I was born in Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. So I considered I understood these two counties. But of program there is extra 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 friend, Simon K, runs a incredible site, which I url to on EA churches, and on his Suffolk Church web site he has frequented 707 Suffolk churches, and 909 Norfolk churches. That is a large amount of church buildings for two counties to share, and many of these churches are historic, flint created, spherical towered or have wall paintings, wood roof angels or some thing really worth the effort of going to see or seeking out the keyholder to achieve obtain.
What I indicate is that there is no way somebody who only experienced their possess car or truck until 1984, and had minimal desire 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 saw St George from the main highway, I was having a short cut to join the A14 and from there to the A12 and south on what I hoped my my final excursion of the calendar year to lowestoft as Mom is now out of healthcare facility and in the care of district nurses in get to get set back again on her ft.
So I noticed the tower of St George from about half a mile away, and assumed I experienced sufficient time to go in excess of and see inside if I could.
I parked at the finish of a cul-de-sac of new bungalows, and as I walk up the bank to the gate into the churchyard, the clear lines of the tower, effectively, towered above me.
In the porch I attempted the doorway and discovered it locked, but the keyholder listing made it very clear that the closest just one, at Christmas Cottage, was just about the highway. So, why not consider, Ian?
I went to the cottage and rang the bell. I experienced to fill out my details in a ledger, a sensible measure. But I confirmed by driving licence to prove that I was who I claimed. Tiny did I know the tiny village I lived in had been discovered. Much more of that in a minute.
Within St George, you eye is stolen by the fantastic pew ends animals of all forms, real and imaginary, and most experienced not been defaced, only individuals of apparent human form. A single with the human body of a rooster but a distinct human encounter experienced been still left by itself, so is the madness of the puritan’s thoughts.
I determined that I would report each individual pew finish figure, and several entire pew ends so amazing 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 spectacular when freshly painted. There is also a fantastic established of misericords.
St George’s glory is the altarpiece, into depth Simon goes down below. It is alarmed, so you can’t glance at them as well carefully, unfortunately, but such is a indication of the instances.
I took the keys again, and the woman of the home arrived to speak to me as she had been told by her partner that I was from Cliffe in Kent, which is the place her family members is from. Sadly, I am not from, nor are living in Cliffe. For when there was in truth two Cliffs in Kent, one particular on the Hoo Peninsular, in which her household is from, and a single close to to Dover. Quite a few decades ago, Cliffe in close proximity to to Dover was called WestCliffe to differentiate it from its namesake further north. I stated this to her, but claimed St Helen in Cliffe is one of my favorite Kent church buildings, crafted of alternate layers of black and mild flints and stone, in sunlight it glistens and sparkles.
Despite the fact that St George here in Stowlangtoft is a fantastic church, it is in a bad condition of maintenance, and is due to be built redundant in the new calendar year. Normally sad when that occurs to a parish church, but it is most likely to be taken around by the CCT, but then who will volunteer to hold it tidy when the aged wardens and keyholders are much too outdated.
Stowlangtoft is a wonderful church and so glad am I that I used 40 minutes of my time to check out it. Go to see it now in advance of it is also late!
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In the summer season of 2003, this web page grew to become a 6-component series on BBC Radio Suffolk. Anything I stated in the fourth programme, about Hessett, produced a fair quantity of correspondence. Referring to the way numerous churches were being 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 entire piece is continue to a Victorian conception.
Persons wrote to me and explained factors like “but in that situation, Simon, how do we know what was there originally and what wasn’t?”. To which my reply was the enigmatic “suppose that almost nothing is as it 1st appears, as Sherlock Holmes reported”. And if he failed to, then he need to have finished.
A prime instance of a church that assumes a continuity that may not actually be the reality is below in the flat fields in between Woolpit and Ixworth. This section of Suffolk can be somewhat bleak, especially in late Oct, but England’s very best summer and autumn for many years had remaining the churchyard right here verdant and golden, as gorgeous a location as any I’d found that 12 months. The church is massive, and sits on a mound that has been slice down on 1 side by the highway. I walked up the slope, earlier the memorial to the artwork critic Peter Fuller and his unborn son, which under no circumstances fails to transfer me. It is by the sculptor Glynn Williams, and Sister Wendy Beckett states of it that it are unable to be pinned down and encapsulated, it defeats the categories of the mere thoughts and sings to us of our further self.
Confused as you could be by it, never fail to spot the damaged window tracery that has been applied to develop the wall here, for thereby hangs a tale.
St George, in case you don’t know, is a person of the fantastic Suffolk church buildings. Though it may possibly externally show up a small intense, and is by no indicates as grand as Blythburgh, Extended Melford and the rest, it is a treasure home of the medieval inside. Unusually for a church of its day, it was all rebuilt in 1 go, in the late 14th century, and the perpendicular home windows are not still whole of the ‘walls of glass’ assurance that the subsequent century would see. The tracery seems to have been repaired, and probably even renewed, which may possibly make clear why there is broken medieval tracery in the churchyard wall. Having said that, it does not get much to see that the tracery in the wall is not perpendicular at all, but embellished. So it may possibly be that the broken tracery is from the unique church that the late 14th century church changed. But the wall isn’t really medieval, so in which had it been all those yrs?
A further survival from the previously church is the font. It also asks some thoughts. Unusually, it attributes a Saint on 7 of the panels, Christ being on the westwards face. Mortlock dates it to the early 14th century, and the Saints it demonstrates are familiar cults from that time: St Margaret, St Catherine, St Peter and St Paul, and less frequently St George. The cult of St George was at its peak in the early many years of the 14th century. Mortlock describes the font as mutilated, and it unquestionably is just not seeking its most effective. But I imagine there is far more heading on below than meets the eye. Fonts have been plastered around in Elizabethan instances, and only aid that stood happy of the plaster was mutilated. These are all shallow reliefs, and I do not think they have been mutilated at all. To my eye at the very least, this stonework appears weathered. I wonder if this font was removed from the church, almost certainly in the mid-17th century, and served an outside objective until eventually it was returned in the 19th century.
The story of this church in the 19th century is effectively-documented. In 1832, as aspect of his grand tour of Suffolk, David Davy visited, and was happy to come across that the church was at last undergoing fix. The chancel experienced been roofless, and the nave employed for providers. A new Rectory was becoming developed. Who was the catalyst guiding all this? His title was Samuel Rickards, and he was Rector listed here for almost the center forty decades of the 19th century. Roy Tricker notes that he was a very good buddy of John Henry Newman, the long term Cardinal, and they frequently corresponded on the issue of the pre-Reformation buying of English churches. It is exciting to assume how, at this seminal instant, Rickards may possibly have educated the imagined of the Oxford Motion. Sadly, when Newman turned a Catholic Rickards broke off all correspondence with him.
For the duration of the program of the 1840s and 1850s, Rickards reworked Stowlangtoft church. He got the fantastic Ipswich woodcarver Henry Ringham in to restore, replicate and full the marvellous established of bench finishes – Ringham did the exact same detail at Woolpit, a several miles absent. Ringham’s do the job is so very good that it is sometimes really hard for the inexperienced eye to detect it nevertheless, as at Woolpit, Ringham only copied animals right here, and the wierder stuff 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 most likely 60 carvings – but also that there are many exceptional topics you can see some of them underneath.
The carvings surface to be element of the similar group as Woolpit and Tostock – you will recognise the unicorn, the chained bear, the bull enjoying a harp, the chook with a man’s head, from comparable carvings somewhere else. And then with any luck , that minimal alarm bell in your heard need to commence to go “Hmmmm…..” simply because some of the carvings here 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 same workshop, or even from the similar ten years. The benches by themselves are no clue it was typical exercise in the 19th century to switch medieval bench finishes on modern-day benches, or on medieval benches, or even on modern day benches created out of medieval timber (as occurred at Blythburgh). Could it be that Samuel Rickards observed some of these bench finishes in other places? Could he have been the sort of individual to do a detail like that?
Effectively, of course he could. As Roy Tricker recalls, the medieval roof at the tractarian Thomas Mozley’s church at Cholderton in Wiltshire is a single that Rickards acquired just after finding it in storage in Ipswich docks. In the ferment of the good 19th century restoration of our English churches, there was masses of medieval junk lying all over, substantially of it heading begging. But was Samuel Rickards the type of particular person to counterfeit his church’s medieval inheritance?
Effectively, indeed he probably was. Search at the medieval roundels in the middle window on the south side of the nave. The four evangelists are over and under two excellent representations of the Presentation in the Temple and the Baptism of Christ. You can see them below click on on them to enlarge them. Unfortunately, they are not medieval at all, and it is generally approved that they have been painted by a daughter of Samuel Rickards himself. There is one thing very similar the other side of Bury at Hawstead.
Truly medieval is the extensive St Christopher wall-portray however discernible on the north wall. It was most likely a single of the very last to be painted. The bench ends are medieval, of training course, as is the great rood-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 commission, and the get the job done of William White. What can Rickards have been contemplating of? But we stage as a result of into the chancel, and suddenly the entire thing moves up a gear. For below are some issues that are truly extraordinary.
In a county famous for its woodwork, the furnishings of Stowlangtoft’s chancel are breathtaking, even awe-inspiring. Driving the rood monitor dado is Suffolk’s most comprehensive established of return stalls. Most placing are the figures that sort finials to the stall finishes. They are members in the Mass, such as two Clergymen, two servers and two acolytes. The determine of the Priest at a prayer desk ought to be 1 of the finest medieval images in Suffolk Mortlock thought the stalls the best in England. I was here with my pal Aidan of Sylly Suffolk fame, and he experienced beforehand photographed and penned about these carving a a pair of several years back. But even he identified one thing new to photograph, and a hush fell on the chancel as we explored.
The benches that face eastwards are misericords, and beneath them are excellent matters: angels, lions and wodewoses, evangelistic symbols and topped heads. A hawk captures a hare, a dragon sticks out its tongue. Among the seats are unusual oriental faces. Some of them are underneath click on on them to enlarge them.
Now, you know what I am going to question upcoming. How significantly of this is from this church at first? It all seems medieval operate, and there is no explanation to believe it may possibly not have been moved somewhere else in the church when the chancel was open up to the factors. What proof have we bought?
First of all, we should really detect that the only other Suffolk church with these types of a significant number of medieval misericords of this high-quality is just a mile away, at Norton. I will not ask you to see this as significant, basically to recognize it in passing. Next, I am no carpenter, but it does appear to me as nevertheless two sets of furnishings have been cobbled together the stalls that back again on to the display screen look to have been integrated into the much larger composition of stalls and desks that front them and the north and south walls.
Nevertheless, if you glance intently at the figures of the two Deacons, you will see that they are bearing shields of the Ashfield and Peche households. The Ashfield arms also look on the rood screen, and the Ashfields were being the important donors when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century. So on harmony I am inclined to believe that the greater aspect of the stall framework was in this church initially from when it was rebuilt. And the misericords? Well, I do not know. But I assume they have to be regarded as as element of the exact set as these at Norton. In which circumstance they may have occur from the same church, which may well have been this one particular, but may perhaps not have been. Nearly undoubtedly, the stalls at Norton did not come from Norton church, and folklore has it that they have been at first in the quire of Bury Abbey. Hmm….
Other impressive factors in St George include FE Howard’s wonderful war memorial in the former north doorway, and in the reverse corner of the nave Hugh Easton’s attractive St George, which serves the similar reason. It is as excellent as his get the job done at Elveden. Again up in the chancel is a delightful painted pipe organ which was apparently exhibited at, and obtained from, the Terrific Exhibition of 1851.
But St George at Stowlangtoft is, of class, most well known for the Flemish carvings that flank the rather hefty altarpiece. They have been supplied to the church by Henry Wilson of Stowlangtoft Corridor, who allegedly found them in an Ixworth junk shop. They display images from the crucifixion tale, but are not Stations of the Cross as some guides recommend. They date from the 1480s, and were being virtually undoubtedly the altarpiece of a French or Flemish monastery that was sacked in the course of the French Revolution. I had witnessed something identical at Baumes-les-Messieurs in the French Jura a few months ahead of. There, the carvings are brightly painted, as these when had been, and piled up in a block somewhat than distribute out in a line. The niches, and crowning arches higher than them, are 19th century. My favorite photographs are the Pieta and the Mouth of Hell. Click on the visuals under.
A person cold winter’s evening in January 1977, a gang of burglars broke into this locked church and stole them. Nothing a lot more was found or listened to of them right until 1982, when they were learned on show in an Amsterdam art gallery. Their journey experienced been a convoluted one taken to Holland, they were being made use of as stability for a loan which was defaulted upon. The new proprietor was then burgled, and the carvings ended up fenced to an Amsterdam junk dealer. They had been bought from his store, and taken to the museum, which promptly identified them as 15th century carvings. They put them on show, and a Dutch lady who experienced read through about the Stowlangtoft theft recognised them.
The parish instituted legal proceedings to get them back an injunction was taken out to cease the new owner getting rid of them from the museum. The parish shed the scenario, leaving them with a monstrous lawful monthly bill but the tale has a happy ending. A Dutch businessman negotiated their order from the owner, paid off the lawful costs, and returned the carvings to Stowlangtoft. Evidently this was all at wide expense, but the businessman gave the reward in many thanks for Britain’s liberation of Holland for the Nazis. No, thank you, sir.
Currently, the carvings are fixed firmly in area and alarmed, so they would not be likely walkabout once more. But a tiny component of me miracles if they actually must be right here at all. Absolutely sure, they are medieval, but they weren’t listed here originally they were not even in England originally. Wouldn’t it be much better if they ended up exhibited someplace safer, wherever people could fork out to see them, and supply some money for the upkeep of the church making? And then, whisper it, St George could possibly even be retained open.
St George, Stowlangtoft, is in the village significant street. Three keyholders are detailed, two of them quickly reverse. I am instructed that Wednesday is not a good time to try out and get the key – it is market place working day in Bury.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.united kingdom/stowlangtoft.htm
Posted by Jelltex on 2017-12-17 11:53:00
Tagged: , St George , Stowlangtoft , Suffolk , Church , Jelltex , Jelltecks
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