St Nicholas, Little Saxham, Suffolk
Small Saxham is a handsome village, not considerably from the edge of the Ickworth estate. The church is set at the japanese end of the village where the main street from Bury forks, agricultural autos and 4x4s thundering abruptly all around corners concealed by historical yews, the check out of the church itself spoilt rather by a rather exuberant use of road furnishings. And genealogists building their way listed here would be let down to find out that the southern side of Minimal Saxham churchyard was quite effectively cleared of all its more mature gravestones by lawnmower lovers in the 1960s. A couple of of the more mature headstones have been reset in a line to the south of the nave, with some superior18th century types in the vicinity of the porch. An previous photograph within the church shows this graveyard as it at the time was, an entrancing jumble of priceless historical memorials. Instead tricky to get a lawnmower between, however, and so they are now absent.
But the broad expanse of grass does, at least, offset Suffolk’s very best spherical tower, and potentially England’s. There are historical good reasons for other individuals remaining at the very least as appealing, but are any as wonderful? The bell-phase is Norman, and hence particularly value a gaze, due to the fact so several of Suffolk’s round towers experienced their bell phases rebuilt in afterwards hundreds of years. The Victorians did very very little to it, and the exterior entire body of the church itself is nonetheless broadly as it was on the eve of the Reformation. The Lucas chapel (a lot more often referred to these days as the Crofts chapel) on the north aspect of the chancel was developed in the 1530s, just ahead of this sort of points became theologically unacceptable.
You step by way of a doorway that is broadly present-day with the tower best, and on your left are two instead outstanding archways. The first, on your remaining, is a very low Norman arch, about the exact same measurement as the doorway you have just stepped via, but established hardly a metre and a 50 percent off of the floor. This has been variously identified as a tomb recess, an aumbry, a risk-free for valuables and a doorway into a dropped chapel. None of these feel suitable, and it appears far more than most likely that it is the previous north doorway, potentially moved below in the 19th century, even though to what goal is a secret. Probably, it was reconstructed simply just to search like a tomb recess – the Victorians went in for that variety of detail. It may well have been supposed to echo something similar in the chancel.
Beside it is one particular of the most breathtakingly charming tower arches in Suffolk, a tremendous thing in these kinds of a smaller church, beautifully gorgeous, elevating the eye heavenwards. The doorway above it recollects the just one at Thorington, where the tower is also not dissimilar. Down below the arch are panels of the rood monitor, lions, squirrels and eagles struggling with just about every other off in the spandrels.
Beside the tower arch is the parish war memorial, with 3 names on it. Frederick Fisher was wounded at Ypres, and died of his wounds at dwelling in Little Saxham in 1919. The other two on the memorial are brothers, George and William Sansom. George was killed at Neuve Chapelle in 1915, William on the Somme in 1916. The two brothers are also remembered on Frederick Fisher’s headstone outdoors in a gloomy corner of the churchyard.
Turning eastwards, the quantity and excellent of medieval woodwork is placing for such a humble constructing. It isn’t really hard to sort it out from the 19th century stuff, broadly talking the more recent benches are on the south facet. Of the medieval bench finishes, a lady at a prayer-desk may perhaps properly be component of an Annunciation, a dragon biting its tail appears to be like alternatively heraldic, and what is almost certainly a lion appears to be not in contrast to the cock-monster at Stowlangtoft.
Mortlock believed that the entrance to the rood stairs currently being six ft off the ground recommended that it had the moment been utilised to keep valuables. This may perhaps be so, but I think it is far much more likely that it is offering us evidence of a now-vanished wooden area of the stairs that led down into the aisle, as at nearby Denston.
The chancel is at when lovely and simple. The communion rails have been rescued from the deserted church at Small Livermere, and have been reset below. On the north aspect, the curious memorial with its heraldic products is the blocked up entrance to the Lucas chapel, now the vestry. The shields come from the tomb of Sir Thomas Fitzlucas, which after stood inside of.
The entrance to the vestry is from the east conclusion of the north aisle. It is stored locked. Even so, it is truly worth contacting the keyholder shown on the doorway, simply because, from its times as the Lucas chapel, it continue to incorporates the instead magnificent tomb of William, very first Baron Crofts, in all its 1670s Restoration glory.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2017-08-20 09:17:58
Tagged: , Little , Saxham , suffolk , east anglia , church , church buildings , nikon , d5300
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