St Mary, Redenhall, Norfolk
I experienced not been back to Redenhall for ten years, but its great 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 should be one particular of the biggest churchyards in Norfolk, and there is a reason for this. Despite the fact that Redenhall is a small village, the parish includes the very market city of Harleston, from which it is separated by the awful Diss to Yarmouth highway. Harleston has a 19th century chapel of ease in its centre, but when you see St Mary even from a distance you know that this is the one that means company.
Reminiscent of the towers at Eye and Laxfield more than the Suffolk border, the tower was nearly surely the operate of the identical masons. It was bankrolled by the De la Poles, just one of the richest households 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 side which simply cannot be seen from the street, demonstrates that they were being a rather wily bunch when it came to splashing the hard cash. They experienced been beneficiaries of the pestilences of the previous century, when the fatalities of roughly 50 % the people of Norfolk and Suffolk resulted in the break-up of the old estates and the rising of wages and prices, enabling these with revenue to get land cheaply. The emergence of a residence-owning independent center class without the need of historic ties and loyalties to their parishes and men and women would inevitably lead to the two good ideologies of the next half of the millennium, Protestantism and Capitalism.
But that was in the long run when the De la Poles and fellow proto-capitalists the Brothertons have been generating bequests to rebuild St Mary. Up went the tower and the clerestory, and the aisle home windows were all replaced in the style of the working day. Only the chancel was remaining searching instead indicate and slight. Possibly they would have received to that also experienced priorities not transformed. About the foundation of the tower you can see their leopard and wild man symbols. You might also spot tortoises, for this was the symbol of the Gawdy family. One particular curious element is the carving of farriers’ implements on the west door. These have been taken to signify that the door was paid for by the neighborhood farriers’ guild, but I see no motive to suppose that the carving is modern day, and I believe it is as possible to be the function of an idle 18th century hand.
Inevitably, the interior of the church was not heading to reside up to the exterior. I had come below from the two churches of the Pulhams, equally huge barns of church buildings, and this a single is a bit of a barn much too, vast and echoey, but perhaps a classier barn than the two I had formerly frequented. It is accurate that the inside of St Mary has been carefully Victorianised, and it is seriously really hard to summon up any perception of its medieval life. The severe dim woodwork of the scenario of the Holdich organ in the west gallery would have frowned on the acres of colored glass in the naves at the Pulhams, but here there is relatively distinct light with only a few Ward & Nixon home windows that can easily be tuned out.
But there are attention-grabbing corners which give the church very significantly a character of its personal, for illustration the Gawdy chapel at the east stop of the north aisle which incorporates a spirited classical altar tomb of the late 18th century, a hint of Strawberry Hill Gothick about it, fairly strange but pretty very well done. The window of heraldic glass is by Samuel Yarrington, and is claimed to have arrive from Gawdy Corridor in the north of the parish, demolished in the early years of WWII. An intriguing depth in the chapel is a 16th Century Venetian linen upper body which is also explained to appear from Gawdy Corridor. It stands open up, and you can see a depiction of the Annunciation with sailing ships earlier mentioned on the within of the lid, which is extremely curious and somewhat beautiful.
Redenhall church is well known for a person certain medieval survival. This is the impressive double-headed eagle lectern, the glorious item of a 15th century East Anglian workshop. There is a further in 1 of the Kings Lynn church buildings, and the one at St Mark’s in Venice is reported to be from the exact workshop. I enjoy the tiny lions on the pedestals greatest of all. Remarkably, the church has a 2nd medieval lectern, a wood a person, and equally are solidly chained down to avoid theft.
You can walk less than the good organ to beneath the tower, an remarkable house as big as some church buildings. Nevertheless no extended utilized, you get an impression of the good processional entrance this should as soon as have been, and most likely an inkling of what St Mary was like in its late medieval heyday, a area at last to replicate on the glory that at the time was below. As if to remind us of the passing of this kind of factors, a surviving painted plaque, possibly from a shed 17th Century memorial, hangs beside the tower arch. Demise, it reads, behold thy selfe to me, such 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 19:32:23
Tagged: , Redenhall , Norfolk , East Anglia , church , church buildings
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