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This is a lovely,
little-known church, so far out on the
edge of Suffolk that you could throw a
churchwarden into Cambridgeshire from the
graveyard. This would make him land in
the Diocese of Ely, of course, which
might send him scurrying back. In common
with all the Haverhill area villages,
this place looks to Cambridge more than
it does Ipswich or
Bury;
but for all that, with a couple of minor
exceptions, this is a typical Suffolk
church, delightfully well-kept, with all
the evidence of its long centuries, and
open.This came as a happy surprise, as I
had come here from a succession of nearby
locked churches, but I remembered finding
it open on my last visit, and it is
clearly open every day. It just feels
more full of life than its locked
neighbours.
What makes the
building so appealing? Well, it is set in
an expansive churchyard beside a farm
away from the busy main road. The tower,
like many at this end of the Stour
valley, has one of those stair turrets
that rises above the battlements.
Secondly, it is a festival of arches of
different periods that harmonise in a
most pleasant way. The best ones are
doorways. The north door faces the road,
but is no longer in general use. it is
almost certainly the original entrance to
the Norman church. Two slender columns
rise to a plain tympanum, squaring the
door beneath with a lintel.
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The south doorway, protected by a
fabulously pretty early 16th century brick porch,
is even more splendid. This is later, probably
mid-12th century, with jolly creatures for
capitals, very unusual for Suffolk. I was
conscious that I was almost no longer in Suffolk.
The porch is interesting in that it has no less
than eight image niches (or possibly six - I'm
not entirely convinced by the two either side).
Perhaps the central three were a rood group, the
top one a madonna and child, and the two outer
ones Peter and Paul. Or perhaps some entirely
different arrangement.
You step into a light, white
interior. A whimsical mid-20th Century window by
Powell & Son on the south side of the church
depicts the adoration of the shepherds, and
includes thatched cottages and what looks like a
castle behind the Blessed Virgin and Christchild.
There is other good 20th Century glass, although
the war memorial window to Reginal Wilder is
rather mawkish. Nineteenth century benches face
through the narrow pointed chancel arch, which is
the first development here out of the Norman
period, and behind them the organ fills the tower
arch in a pleasing manner. If you dare to peep
behind it, you will see something most unusual.
Set in the north side of the tower is a
fireplace. It has a chimney, which comes out
about five metres up on the outside. The church
guide suggested that it might once have been used
for baking the bread used at the Mass, although I can think of
other reasons why you might have a fireplace
beneath a tower, especially if it had been used
as a vestry during the 17th and 18th centuries.
However, it does appear to be part of
the original fabric of the tower.
Up in the
sanctuary, there is another curiosity.
Hard up against the east wall is part of
an exquisite sedila,
just one of the three seats that once
were used by Priest, Deacon and Subdeacon
in a High Mass. The thing that makes it
so unusual is that the surviving sedile
is the subdeacon's - that is to say, the
most westerly. Clearly, at some point the
chancel has been truncated, and the two
upper seats and piscina
have been lost.
Although nothing at
all survives of the roodscreen or
rood,
there is ample evidence here of how it
was placed. In both south and north walls
alcoves survive, and clearly outline
where the stairs were, where the rood
beam was, and how deep the rood loft must
have been. It is a simple matter to
recreate it in your head.
Back outside, the
late October afternoon was beginning to
pale. I heard a mewing cry from far above
me, and looking up saw a buzzard drifting
with wide wings above the churchyard, a
rare sight where I live in the east of
the county, and another reminder to me of
how far I had come.
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