St Mary, Redenhall, Norfolk
I experienced not been back again to Redenhall for 10 yrs, but its great tower is unforgettable, rearing out of the rolling hills to the north of the Waveney. As you get nearer, you see that spreading further than the church is what must be 1 of the greatest churchyards in Norfolk, and there is a reason for this. Whilst Redenhall is a small village, the parish incorporates the really marketplace city of Harleston, from which it is separated by the terrible Diss to Yarmouth highway. 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 one that signifies business enterprise.
Reminiscent of the towers at Eye and Laxfield around the Suffolk border, the tower was virtually definitely the work of the exact masons. It was bankrolled by the De la Poles, just one of the richest families in East Anglia in the 15th century, and the fact that the elaborate flushwork is only in three sides of the tower, but not on the south aspect which can not be witnessed from the street, demonstrates that they have been a very wily bunch when it came to splashing the funds. They experienced been beneficiaries of the pestilences of the preceding century, when the deaths of around fifty percent the persons of Norfolk and Suffolk resulted in the crack-up of the outdated estates and the rising of wages and rates, enabling those with money to buy land cheaply. The emergence of a home-owning independent middle course with out historic ties and loyalties to their parishes and men and women would inevitably direct to the two great ideologies of the second 50 percent of the millennium, Protestantism and Capitalism.
But that was in the upcoming when the De la Poles and fellow proto-capitalists the Brothertons were being generating bequests to rebuild St Mary. Up went the tower and the clerestory, and the aisle windows ended up all replaced in the vogue of the working day. Only the chancel was remaining hunting relatively necessarily mean and slight. Maybe they would have acquired to that way too experienced priorities not improved. Around the base of the tower you can see their leopard and wild guy symbols. You may well also spot tortoises, for this was the symbol of the Gawdy spouse and children. One particular curious element is the carving of farriers’ implements on the west door. These have been taken to imply that the doorway was paid for by the local farriers’ guild, but I see no purpose to suppose that the carving is present-day, and I consider it is as most likely to be the work of an idle 18th century hand.
Inevitably, the interior of the church was not likely to are living up to the exterior. I experienced come below from the two churches of the Pulhams, the two substantial barns of churches, and this one particular is a little bit of a barn much too, huge and echoey, but most likely a classier barn than the two I experienced formerly frequented. It is accurate that the within of St Mary has been thoroughly Victorianised, and it is genuinely really hard to summon up any perception of its medieval existence. The critical dark woodwork of the case of the Holdich organ in the west gallery would have frowned on the acres of coloured glass in the naves at the Pulhams, but right here there is somewhat obvious gentle with only a couple of Ward & Nixon home windows that can simply be tuned out.
But there are attention-grabbing corners which give the church really significantly a character of its have, for case in point the Gawdy chapel at the east finish of the north aisle which consists of a spirited classical altar tomb of the late 18th century, a trace of Strawberry Hill Gothick about it, fairly unconventional but very properly performed. The window of heraldic glass is by Samuel Yarrington, and is reported to have occur from Gawdy Corridor in the north of the parish, demolished in the early years of WWII. An intriguing depth in the chapel is a 16th Century Venetian linen chest which is also stated to appear from Gawdy Corridor. It stands open up, and you can see a depiction of the Annunciation with sailing ships above on the inside of the lid, which is quite curious and relatively charming.
Redenhall church is renowned for just one unique medieval survival. This is the impressive double-headed eagle lectern, the wonderful product or service of a 15th century East Anglian workshop. There is one more in a single of the Kings Lynn church buildings, and the one at St Mark’s in Venice is reported to be from the exact same workshop. I enjoy the tiny lions on the pedestals best of all. Remarkably, the church has a second medieval lectern, a wooden one particular, and equally are solidly chained down to stop theft.
You can stroll beneath the fantastic organ to beneath the tower, an amazing house as massive as some church buildings. Though no for a longer period made use of, you get an effect of the good processional entrance this will have to once have been, and perhaps an inkling of what St Mary was like in its late medieval heyday, a position at final to mirror on the glory that when was here. As if to remind us of the passing of this sort of matters, a surviving painted plaque, almost certainly from a shed 17th Century memorial, hangs beside the tower arch. Death, it reads, behold thy selfe to me, these types of one particular was I as thou, and thou in time shall be even dust as I am now…
Posted by Simon Knott on 2018-08-06 19:32:29
Tagged: , Redenhall , Norfolk , East Anglia , church , church buildings
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