St Mary Magdalen, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalen, Norfolk
You cross the vast, lazy Terrific Ouse, and at when Norfolk modifications. The rippling countryside flattens out, the horizon straightens. Norfolk’s trees disappear, apart from the odd a single or two that flame like beacons down below the perpendicular sky. There are not definitely fields any longer, just large prairies, and the villages are perfunctory. This is the Marshland.
Pevsner mentions quite handful of properties west of the Ouse – other than the wonderful church buildings, some of which are amid England’s very best. In his e-book England’s Thousand Most effective Churches, Simon Jenkins involves no much less than ten of the Norfolk marshland church buildings. There are only nine for the whole of Northumberland.
Magdalen is, probably, close more than enough to the relaxation of Norfolk to nonetheless be a good East Anglian village, and a pretty one at that. One particular to savour if you are heading west and about to idea off the edge of the genuine county into that peculiar, sinking landscape beyond inexorably, h2o spilt listed here would roll into Lincolnshire. But the church is a marshland church, huge daring and gorgeous with that air of chiarascuro common from its neighbours, a a little decayed magnificence with the scent of aged wood and moist in the air.
The village normally takes its title from St Mary of Magdala, of program, for the reason that it is seriously a single of the Wiggenhalls. Above the yrs, Wiggenhall St Mary Magdalene has turn out to be a bit of a mouthful, especially offered the presence of the close by parish of Wiggenhall St Mary, in which there is no authentic village. So, Magdalen it has come to be, incidentally providing its identify to a railway station on the Cambridge to Kings Lynn line. St Mary of Magdala is a person of my favourite Saints, and so it was a satisfaction to take a look at a complete village named just after her. The church is a lovely assemblage of red brick, flint and stone, wholly organic as it rises venerably in the slender graveyard. It is all pretty a lot 15th century, designed on wool revenue, despite the fact that as is frequent in East Anglia the great tower is before, on the eve of the Black Death. If it had at any time been rebuilt, this would have been a person of the most spectacular churches in England.
You action into a substantial constructing, entire of gentle, a dusty air slipping slowly and gradually. At the west close, there is a peculiar tiny door into the foundation of the tower – I ponder if the rebuilding of the nave elevated the stage of the floor – and on either aspect of it the remains of the rood display are propped up, just 4 panels depicting the evangelistic symbols. Now, this is extremely curious – the symbols do not generally surface on roodscreens. My instinct was that they might be later on, but the do the job definitely looks medieval, and the face of Matthew’s winged gentleman has been scratched out.
Much of the character of the nave arrives from the woodwork, a pleasing combination of uncomplicated medieval benches and 19th century box pews beneath the initial 15th century roof, which is relatively 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 greatest selection of 15th century stained glass figures. There are about forty of them, scattered in the upper lights of the north aisle. Nevertheless, they are rather expert collection, and not quickly identifiable to the untutored eye, due to the fact relatively than familiar Apostles and Saints they generally symbolize Bishops, Archbishops and Popes.
Simon Cotton, in the church guide, supplies an superb essential to them. Ann Eljenholm Nichols’ book Early Artwork of Norfolk, in all probability the best reserve ever published about the medieval churches of Norfolk, exhibits that a lot more than a several of them are special 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 familiar symbols with them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-10 09:25:21
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , Mary , Magdalene , magdalen , Norfolk , East Anglia
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