St Mary Magdalen, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen, Norfolk
You cross the huge, lazy Good Ouse, and at once Norfolk modifications. The rippling countryside flattens out, the horizon straightens. Norfolk’s trees vanish, apart from the odd a single or two that flame like beacons below the perpendicular sky. There aren’t genuinely fields any more, just broad prairies, and the villages are perfunctory. This is the Marshland.
Pevsner mentions extremely handful of structures west of the Ouse – other than the excellent churches, some of which are among the England’s very best. In his reserve England’s Thousand Ideal Church buildings, Simon Jenkins includes no much less than ten of the Norfolk marshland church buildings. There are only nine for the full of Northumberland.
Magdalen is, possibly, close ample to the relaxation of Norfolk to continue to be a right East Anglian village, and a rather a person at that. A person to savour if you are heading west and about to idea off the edge of the authentic county into that weird, sinking landscape past inexorably, water spilt right here would roll into Lincolnshire. But the church is a marshland church, big bold and stunning with that air of chiarascuro acquainted from its neighbours, a a little decayed elegance with the smell of outdated wood and damp in the air.
The village requires its identify from St Mary of Magdala, of training course, because it is genuinely just one of the Wiggenhalls. About the yrs, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalene has turn into a bit of a mouthful, particularly provided the presence of the nearby parish of Wiggenhall St Mary, wherever there is no true village. So, Magdalen it has grow to be, incidentally providing its name to a railway station on the Cambridge to Kings Lynn line. St Mary of Magdala is a single of my favourite Saints, and so it was a enjoyment to take a look at a whole village named immediately after her. The church is a beautiful assemblage of pink brick, flint and stone, wholly organic as it rises venerably in the slim graveyard. It is all really much 15th century, developed on wool funds, while as is widespread in East Anglia the wonderful tower is previously, on the eve of the Black Demise. If it experienced ever been rebuilt, this would have been 1 of the most superb church buildings in England.
You phase into a massive building, complete of light-weight, a dusty air falling little by little. At the west close, there is a unusual minimal door into the foundation of the tower – I wonder if the rebuilding of the nave elevated the stage of the flooring – and on either aspect of it the continues to be of the rood monitor are propped up, just 4 panels depicting the evangelistic symbols. Now, this is really curious – the symbols do not normally seem on roodscreens. My instinct was that they might be later on, but the operate certainly seems medieval, and the confront of Matthew’s winged male has been scratched out.
Substantially of the character of the nave comes from the woodwork, a satisfying combination of straightforward medieval benches and 19th century box pews beneath the initial 15th century roof, which is somewhat rustic in character with alternating hammerbeams and queen posts.
Just as neighbouring Wiggenhall St Mary has the major collection of medieval bench finishes in Norfolk, St Mary Magdalen has the largest selection of 15th century stained glass figures. There are about forty of them, scattered in the higher lights of the north aisle. However, they are relatively specialist assortment, and not simply identifiable to the untutored eye, for the reason that rather than familiar Apostles and Saints they largely stand for Bishops, Archbishops and Popes.
Simon Cotton, in the church guidebook, presents an outstanding essential to them. Ann Eljenholm Nichols’ e-book Early Artwork of Norfolk, almost certainly the very best e book ever created about the medieval churches of Norfolk, displays that more than a number of of them are exclusive representations in the county, and probably in the Kingdom. Most of them have scrolls, and with binoculars you can decipher some of the inscriptions, but couple have their common symbols with them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-10 09:25:27
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , Mary , Magdalene , magdalen , Norfolk , East Anglia
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