially from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Properly, I really don’t know. But I feel they have to be considered as portion of the similar established as those people at Norton. In which scenario they may possibly have appear from the exact church, which might have been this a single, but may not have been. Pretty much unquestionably, the stalls at Norton did not come from Norton church, and folklore has it that they had been at first in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other outstanding matters in St George consist of FE Howard’s lovely war memorial in the previous north doorway, and in the opposite corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s magnificent St George, which serves the very same intent. It is as superior as his function at Elveden. Back up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was apparently exhibited at, and acquired from, the Wonderful Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of course, most renowned for the Flemish carvings that flank the alternatively heavy altarpiece. They have been presented to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Hall, who allegedly uncovered them in an Ixworth junk shop. They demonstrate pictures from the crucifixion tale, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides propose. They day from the 1480s, and were being just about absolutely the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked in the course of the French Revolution. I experienced found something comparable at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a couple weeks ahead of. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these once had been, and piled up in a block rather than distribute out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches higher than them, are 19th century. My favourite images are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Click on on the photos below.
Just one chilly winter’s evening in January 1977, a gang of intruders broke into this locked church and stole them. Absolutely nothing more was noticed or listened to of them until finally 1982, when they ended up identified on display in an Amsterdam artwork gallery. Their journey experienced been a convoluted 1 taken to Holland, they ended up utilized as security for a loan which was defaulted upon. The new owner was then burgled, and the carvings ended up fenced to an Amsterdam junk supplier. They were being acquired from his store, and taken to the museum, which quickly discovered them as 15th century carvings. They set them on display screen, and a Dutch girl who experienced examine about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted legal proceedings to get them again an injunction was taken out to prevent the new operator eliminating them from the museum. The parish misplaced the scenario, leaving them with a monstrous authorized invoice but the story has a satisfied ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their buy from the operator, paid off the authorized expenses, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Apparently this was all at huge price, but the businessman gave the present in many thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
These days, the carvings are mounted firmly in location and alarmed, so they is not going to be going walkabout yet again. But a little part of me wonders if they actually really should be here at all. Confident, they are medieval, but they were not below initially they were not even in England originally. Wouldn’t it be far better if they were shown somewhere safer, wherever persons could fork out to see them, and supply some earnings for the maintenance of the church making? And then, whisper it, St George could possibly even be kept open.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village higher avenue. 3 keyholders are outlined, two of them instantly opposite. I am explained to that Wednesday is not a great time to attempt and get the important – it is marketplace working day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.united kingdom/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2017-12-17 14:44:02
Tagged: , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , pew , finishes , carved pew finishes , Jelltex , Jelltecks , church
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