St Mary, Redenhall, Norfolk
I had not been back again to Redenhall for 10 many years, but its great tower is unforgettable, rearing out of the rolling hills to the north of the Waveney. As you get nearer, you see that spreading beyond the church is what ought to be one of the major churchyards in Norfolk, and there is a purpose for this. While Redenhall is a small village, the parish consists of the really industry town of Harleston, from which it is divided by the horrible Diss to Yarmouth road. Harleston has a 19th century chapel of relieve in its centre, but when you see St Mary even from a distance you know that this is the one particular that means organization.
Reminiscent of the towers at Eye and Laxfield about the Suffolk border, the tower was practically unquestionably the get the job done of the same masons. It was bankrolled by the De la Poles, 1 of the richest households in East Anglia in the 15th century, and the truth that the elaborate flushwork is only in three sides of the tower, but not on the south side which are unable to be seen from the street, exhibits that they were being a very wily bunch when it came to splashing the cash. They experienced been beneficiaries of the pestilences of the previous century, when the fatalities of approximately 50 percent the folks of Norfolk and Suffolk resulted in the crack-up of the aged estates and the soaring of wages and rates, enabling these with dollars to acquire land cheaply. The emergence of a property-owning unbiased middle class without the need of historic ties and loyalties to their parishes and folks would inevitably direct to the two wonderful ideologies of the 2nd fifty percent of the millennium, Protestantism and Capitalism.
But that was in the foreseeable future when the De la Poles and fellow proto-capitalists the Brothertons have been earning bequests to rebuild St Mary. Up went the tower and the clerestory, and the aisle home windows had been all changed in the vogue of the working day. Only the chancel was remaining on the lookout instead imply and slight. Perhaps they would have received to that as well had priorities not modified. About the foundation of the tower you can see their leopard and wild man symbols. You could possibly also place tortoises, for this was the symbol of the Gawdy relatives. Just one curious detail is the carving of farriers’ implements on the west door. These have been taken to necessarily mean that the door was paid for by the area farriers’ guild, but I see no rationale to suppose that the carving is modern, and I feel it is as possible to be the perform of an idle 18th century hand.
Inevitably, the interior of the church was not heading to are living up to the exterior. I experienced appear here from the two churches of the Pulhams, both of those huge barns of church buildings, and this 1 is a little bit of a barn as well, large and echoey, but possibly a classier barn than the two I experienced earlier frequented. It is genuine that the inside of of St Mary has been extensively Victorianised, and it is really really hard to summon up any feeling of its medieval lifestyle. The major dim woodwork of the situation of the Holdich organ in the west gallery would have frowned on the acres of coloured glass in the naves at the Pulhams, but right here there is rather very clear light with only a couple Ward & Nixon windows that can effortlessly be tuned out.
But there are exciting corners which give the church pretty significantly a character of its individual, for instance the Gawdy chapel at the east conclusion of the north aisle which contains a spirited classical altar tomb of the late 18th century, a hint of Strawberry Hill Gothick about it, relatively unusual but really properly performed. The window of heraldic glass is by Samuel Yarrington, and is claimed to have come from Gawdy Hall in the north of the parish, demolished in the early yrs of WWII. An intriguing depth in the chapel is a 16th Century Venetian linen upper body which is also explained to arrive from Gawdy Corridor. It stands open, and you can see a depiction of the Annunciation with sailing ships previously mentioned on the inside of the lid, which is really curious and fairly pretty.
Redenhall church is well-known for one particular certain medieval survival. This is the magnificent double-headed eagle lectern, the superb product or service of a 15th century East Anglian workshop. There is another in one of the Kings Lynn church buildings, and the one at St Mark’s in Venice is said to be from the similar workshop. I really like the minimal lions on the pedestals best of all. Remarkably, the church has a second medieval lectern, a picket just one, and both are solidly chained down to avert theft.
You can stroll below the great organ to beneath the tower, an outstanding place as significant as some churches. Even though no extended utilised, you get an effect of the great processional entrance this need to at the time have been, and potentially an inkling of what St Mary was like in its late medieval heyday, a area at previous to mirror on the glory that as soon as was below. As if to remind us of the passing of such issues, a surviving painted plaque, probably from a dropped 17th Century memorial, hangs beside the tower arch. Death, it reads, behold thy selfe to me, this sort of 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 19:32:26
Tagged: , Redenhall , Norfolk , East Anglia , church , churches
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