All Saints, Eyke, Suffolk
This village straggles the busy highway amongst Woodbridge and Snape because the closure of the nearby American airbase, it is a great deal quieter than it utilized to be, while when I came this way on a sub-zero working day in January 2017 I was happy to see that the village shop was still executing very good small business. Across the street, and set back again from it, All Saints sits quietly, with no tower to lead you to it from afar.
At 1st sight, this is a very simple, if uneven, minimal church, to some degree barn-like in its ancient graveyard. Tall elm trees all around it are property to jackdaws and rooks their cries fill the air as they wheel above you. A terrific yew caresses the south of the nave. The contemporary tiny porch presents no indicator that you are about to enter one of the more fascinating church buildings in this aspect of Suffolk.
As you stage down into the square south aisle and nave (in point, they appear broader than they are very long!) the first matter you observe is a pair of beautiful Norman arches, 1 about 10 ft to the east of the other, at the foundation of what was once the central tower, whilst just about no sign continues to be of it from the outdoors now. Over and above them, the chancel opens up, its height accentuating the lowness of the arches which direct into it.
Sam Mortlock argues that All Saints was most likely a cruciform church as at Pakenham in west Suffolk, with the south chapel primary off from the south-east corner of the nave taking up section of what was a south transept. Cautley viewed as a tripartite arrangement additional possible, as at Newton-by-Castle-Acre in Norfolk, largely on the toughness of the arches only obtaining mouldings on the western aspect. 1 of the decrease tower windows can nonetheless be seen on the jap face from within the chancel, and appears most curious. A bell rope disappears up into the ceilure. Whilst the western arch only has one band of chevrons, the japanese arch has two. If you appear intently at the nave roof right away in entrance of the western arch, you can see traces of paint, evidence of a a person-time canopy of honour to the now-vanished rood. There is a small collection of medieval and continental glass in the chancel north window, such as a superior high quality scene of St Bridget feeding the beggars, two jolly mermaids and what show up to be the arms of the Borough of Fantastic Yarmouth.
Edward Hakewill carried out the restoration right here in the 1860s. He is liable for the angels on the wall plate of the nave. The south aisle is just not definitely an aisle at all, more a completion of the square in between primary nave and south transept. The south transept (if these types of it was) had been a chantry chapel, normally referred to as the Bavents Chantry. Lavers, Barraud & Westlake provided the glass for Hakewill’s west window, as effectively as a smaller lancet on the east aspect of the south transept, but the woodwork in the church is relatively much more latest, and an attention-grabbing tale pertains to it.
Like numerous other Suffolk churches, including Waldringfield throughout the estuary, a household dynasty of vicars was accountable for the Anglican revival in this parish. These had been the Darlings, James pere et fils. They held this residing for 80 a long time, in between 1859 and 1939. The father oversaw Hakewill’s restoration of what experienced turn out to be a in the vicinity of-derelict church. The son, who took around in 1893, experienced a enthusiasm for woodcarving. He taught his parishioners the ability at night time lessons in the village school. Between them, the villagers made the benches, font cover, organ case, chapel display and reredos. If you glimpse at the bench finishes, you will locate James Darling’s pet puppy, and some other unlikely animals which include a beaver, a snake, a squirrel and a penguin. A crowned figure with a rosary on the poppyhead of just one bench possibly signifies the Blessed Virgin, and a seated cleric with a smile on his confront is probably James Darling himself. The pulpit is Darling’s memorial. The workshop’s bench finishes can be observed in fifty percent a dozen other east Suffolk churches.
The east window is a rather sombre affair, also by Lavers, Barraud & Westlake, showing the little ones coming to Christ although angels try and show what Charity appears to be like. The parish’s most renowned treasure, the 15th century Eyke important, is now in the British Museum. Its wards are shaped to make the word IKE, an alternate variety of the village name. I was upset to discover that the doorlock has been transformed considering that, but I suppose retention of the first would have produced this the simplest of all churches to crack into. A fibre-glass copy hangs on the wall.
It pleases me to arrive back listed here. It is now seventeen decades because my very first go to, on New Year’s Day 2000, I was the initial human being of the century* to indication the website visitors e book, and it was satisfying to switch back to it on my return in 2006 and 2010. But I have still left it as well extensive, and on my most new check out in 2017 I found that a new visitor’s ebook experienced taken the put of the aged one. Ah well. Again in 2000, the awesome lady practising the organ experienced told me that one of the Reverend Darling’s daughters was even now alive, and from time to time visited to see once more her father’s and grandfather’s handiwork. In 2010 I puzzled if she however did, but now some seventeen many years have handed, and I suppose she does not any extra.
*Certainly, I know that pedants will explain to you that the 21st Century commenced on New A long time Working day 2001. You should not pay attention to them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2017-01-29 18:36:10
Tagged: , Eyke , East Anglia , suffolk , church , church buildings , nikon , d5300
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