St George in Stowlangtoft will have the difference of obtaining the album with the most pictures, save for Canterbury Cathedral. It was a remarkable church, and a person I cherished checking out.
I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I imagined I understood those people two counties. But of course there is more to Norfolk than Norwich, Cromer, Yarmouth and Kings Lynn, as there is to Suffolk than Ipswich, Lowestoft, Stowmarket and Bury St. Edmunds. And so on My good friend, Simon K, runs a wonderful web site, which I hyperlink to on EA churches, and on his Suffolk Church website page he has visited 707 Suffolk churches, and 909 Norfolk church buildings. That is a good deal of churches for two counties to share, and many of those church buildings are historical, flint constructed, round towered or have wall paintings, picket roof angels or a thing worthy of the hard work of heading to see or trying to get out the keyholder to get entry.
What I necessarily mean is that there is no way somebody who only had their own car or truck right up until 1984, and had very little interest in church buildings or parishes could have heard of most of the parishes in the two counties, and so a parish church like St George.
I observed St George from the main street, I was having a small slash to be a part of the A14 and from there to the A12 and south on what I hoped my my final vacation of the yr to lowestoft as Mother is now out of healthcare facility and in the treatment of district nurses in buy to get set again on her toes.
So I saw the tower of St George from about 50 % a mile absent, and imagined I experienced ample time to go in excess of and see inside of if I could.
I parked at the stop of a cul-de-sac of new bungalows, and as I wander up the lender to the gate into the churchyard, the thoroughly clean strains of the tower, nicely, towered above me.
In the porch I experimented with the doorway and located it locked, but the keyholder record built it clear that the closest a person, at Christmas Cottage, was just in excess of the road. So, why not try, Ian?
I went to the cottage and rang the bell. I had to fill out my aspects in a ledger, a wise measure. But I showed by driving licence to show that I was who I claimed. Tiny did I know the little village I lived in experienced been discovered. Much more of that in a moment.
Inside St George, you eye is stolen by the amazing pew ends animals of all kinds, real and imaginary, and most experienced not been defaced, only individuals of obvious human form. A person with the physique of a hen but a clear human confront experienced been remaining by yourself, consequently is the insanity of the puritan’s mind.
I resolved that I would record each pew finish determine, and several entire pew finishes so excellent that they were being.
There is the feint define of a big wall portray, Simon suggests it was of St. Christopher. It would have been most amazing when freshly painted. There is also a high-quality established of misericords.
St George’s glory is the altarpiece, into detail Simon goes under. It is alarmed, so you simply cannot seem at them also intently, unfortunately, but these kinds of is a signal of the occasions.
I took the keys again, and the woman of the household came to converse to me as she had been told by her husband that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is where by her loved ones is from. Sadly, I am not from, nor live in Cliffe. For once there was indeed two Cliffs in Kent, 1 on the Hoo Peninsular, the place her family is from, and one in the vicinity of to Dover. Several decades in the past, Cliffe near to Dover was called WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake further more north. I explained this to her, but stated St Helen in Cliffe is 1 of my favorite Kent churches, designed of alternate layers of black and light-weight flints and stone, in sunlight it glistens and sparkles.
Despite the fact that St George here in Stowlangtoft is a fine church, it is in a very poor state of repair, and is owing to be built redundant in the new yr. Normally sad when that transpires to a parish church, but it is probable to be taken around by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to retain it tidy when the previous wardens and keyholders are too aged.
Stowlangtoft is a magnificent church and so happy am I that I expended 40 minutes of my time to visit it. Go to see it now in advance of it is too late!
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In the summer season of 2003, this internet site became a 6-component sequence on BBC Radio Suffolk. A thing I stated in the fourth programme, about Hessett, created a fair quantity of correspondence. Referring to the way lots of churches ended up restored in the 19th century, I observed that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian eyesight of the medieval even when the true furnishings and fittings are medieval, the full piece is even now a Victorian conception.
People today wrote to me and said items like “but in that case, Simon, how do we know what was there at first and what was not?”. To which my reply was the enigmatic “believe that absolutely nothing is as it to start with seems, as Sherlock Holmes said”. And if he did not, then he should have accomplished.
A key illustration of a church that assumes a continuity that might not really be the reality is below in the flat fields amongst Woolpit and Ixworth. This component of Suffolk can be somewhat bleak, specially in late Oct, but England’s very best summer months and autumn for a long time experienced remaining the churchyard in this article verdant and golden, as wonderful a location as any I would found that yr. The church is significant, and sits on a mound that has been cut down on one facet by the road. I walked up the slope, previous the memorial to the artwork critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which in no way fails to transfer me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett says of it that it can’t be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the categories of the mere intellect and sings to us of our deeper self.
Confused as you might be by it, you should not are unsuccessful to spot the broken window tracery that has been utilised to establish the wall listed here, for thereby hangs a tale.
St George, in situation you never know, is one of the fantastic Suffolk church buildings. Even though it may well externally look a very little critical, and is by no implies as grand as Blythburgh, Lengthy Melford and the relaxation, it is a treasure residence of the medieval within. Unusually for a church of its date, it was all rebuilt in a person go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular windows are not nonetheless complete of the ‘walls of glass’ self esteem that the subsequent century would see. The tracery seems to have been repaired, and probably even renewed, which may well explain why there is damaged medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. Nonetheless, it doesn’t consider considerably to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but decorated. So it could be that the broken tracery is from the unique church that the late 14th century church replaced. But the wall is not medieval, so where experienced it been all individuals many years?
An additional survival from the previously church is the font. It also asks some inquiries. Unusually, it capabilities a Saint on seven of the panels, Christ staying on the westwards experience. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it shows are common cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and significantly less generally St George. The cult of St George was at its height in the early a long time of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it undoubtedly is just not searching its finest. But I believe there is far more likely on right here than satisfies the eye. Fonts have been plastered around in Elizabethan occasions, and only reduction that stood very pleased of the plaster was mutilated. These are all shallow reliefs, and I do not feel they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at minimum, this stonework seems weathered. I question if this font was eradicated from the church, in all probability in the mid-17th century, and served an out of doors function till it was returned in the 19th century.
The story of this church in the 19th century is effectively-documented. In 1832, as part of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy frequented, and was pleased to uncover that the church was at past undergoing restore. The chancel experienced been roofless, and the nave utilised for services. A new Rectory was being created. Who was the catalyst powering all this? His title was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector here for pretty much the center forty decades of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a great pal of John Henry Newman, the foreseeable future Cardinal, and they normally corresponded on the issue of the pre-Reformation ordering of English church buildings. It is intriguing to imagine how, at this seminal instant, Rickards may possibly have knowledgeable the assumed of the Oxford Motion. Unfortunately, when Newman became a Catholic Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
Throughout the program of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards transformed Stowlangtoft church. He got the fantastic Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and complete the marvellous established of bench finishes – Ringham did the similar detail at Woolpit, a few miles absent. Ringham’s function is so fantastic that it is at times difficult for the inexperienced eye to detect it even so, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals here, and the wierder things is all medieval, and likely dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft’s bench ends is partly the sheer quantity – there are potentially 60 carvings – but also that there are several exclusive subjects you can see some of them below.
The carvings seem to be element of the same team as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull enjoying a harp, the bird with a man’s head, from equivalent carvings somewhere else. And then hopefully that minor alarm bell in your read should commence to go “Hmmmm…..” since some of the carvings in this article are plainly not from the very same group. It is tricky to believe that that the mermaid and the owl, for instance, are from the similar workshop, or even from the exact same 10 years. The benches themselves are no clue it was prevalent exercise in the 19th century to substitute medieval bench finishes on modern day benches, or on medieval benches, or even on modern-day benches made out of medieval timber (as took place at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards observed some of these bench finishes in other places? Could he have been the type of human being to do a matter like that?
Well, sure he could. As Roy Tricker remembers, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is one particular that Rickards obtained immediately after obtaining it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the good 19th century restoration of our English church buildings, there was hundreds of medieval junk lying all-around, a great deal of it going begging. But was Samuel Rickards the form of man or woman to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Perfectly, indeed he in all probability was. Seem at the medieval roundels in the center window on the south facet of the nave. The 4 evangelists are earlier mentioned and under two wonderful representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them beneath click on them to enlarge them. Sadly, they are not medieval at all, and it is commonly approved that they were painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is something equivalent the other aspect of Bury at Hawstead.
Really medieval is the vast St Christopher wall-portray however discernible on the north wall. It was possibly 1 of the last to be painted. The bench finishes are medieval, of training course, as is the fine rood-display screen dado, albeit repainted. There is even some medieval glass in the upper tracery of some of the windows. The laughable stone pulpit is Rickard’s fee, and the operate of William White. What can Rickards have been wondering of? But we phase by means of into the chancel, and out of the blue the complete thing moves up a gear. For here are some points that are certainly exceptional.
In a county famous for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are amazing, even awe-inspiring. At the rear of the rood display dado is Suffolk’s most total set of return stalls. Most placing are the figures that sort finials to the stall finishes. They are individuals in the Mass, like two Clergymen, two servers and two acolytes. The figure of the Priest at a prayer desk should be one of the greatest medieval photographs in Suffolk Mortlock thought the stalls the best in England. I was here with my good friend Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he had beforehand photographed and created about these carving a a couple of yrs ago. But even he uncovered one thing new to photograph, and a hush fell on the chancel as we explored.
The benches that confront eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are fantastic items: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and crowned heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. Between the seats are strange oriental faces. Some of them are below click on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am likely to inquire next. How a lot of this is from this church at first? It all appears medieval operate, and there is no cause to feel it could not have been moved in other places in the church when the chancel was open to the elements. What evidence have we acquired?
Firstly, we must discover that the only other Suffolk church with these a massive amount of medieval misericords of this top quality is just a mile away, at Norton. I really don’t request you to see this as significant, simply to observe it in passing. Next, I am no carpenter, but it does seem to me as however two sets of furnishings have been cobbled collectively the stalls that again on to the screen surface to have been built-in into the bigger framework of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south partitions.
Even so, if you seem carefully at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche people. The Ashfield arms also appear on the rood display screen, and the Ashfields ended up the important donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on stability I am inclined to consider that the higher element of the stall structure was in this church initially from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Effectively, I you should not know. But I believe they have to be thought of as component of the identical set as those at Norton. In which case they may well have come from the similar church, which may possibly have been this just one, but may possibly not have been. Virtually surely, the stalls at Norton did not occur from Norton church, and folklore has it that they were originally in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other outstanding things in St George consist of FE Howard’s gorgeous war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the opposite corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s attractive St George, which serves the exact same objective. It is as excellent as his get the job done at Elveden. Back up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was apparently exhibited at, and obtained from, the Fantastic Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of program, most famous for the Flemish carvings that flank the somewhat weighty altarpiece. They had been offered to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Hall, who allegedly found them in an Ixworth junk store. They present images from the crucifixion story, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides recommend. They day from the 1480s, and have been nearly definitely the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked for the duration of the French Revolution. I had witnessed a thing related at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a couple of months in advance of. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these when were being, and piled up in a block rather than distribute out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches over them, are 19th century. My favourite illustrations or photos are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Click on on the pictures underneath.
Just one chilly winter’s evening in January 1977, a gang of burglars broke into this locked church and stole them. Practically nothing more was seen or heard of them right until 1982, when they have been found on display screen in an Amsterdam artwork gallery. Their journey had been a convoluted just one taken to Holland, they have been utilized as stability for a bank loan which was defaulted on. The new proprietor was then burgled, and the carvings were being fenced to an Amsterdam junk vendor. They have been bought from his shop, and taken to the museum, which quickly identified them as 15th century carvings. They place them on show, and a Dutch lady who experienced browse about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted legal proceedings to get them back again an injunction was taken out to end the new proprietor taking away them from the museum. The parish dropped the scenario, leaving them with a monstrous authorized monthly bill but the story has a happy ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their buy from the owner, paid out off the lawful charges, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Apparently this was all at vast price tag, but the businessman gave the reward in many thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Right now, the carvings are fixed firmly in position and alarmed, so they won’t be likely walkabout once more. But a minor portion of me miracles if they definitely should be listed here at all. Confident, they are medieval, but they were not in this article originally they were not even in England at first. Would not it be much better if they had been displayed somewhere safer, where folks could pay back to see them, and present some revenue for the servicing of the church developing? And then, whisper it, St George might even be retained open up.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village significant avenue. 3 keyholders are listed, two of them right away opposite. I am advised that Wednesday is not a fantastic time to try out and get the key – it is market day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.united kingdom/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2017-12-19 09:10:35
Tagged: , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , Church , Jelltex , Jelltecks
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