St Mary, Redenhall, Norfolk
I experienced not been back to Redenhall for ten a long time, but its terrific tower is unforgettable, rearing out of the rolling hills to the north of the Waveney. As you get closer, you see that spreading beyond the church is what must be a single of the greatest churchyards in Norfolk, and there is a rationale for this. Even though Redenhall is a very small village, the parish features the pretty market place city of Harleston, from which it is divided by the terrible Diss to Yarmouth highway. Harleston has a 19th century chapel of ease in its centre, but when you see St Mary even from a length you know that this is the one that means small business.
Reminiscent of the towers at Eye and Laxfield about the Suffolk border, the tower was just about undoubtedly the do the job of the same masons. It was bankrolled by the De la Poles, a person of the richest people in East Anglia in the 15th century, and the reality that the elaborate flushwork is only in 3 sides of the tower, but not on the south aspect which can’t be seen from the highway, demonstrates that they ended up a really wily bunch when it arrived to splashing the funds. They experienced been beneficiaries of the pestilences of the former century, when the fatalities of about 50 % the men and women of Norfolk and Suffolk resulted in the break-up of the old estates and the mounting of wages and charges, enabling these with income to purchase land cheaply. The emergence of a home-proudly owning independent middle class without having historic ties and loyalties to their parishes and people today would inevitably lead to the two good ideologies of the second 50 percent of the millennium, Protestantism and Capitalism.
But that was in the upcoming when the De la Poles and fellow proto-capitalists the Brothertons had been building bequests to rebuild St Mary. Up went the tower and the clerestory, and the aisle home windows have been all changed in the manner of the day. Only the chancel was still left seeking relatively indicate and slight. Possibly they would have received to that much too had priorities not modified. All around the foundation of the tower you can see their leopard and wild gentleman symbols. You could also spot tortoises, for this was the image of the Gawdy family. Just one curious detail is the carving of farriers’ implements on the west door. These have been taken to imply that the door was compensated for by the area farriers’ guild, but I see no explanation to suppose that the carving is modern, and I assume it is as possible to be the operate of an idle 18th century hand.
Inevitably, the interior of the church was not going to dwell up to the exterior. I experienced arrive below from the two church buildings of the Pulhams, both of those enormous barns of churches, and this a single is a little bit of a barn far too, wide and echoey, but possibly a classier barn than the two I had formerly visited. It is legitimate that the within of St Mary has been thoroughly Victorianised, and it is really really hard to summon up any sense of its medieval existence. The serious darkish woodwork of the case of the Holdich organ in the west gallery would have frowned on the acres of coloured glass in the naves at the Pulhams, but below there is reasonably distinct light-weight with only a several Ward & Nixon windows that can effortlessly be tuned out.
But there are intriguing corners which give the church extremely a lot a character of its very own, for case in point the Gawdy chapel at the east end of the north aisle which contains a spirited classical altar tomb of the late 18th century, a trace of Strawberry Hill Gothick about it, fairly uncommon but pretty properly completed. The window of heraldic glass is by Samuel Yarrington, and is claimed to have appear from Gawdy Corridor in the north of the parish, demolished in the early yrs of WWII. An intriguing detail in the chapel is a 16th Century Venetian linen chest which is also stated to occur from Gawdy Hall. It stands open, and you can see a depiction of the Annunciation with sailing ships higher than on the inside of of the lid, which is really curious and somewhat charming.
Redenhall church is renowned for a person individual medieval survival. This is the magnificent double-headed eagle lectern, the glorious product or service of a 15th century East Anglian workshop. There is yet another in 1 of the Kings Lynn church buildings, and the one at St Mark’s in Venice is stated to be from the same workshop. I adore the little lions on the pedestals finest of all. Remarkably, the church has a 2nd medieval lectern, a picket just one, and both of those are solidly chained down to stop theft.
You can stroll beneath the excellent organ to beneath the tower, an impressive house as significant as some church buildings. Even though no for a longer period employed, you get an perception of the excellent processional entrance this have to at the time have been, and most likely an inkling of what St Mary was like in its late medieval heyday, a place at final to mirror on the glory that the moment was here. As if to remind us of the passing of such issues, a surviving painted plaque, almost certainly from a lost 17th Century memorial, hangs beside the tower arch. Dying, it reads, behold thy selfe to me, these kinds of just one was I as thou, and thou in time shall be even dust as I am now…
Posted by Simon Knott on 2018-08-06 19:32:32
Tagged: , Redenhall , Norfolk , East Anglia , church , churches
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