St Mary, Redenhall, Norfolk
I experienced not been back to Redenhall for ten many years, but its wonderful tower is unforgettable, rearing out of the rolling hills to the north of the Waveney. As you get closer, you see that spreading past the church is what should be just one of the greatest churchyards in Norfolk, and there is a motive for this. Although Redenhall is a very small village, the parish involves the fairly industry city of Harleston, from which it is divided by the awful Diss to Yarmouth road. Harleston has a 19th century chapel of relieve in its centre, but when you see St Mary even from a distance you know that this is the 1 that implies small business.
Reminiscent of the towers at Eye and Laxfield around the Suffolk border, the tower was nearly surely the work of the very same masons. It was bankrolled by the De la Poles, a single of the richest families in East Anglia in the 15th century, and the fact that the elaborate flushwork is only in a few sides of the tower, but not on the south aspect which can not be witnessed from the street, exhibits that they have been a rather wily bunch when it came to splashing the cash. They had been beneficiaries of the pestilences of the previous century, when the deaths of around 50 % the people of Norfolk and Suffolk resulted in the crack-up of the outdated estates and the mounting of wages and costs, enabling individuals with revenue to buy land cheaply. The emergence of a residence-proudly owning independent middle course with no historic ties and loyalties to their parishes and persons would inevitably lead to the two great ideologies of the second 50 percent of the millennium, Protestantism and Capitalism.
But that was in the long term when the De la Poles and fellow proto-capitalists the Brothertons have been creating bequests to rebuild St Mary. Up went the tower and the clerestory, and the aisle home windows were being all changed in the style of the day. Only the chancel was left searching somewhat suggest and slight. Perhaps they would have acquired to that far too experienced priorities not adjusted. Close to the foundation of the tower you can see their leopard and wild guy symbols. You may well also place tortoises, for this was the symbol of the Gawdy loved ones. A single curious depth is the carving of farriers’ implements on the west door. These have been taken to suggest that the doorway was compensated for by the community farriers’ guild, but I see no purpose to suppose that the carving is modern, and I consider it is as possible to be the function of an idle 18th century hand.
Inevitably, the inside of the church was not likely to are living up to the exterior. I had appear below from the two church buildings of the Pulhams, equally large barns of church buildings, and this a single is a bit of a barn much too, large and echoey, but most likely a classier barn than the two I had previously frequented. It is real that the inside of St Mary has been carefully Victorianised, and it is definitely difficult to summon up any feeling of its medieval existence. The severe dark woodwork of the case of the Holdich organ in the west gallery would have frowned on the acres of colored glass in the naves at the Pulhams, but right here there is fairly obvious mild with only a couple of Ward & Nixon windows that can simply be tuned out.
But there are exciting corners which give the church really considerably a character of its very own, for example the Gawdy chapel at the east close of the north aisle which consists of a spirited classical altar tomb of the late 18th century, a hint of Strawberry Hill Gothick about it, somewhat strange but really perfectly completed. The window of heraldic glass is by Samuel Yarrington, and is stated to have arrive from Gawdy Hall in the north of the parish, demolished in the early years of WWII. An intriguing element in the chapel is a 16th Century Venetian linen chest which is also claimed to appear from Gawdy Hall. It stands open up, and you can see a depiction of the Annunciation with sailing ships over on the inside of of the lid, which is pretty curious and rather attractive.
Redenhall church is famous for a single individual medieval survival. This is the amazing double-headed eagle lectern, the superb product of a 15th century East Anglian workshop. There is a further in one of the Kings Lynn churches, and the a single at St Mark’s in Venice is reported to be from the identical workshop. I adore the very little lions on the pedestals ideal of all. Remarkably, the church has a 2nd medieval lectern, a wooden a single, and both of those are solidly chained down to stop theft.
You can stroll under the wonderful organ to beneath the tower, an outstanding area as big as some churches. Though no for a longer period used, you get an impact of the excellent processional entrance this will have to as soon as have been, and potentially an inkling of what St Mary was like in its late medieval heyday, a location at past to replicate on the glory that when was here. As if to remind us of the passing of this kind of items, a surviving painted plaque, most likely from a missing 17th Century memorial, hangs beside the tower arch. Loss of life, it reads, behold thy selfe to me, these a person was I as thou, and thou in time shall be even dust as I am now…
Posted by Simon Knott on 2018-08-06 19:32:34
Tagged: , Redenhall , Norfolk , East Anglia , church , church buildings
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