St Andrew, Boyton

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A slight distance west of the village on the road to Hollesley stand the Mary Warner Homes, a lovely set of almshouses on three sides of a courtyard. They have been considerably restored over the years, but date essentially from the middle of the 18th Century. Mary Warner was the philanthropic lady of the manor, a title she can hardly have expected to inherit, being the youngest daughter of a youngest son. But her father's older brothers were both received into the Catholic church, becoming Jesuit religious on the continent. And her older sisters and brother all died. She herself was only in her early fifties when she died in 1738, and her will set up a trust for the establishment of an Hospitall or Almshouse for the entertainment of Twelve poor people six wherof are to be poor men and the other six are to be poor women... PROVIDED always that such poor people to be chosen... be all faithfull members of the Church of England as by law established and no others.

That this trust has prospered since, and continues to do so today, can be mainly attributed to the geography of Boyton itself. Firstly, in the late 18th Century, a rich bed of china clay supplied potteries throughout the south-east. And later, huge deposits of coprolite, the fertilising properties of which had been demonstrated by Joseph Henslow, Rector of Hitcham, were dug up and sold from Trust land. This wealth rebuilt the church in a mild Decorated style in 1868, to the designs of William Smith. It stands just to the east of the almshouses in a delightful churchyard which is maintained as a conservation area. Externally, St Andrew is as attractive as it is possible for a 19th Century neo-Norman church to be. The tower is the truncated bottom half of the 14th Century original., and the 15th Century south doorway was also retained, The new church was double the size of the old one, with an added transept and an enlarged chancel.

Inside, not much has changed since 1868. The font, furnishings, tiles and stonework are all typical of a serious late Victorian taste and can seem a little gloomy, but it is generally harmonious and nothing jars. There is a gentle peace here, far from any main roads or busy towns, a place to be still and know. And then if you step outside the church has a surprise around in the north transept on the other side of the chancel. This is a Norman doorway with three ranges of chevrons. The splay of the doorway is as deep as the door set into it is wide. The origins of this doorway are mysterious. There was no north transept before, so it is not in its original place. A visitation to the parish of 1879 reports that the Norman door formerly more than half hidden has been carefully and sparingly restored and placed where it now stands. The trustees, writing to Lord Stradbroke 11 years earlier in 1868, report that the Norman Door (so well known) which it is intended to remove, will be well placed as an entrance to the chancel at the North East end and will be a pleasing object from the Rectory.

And yet, it is hard to see where this doorway could have come from, or even that it was ever really a doorway at all. It is too narrow to have been a main entrance, and in any case as we have seen the 15th Century south doorway was retained. It also seems too narrow to have been the north doorway, so it may have been a priest's door to the chancel. But why so grand, if the other doorways were not similarly grand? Cautley hedges his bets when he suggests that it is a doorway made up of unusual and interesting 12th Century stonework. Mortlock probably solves the mystery when he suggests that it is in fact two doorways, one set inside the other. The inside one consists of two ranges, and may have been the priests doorway. The other range may have been just one of the ranges of the north doorway.

Reaching such a remote spot as Boyton you might wonder if the church will be accessible, but it is open every day, and a sign out by the road tells you so.