St Mary, Wiggenhall St Mary, Norfolk
Simon Jenkins has noticed that the church buildings of the Ouse delta type almost certainly the finest concentration of late-medieval craftsmanship in England. Naturally, any cathedral would give them a run for their funds, but you know what he implies. Listed here, there are at the very least a dozen normally anonymous and workaday villages with merely monumental church buildings, many of them replete with miracles in stone and wood. There is remarkably very little medieval glass, and barely a wall-portray at all probably the normal puritanism of the Fen men and women dispatched these, but noticed a useful use to the benches and the fonts. The most significant and grandest churches are at Walpole St Peter and Terrington St Clement, but neither are notably complete of treasures. St Peter is one particular of the most amazing architectural paperwork of the late medieval time period, and St Clement is complete of light-weight and life but here at Wiggenhall St Mary is the most effective assortment of 15th and 16th century benches in Norfolk, potentially in England.
There are four Wiggenhalls: St Peter, St Germans, St Mary and St Mary Magdalene, now identified basically as Magdalen. All of the villages are modest, Magdalen staying the biggest, and are generally approached up slender straight roads in the fens. All four church buildings sit shut to the banking companies of the Ouse – these banks have been elevated, because the drinking water degree is now bigger than the bordering land, but the towers nevertheless type startling landmarks for any boat heading upstream from Lynn. St Peter is a ruin, and St Mary is now in the treatment of the Church buildings Conservation Believe in. It sits to the north of Magdalen with a pair of massive residences for business.
As with all CCT church buildings, St Mary is well-kept. The rendering of the nave and chancel has a short while ago been renewed and painted. They hide a top secret of this church, the sum of brick used in its design. The only expanse of brick still noticeable is the upper section of the tower. The squatness of the tower belies its peak, and stair turrets lean deliciously into it in the north-west and south-west corners, coming out as castellated turrets at the best.
So, we might presume that the major third of the tower is up to date with the late medieval rebuilding – but the builders saved the Early English doorway on each sides of the church. The south porch is massive, but useful there is almost nothing of the elaborate decoration you come across at Walpole St Peter. Also functional is the intensive late Victorian restoration by George Avenue – all the roofs are his.
You action within to an interior that is at once substantial but a very little claustrophobic. This is for the reason that of the sheer volume of woodwork – range following vary of sound, extended, benches with superior bench ends. Street’s crown-posted roof would seem to press down to meet them without having their pierced and traceried backs they would really feel oppressive. The dust in the air and the murky light-weight from the east window offers a perception, just for a minute, of remaining underwater. There is a stillness, as if we have disturbed anything that experienced lengthy remained undisturbed, as if we had been the 1st men and women to enter here for ages.
The nave was loaded with benches in two phases to begin with in the mid-15th century, and then once more in the early 16th century. The newer benches are those people in the aisles. Benches are a symptom of what I have occur to believe of as a proto-Reformation possibly a century prior to the true one, there is a major change in the English Church from non-public devotions to company functions of worship. This appears to have been partly a response to the Black Dying, and a focus of the brain on producing it as a result of purgatory the breaking up of the aged estates introduced forth a new rich middle class, who had been most worried that their souls need to be prayed for. Portion of their task was a reinforcing of orthodox Catholic doctrine throughout the 15th century, vast perpendicular windows changed the wall paintings, filling the churches with light-weight, and the terrific roods have been raised up to focus people’s minds on the central doctrine of the Christian religion. Features of Catholic doctrine – the sacraments, the is effective of mercy, the fatal sins – appeared in glass and stone. Benches crammed the rebuilt churches – no longer ended up there shadowy corners the place old women could convey to their beads, and the plowman his Paternoster, as Mass progressed. The to start with pulpits appeared, and with the coming of the pulpit the Priest still left his chancel and entered the domain of the folks, having it about. All eyes were fixed on him now.
The bench finishes at Wiggenhall St Mary are intricate. Tiers come up every single side flanking a huge niche, which has a determine. The tiers just about every increase to a next and 3rd figure, which are at times connected. Previously mentioned all rises the sound poppyhead. You can expend an pleasant fifty percent hour just pottering about seeking to identify them. Lots of are in Tudor gown, and are seated in every day attitudes. Some carry rosaries. Some are Saints, many others symbolize animals, Labours of the Months, virtues or Christian symbols.
To some degree in contrast, there is an exquisite Laudian font protect with trim pillars, and the day 1624. I questioned if the pelican in her piety on prime was a later on addition. As at several area church buildings, there is an early-16th century latten lectern, an eagle supported at the feet by a few little grinning lions. The Jacobean pulpit even now retains its hourglass stand. Smatterings of medieval glass are in the upper lights of the north aisle home windows. The royal arms are dated 1791, and inform us that the churchwarden that year was J SUTTRBY.
There is an tasteful parclose monitor in the south aisle which now is made up of the elaborate memorial tomb of Sir Henry Kerville and his wife. They lie aspect by aspect, hands in pious attitudes of prayer.He died in 1624 most shifting are the two minor figures under them, just one in swaddling garments these are their children who died just before them.
The east conclude of the nave was made for peak, for the terrific rood to draw everyone’s notice. Maybe to help intensify this, the chancel arch is curiously narrow, and there are just 8 panels on the dado of the screen, 4 figures on each facet flanking the entrance. From the north they are: St Mary of Magdala, St Dorothy, St Margaret, St Scholastica (twin sister of St Benedict), St Catherine, St Barbara, the Blessed Virgin and baby, and St John the Baptist. The chancel is somewhat straightforward and vacant, still left in its 19th century garments. The dirty inexperienced glass of the east window is overpowering. For a instant, you may possibly be anywhere. And then you turn back and see these wide ranges of medieval benches once again they truly are most outstanding.
A hallmark of Church buildings Conservation Trust churches is that they are cleared of muddle but that is extremely hard in this article, of system, since the muddle is the factor you arrive to see. They are intriguing, intriguing but this church is curiously lacking in atmosphere, particularly if you have just appear from Wiggenhall St Germans or Walpole St Peter. It is lifeless you could be in no question that it is redundant, and now little much more than a museum.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-09-15 18:59:56
Tagged: , Wiggenhall , St , Mary , Norfolk , East Anglia , church
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