I was last at St John a person chilly Boxing Day early morning, on one of those people dutiful excursions to see Mother at Christmas. At just following dawn, it was locked, but appeared a good church and a person to revisit.
So it was very last Thursday, touring again to Suffolk, I arrived at Saxmundham as the sunlight was setting, placing the fantastic church tower bathed in heat golden light.
As I stopped to get a shot of the tower, I was unaware of the vicar seeking to get earlier in his automobile, but he was affected person as I go my shot.
He was ready for me at the porch, and proposed I hurry inside of to see the home windows that were being illuminated by the sunshine, this I did.
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Saxmundham is a high-quality town about midway between Ipswich and Lowestoft. The A12 now bypasses it, which was regrettable for a though for the reason that, like quite a few tiny towns in that predicament, it lost the passing trade which had been a single of the factors for its existence. Saxmundham, or ‘Sax’ as locals simply call it, grew to prominence in the 18th and 19th generations, and it even now has the character of a Victorian railway town, particularly about the station. But it is not a tourist city, not like its fantastic rival Framlingham, or ‘Fram’, just across the A12.
I like Saxmundham a great deal there is an air of resilience about the area, and any smaller town with two 2nd hand bookshops need to have a thing likely for it. What it does miss is a dominating medieval church, for the reason that St John the Baptist is away from the most important road on the street to Leiston.
The graveyard is a good area, full of the headstones of 18th and 19th century worthies. Most famed is the headstone to John Noller, which has its personal sundial.
There is a crisp 19th century sense to the church, because it was topic to an 1870s restoration at the arms of Diocesan architect Richard Phipson. Having said that, Phipson was additional sensitive to the have to have to maintain medieval survivals than his successor Herbert Green, and so the church has a lot of fascinating things to see. Nonetheless, Phipson was not previously mentioned earning them extra medieval than they previously were being, and so the font, a person of the most effective Suffolk illustrations of the 15th century East Anglian design and style, is carefully recut. There are aggressive minimal wild adult males around the foundation, and a single of the shields capabilities the devices of the passion.
Most likely the most intriguing survival here, and a rare a single, can be witnessed in the most easterly windows of just about every of the clerestories. These are the stone corbel ledges that the moment supported the cover of honour in excess of the rood. They are both carved elaborately, and the northern just one is castellated. Sancta Johnannes, Ora Professional Nobis (‘St John pray for us’) is carved in a banner alongside that on the south side.
Irrespective of these medieval survivals, the most vital creative artefacts below are in the east window of the south aisle. This is a selection of ovals of 17th century glass thought to appear from Innsbruck, depicting Saints and biblical scenes. It is of superb high quality, and fascinating to glimpse at. In fact, aside from the lousy east window there is a very good assortment of Victorian glass here as perfectly. I used about fifty percent an hour documenting it all meticulously, and then misplaced the memory card from my digicam that experienced all the photos on. And so, I will have to go again. Sorry.
Simon Knott
www.suffolkchurches.co.united kingdom/saxmundham.html
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The church is a great deal improved from the authentic church which was recorded in the Domesday Study of 1086. Tiny evidence of this Norman or quite possibly Saxon church stays, whilst some masonry to be found in the decrease stage of the tower may be of this day.
We also know that the church had a South porch that contained a easy 11th century doorway. Unfortunately, the porch and doorway disappeared in a significant restoration and rebuilding in 1873. On the other hand, we do have a picture of the porch from an etching in 1848.
Substantially of the church that we see currently stems from the 19th century restoration but the church nonetheless contains many primary products of an previously date.
The Western tower (14th century) has diagonal buttresses at its western angles. The two mild belfry home windows and the identical west window are in the Embellished design and style of the early 14th century. The restored west doorway is also of this day, even though some of the masonry in the decreased section of the tower is organized in another way from the rest and may well have shaped element of the 11th century church.
The clock was offered in 1880 and was restored in 1938. The parapet has attractive 15th century flint panelling (flushwork) with traceried panels. Beneath it is a band of bouquets (flearons) and carved heads, in addition to a massive head at the centre of the west aspect and a gargoyle head on the south side.
The tower is household to a peal of 6 bells. 3 of these bells had been forged c. 1480-1 510 by John Kebyll of London. A further was created in 1609 by Brend, the Norwich bell-founder, and the tenor, weighing 8cwt.3qtr.7Ib, is by Lester and Pack of Whitechapel, designed in 1762. The ring was finished by the addition of a new treble bell by John Warner of London in 1880. The next bell was recast in 1938, and the bells were being rehung in new oak frames by Bowell of Ipswich.
A gem in the crown that is St John’s can be observed in the churchyard on the tombstone of John Noller (1725), which can be located south west of the church ways and in 8 yards. The east and west faces of the tombstone are modest, inclined rectangular recesses which sort a very simple and imaginative sundial. Every sundial needs a pointer or gnomon projecting in entrance of the dial to solid a shadow on to a marked scale. Any this sort of projection low down on a tombstone would undoubtedly, faster or later on, be broken. To avoid this happening, the designer of John Noller’s headstone strike on the ingenious idea of creating the edge of the headstone’s surface area the gnomon and attained the relative projection by recessing the dial.
As the stone faces east and west, he carved a morning dial on a person aspect (east experience) and an evening a person on the other (west face). If you appear in the recesses on each faces you will see the hour markings 1,2,3,4,5 on the west recess and 7,8,9,10,11 on the east recess. 12 o’clock is not marked mainly because at the moment of noon just about every dial is totally in shadow.
You will also recognize that the dials are not upright on the stone but at a slant. The higher edge which acts as the gnomon is so slanted as to stage specifically to the north star, or in other words and phrases, be parallel with the earth’s axis.
And why was it carried out? Properly, we are not absolutely sure, but just as some clocks are marked with tile inscription “Tempus fugit” or time flies, so this headstone with its sundial marking the passing of time also reminds us, the dwelling, that our time quickly passes. Or perhaps it was picking up on yet another considered about time from the Bible:
“There is a time for every little thing, and a year for just about every
action less than heaven: a time to be born and a time to die,”
(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)
The Nave
The Font c 1400
This is a regular East Anglian design with octagonal panelled bowl carved with lions interspersed with angels holding shields on which are displayed the instruments of the Enthusiasm (East), the Cross (South), the emblem of the Trinity (West) and the 3 crowns of East Anglia (North). The bowl of the font is primary.
The Nave c 1500
Internally the constructing is harmonious, light-weight and nicely-proportioned. The aisles are separated from the nave by 15th century (Perpendicular) arcades of four bays, with octagonal piers which have moulded capitals and bases. These are topped by six two mild clerestorey home windows.
At the West finish of the nave is the comparatively modern day glazed gallery, from which the church’s peal of 6 bells are rung. The west window of the tower ringing chamber contains the only piece of medieval glass, the head of an angel, to endure in this church. Above the ringing chamber is a substantial Sanctus bell window, which in mediaeval moments permitted the ringer of the Sanctus bell to see over the Rood Display screen to the most important altar.
Stained Glass
The 19th century stained glass throughout the church is of desire since of the subjects represented as properly as the makers and artists concerned.
The West window of the North aisle is explained in The Popular Guideline to Suffolk Churches as staying “a pretty horrible products of Ward and Hughes and features an outlandishly dressed centurion”. What else can be explained? Magnificence is clearly in the eye of the beholder.
The East window of the North aisle depicting two angels in opposition to patterned quarries is of fascination for the reason that of its local connections. It was designed and painted by Mary and Bessie McKean of Saxmundham in 1872 and put in by Mr Howlett, a Saxmundham glazier.
The Victorian tour de power is clearly the West window of the South aisle, built by the Dowager Marchioness of Waterford, a pal of the poet John Ruskin, and a very well regarded artist and reserve illustrator. The glass is by O’Connor and Taylor and illustrates Jesus’s ascension into heaven, in brilliant colour. Jesus stands in the centre, and the disciples kneel on either aspect. The drama of the scene is enhanced by the top quality of the artist’s get the job done and in certain the facial functions.
Pews and Pulpit
The present pews and pulpit date from the restoration of 1873 and are created from New Zealand kaurie pine. They switch the aged box pews which were being so tall that lots of folk using them could neither see nor be observed.
The full of the nave is topped with a splendid 15th century one-hammerbeam arch braced roof, with castellated hammers and wood demi-figures as corbels below the wall posts.
All through the Georgian period, or maybe in advance of, the roof was covered in with a flat plaster ceiling. A church guidebook book of 1855 states that at the time only the “finishes” of the roof were seen under the ceiling and that the whole inside was disfigured by galleries.
Happily the ceiling was taken out in 1932 to expose this splendid roof. It has been restored and the wall plates have been renewed, as have several of the other timbers. The historical woodwork is significantly less brown in look than the modern-day. The figures beneath the wall posts are mainly first.
The Chancel
Just one of the most unique characteristics of St John’s is its weeping chancel. If you stand in the nave centre aisle and seem towards the altar, you will recognize that the Chancel is developed at a pronounced angle to the nave. This is reasonably popular in churches crafted in the form of a cross (cruciform) but is really unusual in a church of this variety. The major attribute is not the angle, which is a lot higher than normal, but that it is to the South.
Other church buildings with weeping chancels incline to the North, symbolizing Jesus on the cross with his head to the penitent thief on his suitable. Below it is to his still left, signifying that Jesus died for the impenitent as well as the penitent. Saxmundham church is just one of the few in Europe to have this characteristic.
The Chancel arch and the two bay arcade North and South were being changed as element of the 1873 restoration, but we imagine that the restorers copied the unique forms (Adorned type)
The organ by Albert Pease of Hackney was put in here in the early 1950s. It has two manuals, pedals and 15 speaking stops.
www.saxmundham.org/aboutsax/parishchurch.html
Posted by Jelltex on 2016-11-15 06:47:34
Tagged: , St. John the Baptist , Saxmundham , Suffolk , Church , Jelltex , Jelltecks
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