St Mary, Redenhall, Norfolk
I had not been back again to Redenhall for ten yrs, but its excellent tower is unforgettable, rearing out of the rolling hills to the north of the Waveney. As you get nearer, you see that spreading further than the church is what have to be one particular of the major churchyards in Norfolk, and there is a explanation for this. Whilst Redenhall is a tiny village, the parish contains the really sector town of Harleston, from which it is separated by the awful Diss to Yarmouth street. 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 a single that means enterprise.
Reminiscent of the towers at Eye and Laxfield in excess of the Suffolk border, the tower was practically definitely the do the job of the exact same masons. It was bankrolled by the De la Poles, 1 of the richest people in East Anglia in the 15th century, and the point that the elaborate flushwork is only in a few sides of the tower, but not on the south side which can not be observed from the highway, demonstrates that they ended up a rather wily bunch when it came to splashing the funds. They experienced been beneficiaries of the pestilences of the preceding century, when the deaths of around 50 percent the folks of Norfolk and Suffolk resulted in the break-up of the old estates and the growing of wages and costs, enabling these with dollars to invest in land cheaply. The emergence of a house-owning impartial middle course without the need of historic ties and loyalties to their parishes and folks would inevitably direct to the two excellent ideologies of the next fifty percent of the millennium, Protestantism and Capitalism.
But that was in the upcoming when the De la Poles and fellow proto-capitalists the Brothertons were being producing bequests to rebuild St Mary. Up went the tower and the clerestory, and the aisle windows had been all changed in the fashion of the day. Only the chancel was still left seeking instead necessarily mean and slight. Most likely they would have bought to that way too had priorities not changed. About the base of the tower you can see their leopard and wild male symbols. You might also place tortoises, for this was the image of the Gawdy relatives. Just one curious depth is the carving of farriers’ implements on the west door. These have been taken to signify that the doorway was paid out for by the local farriers’ guild, but I see no rationale to suppose that the carving is up to date, and I assume it is as possible to be the work of an idle 18th century hand.
Inevitably, the inside of the church was not heading to are living up to the exterior. I experienced arrive below from the two churches of the Pulhams, the two huge barns of church buildings, and this a single is a little bit of a barn also, huge and echoey, but possibly a classier barn than the two I experienced earlier visited. It is accurate that the inside of St Mary has been comprehensively Victorianised, and it is truly tough to summon up any sense of its medieval lifetime. The really serious darkish woodwork of the case of the Holdich organ in the west gallery would have frowned on the acres of colored glass in the naves at the Pulhams, but right here there is relatively crystal clear mild with only a couple Ward & Nixon windows that can quickly be tuned out.
But there are appealing corners which give the church extremely substantially a character of its individual, for instance the Gawdy chapel at the east conclusion of the north aisle which consists of a spirited classical altar tomb of the late 18th century, a hint of Strawberry Hill Gothick about it, alternatively unconventional but incredibly effectively done. The window of heraldic glass is by Samuel Yarrington, and is explained to have arrive from Gawdy Corridor in the north of the parish, demolished in the early many years of WWII. An intriguing element in the chapel is a 16th Century Venetian linen upper body which is also claimed to appear from Gawdy Hall. It stands open, 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 alternatively wonderful.
Redenhall church is well known for a person certain medieval survival. This is the amazing double-headed eagle lectern, the wonderful product of a 15th century East Anglian workshop. There is one more in just one of the Kings Lynn churches, and the a person at St Mark’s in Venice is claimed to be from the exact same workshop. I really like the tiny lions on the pedestals greatest of all. Remarkably, the church has a next medieval lectern, a wooden one, and equally are solidly chained down to avoid theft.
You can walk underneath the fantastic organ to beneath the tower, an amazing place as significant as some churches. However no more time employed, you get an impact of the excellent processional entrance this should as soon as have been, and perhaps an inkling of what St Mary was like in its late medieval heyday, a location at very last to replicate on the glory that as soon as was below. As if to remind us of the passing of these factors, a surviving painted plaque, probably from a dropped 17th Century memorial, hangs beside the tower arch. Dying, it reads, behold thy selfe to me, these types of 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 19:32:34
Tagged: , Redenhall , Norfolk , East Anglia , church , church buildings
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