All Saints, Runhall, Norfolk
Peter Stephens, with whom I had formerly visited this church in 2006 and with whom I was right here all over again today, observed that All Saints appears as if a big experienced squashed it among his fingers in advance of it had set. It is of training course the missing chancel which presents it this overall look, alongside with the enormous perpendicular windows at the east end of both equally the south and north walls.
Quite a few chancels fell into disuse soon after the Reformation. There could continue to be a sacramental use for them in the variety of the quarterly communion services some chancels, Tilney All Saints for instance, were being equipped out in the 17th century for this very purpose. But the communion ceremony could be as effortlessly performed in the nave if there was a will or need to do so. If a chancel fell into disrepair it was frequently blocked off and permitted to ruin, not minimum mainly because the maintenance of the chancel was the responsibility of the rectory, not the parish the beneficiary of the rectory cash flow seems often to have shrunk from this responsibility.
At Runhall, the chancel endured a fireplace in the late 16th century, and was demolished, the arch stuffed in. Two piers even now challenge somewhat from the east conclude they are the western edges of the window tracery. What seems to be a filled-in doorway is a 19th century memorial.
The setting is lovely. The churchyard is along a narrow lane in a maze of other slender lanes to the south of Mattishall, with only a couple of houses for corporation. When I might final appear this way in 2006 I’d believed the church was locked, but on that occasion I discovered that you have to turn the handle the other way, and it opens. I did this right now and it nevertheless wouldn’t open up – but by pushing challenging I obtained it to transfer – the base of the door has swollen up and is urgent into the stone beneath.
As you would assume, the church is relatively square inside. The previous chancel arch is marked by a recess in the east wall, and a uncomplicated altar and curtained reredos is established in it. But the most noteworthy element of the interior is at the west finish of the church, powering the 14th century font with its quatrefoil patterns. This is the doorway into the base of the tower. The ironwork is from several intervals, but some of it has been discovered as 12th century. The woodwork of the doorway has been fixed, but it is almost certainly modern day with the earliest ironwork, and specified that the tower is Norman at the base, it is possibly the primary doorway to the tower, an extraordinary assumed.
A prolonged green curtain serves as a reredos in front of the blocked chancel arch, with an equally very long 19th Century enamelled signal earlier mentioned proclaiming that as typically as ye consume this bread and drink this cup ye do shew the Lord’s death until he come.
Guiding the pulpit in the east wall is an image specialized niche that should once have served a nave altar, yet another ghost of the previous. Its colouring appears first, in all probability 600 yrs aged. Now, the cheery kneelers and functional organ are marks of a ordinarily beloved and applied English state church. Even on a cold day it feels a friendly place.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2014-11-01 18:01:16
Tagged: , Runhall , Norfolk , church , church buildings , East Anglia
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