I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I believed I knew all those two counties. But of system there is additional 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 pal, Simon K, runs a incredible web site, which I backlink to on EA church buildings, and on his Suffolk Church page he has frequented 707 Suffolk church buildings, and 909 Norfolk church buildings. That is a ton of churches for two counties to share, and a lot of of individuals churches are ancient, flint constructed, spherical towered or have wall paintings, wooden roof angels or some thing worthy of the hard work of going to see or seeking out the keyholder to gain entry.
What I imply is that there is no way anyone who only had their possess vehicle till 1984, and experienced tiny fascination in church buildings or parishes could have listened to of most of the parishes in the two counties, and so a parish church like St George.
I noticed St George from the primary street, I was using a small cut to join the A14 and from there to the A12 and south on what I hoped my my past journey of the 12 months to lowestoft as Mother is now out of clinic and in the care of district nurses in buy to get set again on her toes.
So I saw the tower of St George from about 50 percent a mile away, and considered I experienced more than enough time to go over and see within if I could.
I parked at the stop of a cul-de-sac of new bungalows, and as I stroll up the bank to the gate into the churchyard, the clean strains of the tower, well, towered over me.
In the porch I tried out the doorway and identified it locked, but the keyholder listing made it obvious that the nearest one, 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 information in a ledger, a reasonable evaluate. But I confirmed by driving licence to demonstrate that I was who I claimed. Very little did I know the tiny village I lived in experienced been observed. Extra of that in a minute.
Within St George, you eye is stolen by the fantastic pew ends animals of all forms, serious and imaginary, and most had not been defaced, only people of clear human variety. A person with the system of a rooster but a crystal clear human deal with experienced been remaining by itself, therefore is the insanity of the puritan’s thoughts.
I resolved that I would document each pew end figure, and lots of full pew ends so excellent that they have been.
There is the feint define of a huge wall portray, Simon says it was of St. Christopher. It would have been most extraordinary when freshly painted. There is also a high-quality established of misericords.
St George’s glory is the altarpiece, into depth Simon goes below. It is alarmed, so you simply cannot look at them far too closely, regrettably, but such is a signal of the periods.
I took the keys back again, and the woman of the house arrived to speak to me as she had been told by her spouse that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is where by her family members is from. Regrettably, I am not from, nor are living in Cliffe. For after there was certainly two Cliffs in Kent, one on the Hoo Peninsular, the place her loved ones is from, and one near to Dover. Lots of yrs ago, Cliffe close to to Dover was referred to as WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake even more north. I stated this to her, but stated St Helen in Cliffe is one particular of my favorite Kent churches, created of alternate layers of black and gentle flints and stone, in daylight it glistens and sparkles.
Despite the fact that St George right here in Stowlangtoft is a fine church, it is in a inadequate condition of repair service, and is thanks to be made redundant in the new yr. Constantly unhappy when that comes about to a parish church, but it is most likely to be taken over by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to keep it tidy when the outdated wardens and keyholders are far too aged.
Stowlangtoft is a fabulous church and so happy am I that I put in 40 minutes of my time to stop by it. Go to see it now before it is much too late!
——————————————-
In the summer time of 2003, this web-site became a six-element series on BBC Radio Suffolk. One thing I explained in the fourth programme, about Hessett, produced a fair amount of money of correspondence. Referring to the way a lot of church buildings have been restored in the 19th century, I noticed that when we enter a medieval church, we are encountering a Victorian vision of the medieval even when the precise furnishings and fittings are medieval, the total piece is even now a Victorian conception.
People today wrote to me and stated points like “but in that scenario, Simon, how do we know what was there initially and what was not?”. To which my reply was the enigmatic “assume that nothing is as it initial appears, as Sherlock Holmes stated”. And if he didn’t, then he must have finished.
A primary illustration of a church that assumes a continuity that may possibly not truly be the fact is listed here in the flat fields between Woolpit and Ixworth. This element of Suffolk can be relatively bleak, particularly in late Oct, but England’s finest summer season and autumn for a long time had left the churchyard here verdant and golden, as attractive a put as any I would observed that year. The church is massive, and sits on a mound that has been slash down on a person side by the highway. I walked up the slope, previous the memorial to the artwork critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which hardly ever fails to go me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett claims of it that it can not be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the classes of the mere thoughts and sings to us of our further self.
Confused as you might be by it, never fail to place the damaged window tracery that has been made use of to make the wall listed here, for thus hangs a tale.
St George, in situation you you should not know, is a person of the fantastic Suffolk churches. Whilst it might externally look a minimal extreme, and is by no implies as grand as Blythburgh, Very long Melford and the relaxation, it is a treasure household of the medieval inside of. Unusually for a church of its date, it was all rebuilt in a single go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular home windows are not still comprehensive of the ‘walls of glass’ self esteem that the subsequent century would see. The tracery seems to have been repaired, and potentially even renewed, which may perhaps describe why there is damaged medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. Even so, it isn’t going to get a lot to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but embellished. So it may perhaps be that the broken tracery is from the original church that the late 14th century church changed. But the wall is just not medieval, so exactly where experienced it been all these a long time?
An additional survival from the earlier church is the font. It also asks some questions. Unusually, it capabilities a Saint on seven of the panels, Christ being on the westwards face. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it demonstrates are common cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and considerably less typically St George. The cult of St George was at its peak in the early a long time of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it unquestionably is just not on the lookout its best. But I imagine there is a lot more heading on listed here than fulfills the eye. Fonts were 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 assume they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at minimum, this stonework appears weathered. I surprise if this font was taken off from the church, most likely in the mid-17th century, and served an out of doors function until eventually it was returned in the 19th century.
The story of this church in the 19th century is very well-documented. In 1832, as portion of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy frequented, and was pleased to find that the church was at final undergoing repair service. The chancel experienced been roofless, and the nave applied for expert services. A new Rectory was becoming developed. Who was the catalyst powering all this? His title was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector right here for almost the center forty several years of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a fantastic pal of John Henry Newman, the long run Cardinal, and they typically corresponded on the issue of the pre-Reformation ordering of English church buildings. It is interesting to feel how, at this seminal second, Rickards may possibly have informed the believed of the Oxford Motion. Regrettably, when Newman grew to become a Catholic Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
In the course of the program of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards transformed Stowlangtoft church. He bought the fantastic Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and complete the marvellous established of bench finishes – Ringham did the exact same matter at Woolpit, a couple miles absent. Ringham’s work is so good that it is sometimes really hard for the inexperienced eye to detect it nevertheless, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals listed here, and the wierder things is all medieval, and almost certainly dates from the rebuilding of the church. The glory of Stowlangtoft’s bench ends is partly the sheer quantity – there are maybe 60 carvings – but also that there are a number of distinctive subjects you can see some of them under.
The carvings look to be portion of the similar team as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull enjoying a harp, the fowl with a man’s head, from identical carvings elsewhere. And then ideally that minimal alarm bell in your read need to start off to go “Hmmmm…..” for the reason that some of the carvings below are clearly not from the same team. It is difficult to imagine that the mermaid and the owl, for instance, are from the very same workshop, or even from the exact decade. The benches by themselves are no clue it was typical exercise in the 19th century to change medieval bench finishes on modern day benches, or on medieval benches, or even on fashionable benches manufactured out of medieval timber (as occurred at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards found some of these bench ends somewhere else? Could he have been the kind of person to do a thing like that?
Well, certainly he could. As Roy Tricker remembers, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is one that Rickards acquired after getting it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the excellent 19th century restoration of our English church buildings, there was hundreds of medieval junk lying all over, much of it going begging. But was Samuel Rickards the sort of particular person to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Well, sure he probably was. Appear at the medieval roundels in the center window on the south facet of the nave. The 4 evangelists are above and underneath two wonderful representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them down below simply click on them to enlarge them. However, they are not medieval at all, and it is usually approved that they have been painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is anything equivalent the other aspect of Bury at Hawstead.
Genuinely medieval is the huge St Christopher wall-portray still discernible on the north wall. It was possibly one particular of the previous to be painted. The bench finishes are medieval, of training course, as is the fantastic rood-monitor 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 commission, and the do the job of William White. What can Rickards have been contemplating of? But we move by into the chancel, and all of a sudden the total factor moves up a equipment. For below are some issues that are genuinely impressive.
In a county popular for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. Driving the rood display screen dado is Suffolk’s most finish established of return stalls. Most hanging are the figures that sort finials to the stall ends. They are members in the Mass, which include two Priests, two servers and two acolytes. The figure of the Priest at a prayer desk must be a person of the ideal medieval photos in Suffolk Mortlock assumed the stalls the best in England. I was right here with my pal Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he had beforehand photographed and penned about these carving a a few of years back. But even he located something new to photograph, and a hush fell on the chancel as we explored.
The benches that encounter eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are superb items: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and topped heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. In between the seats are unusual oriental faces. Some of them are down below click on on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am likely to ask future. How substantially of this is from this church initially? It all seems medieval perform, and there is no rationale to feel it may possibly not have been moved somewhere else in the church when the chancel was open to the aspects. What proof have we bought?
To begin with, we ought to see that the only other Suffolk church with these types of a significant quantity of medieval misericords of this high-quality is just a mile absent, at Norton. I never inquire you to see this as considerable, basically to notice 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 appear to have been integrated into the more substantial composition of stalls and desks that entrance them and the north and south walls.
Nonetheless, if you search intently 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 monitor, and the Ashfields have been the key donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on harmony I am inclined to feel that the bigger element of the stall composition was in this church originally from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Perfectly, I don’t know. But I believe they have to be thought of as portion of the very same established as people at Norton. In which circumstance they may well have appear from the exact same church, which may possibly have been this 1, but may not have been. Nearly undoubtedly, the stalls at Norton did not come from Norton church, and folklore has it that they were being at first in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other exceptional things in St George involve FE Howard’s stunning war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the reverse corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s attractive St George, which serves the very same function. It is as very good as his operate at Elveden. Again up in the chancel is a pleasant painted pipe organ which was evidently exhibited at, and obtained from, the Good Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of course, most famed for the Flemish carvings that flank the fairly hefty altarpiece. They were being given to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Corridor, who allegedly identified them in an Ixworth junk shop. They demonstrate pictures from the crucifixion tale, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides counsel. They date from the 1480s, and were just about absolutely the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked in the course of the French Revolution. I experienced observed a little something identical at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a handful of months prior to. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these once were, and piled up in a block somewhat than distribute out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches earlier mentioned them, are 19th century. My favourite photos are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Click on the photos under.
A person cold winter’s night in January 1977, a gang of intruders broke into this locked church and stole them. Practically nothing additional was viewed or listened to of them until finally 1982, when they were being learned on exhibit in an Amsterdam art gallery. Their journey experienced been a convoluted one particular taken to Holland, they have been utilised as stability for a bank loan which was defaulted on. The new proprietor was then burgled, and the carvings ended up fenced to an Amsterdam junk seller. They were purchased from his shop, and taken to the museum, which straight away recognized them as 15th century carvings. They place them on screen, and a Dutch lady who experienced examine about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted authorized proceedings to get them back an injunction was taken out to stop the new proprietor taking away them from the museum. The parish dropped the circumstance, leaving them with a monstrous legal invoice but the story has a delighted ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their purchase from the owner, paid off the lawful bills, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Evidently this was all at broad expense, but the businessman gave the present in many thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Right now, the carvings are fastened firmly in put and alarmed, so they is not going to be heading walkabout all over again. But a little section of me miracles if they truly must be in this article at all. Certain, they are medieval, but they were not listed here at first they were not even in England at first. Wouldn’t it be superior if they were displayed somewhere safer, wherever individuals could pay to see them, and provide some cash flow for the maintenance of the church developing? And then, whisper it, St George could even be stored open.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village higher street. Three keyholders are stated, two of them instantly opposite. I am informed that Wednesday is not a good time to attempt and get the key – it is marketplace working day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.british isles/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2017-12-18 10:31:31
Tagged: , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , Church , Jelltex , Jelltecks
#home furniture #Diy #woodwork #woodworking #freedownload#woodworkingprojects #woodsmith ,wooden craft, wood planer, good woodworking, picket chairs, wood operating equipment, well known woodworking, woodworking books, woodworking workbench plans