| |
|
 |
|
If you live in the middle
of Ipswich as I do, then no doubt you like to go
to Orford. It's barely an hour away by train and
bike, quicker by car, and it is like stepping
back out of the 21st century. A benefit of going
by car is that you pass through Chillesford, the
church of St Peter above the road. In the late
afternoon sun its tower glows with a rich honey
colour as you head home. It isn't radiation from
the nearby Sizewell reactor, it is coralline
crag. There are only
two churches in the whole of England that have
towers built out of coralline crag, and
Chillesford's is one of them. St John the Baptist
at Wantisden, less than a mile away, is the
other, but the quarry that the crag might have
come from is here, behind the church. The height
of the church above the road is accentuated by
the way the graveyard drops away suddenly towards
what is now a roadside pond. Close up, the
cragstone is reddish, with the fossils of tiny
sea creatures in it.
Several coralline crag
quarries survive around here, including one close
to Ramsholt church, and it can be seen in the
ancient church walls at Butley and Sutton. It
lends buildings a sturdy, primitive quality,
quite unlike delicate but run-of-the-mill Suffolk
flintwork.
|
As I say, Chillesford sits on the
road to Orford, and so this church is quite well-known.
But I wonder how many passers-by bother to climb the
track to the top? The visitors book suggests that there
aren't many, which is a pity. This quiet little church is
as friendly as they come, as you'll be able to tell from
the sign on the roadside. Welcome! it says, the
church is always open!
At neighbouring Wantisden, the church is remote and
lonely enough to have retained an ancient interior as
well, but Chillesford has been thoroughly renewed inside
over the centuries. You step into a space full of light
and colour, a typical 19th century country church, even
smaller than it appears from the outside. I love small
country churches which are essentially Victorian inside,
perhaps because they are easy to grasp, and give us a
sense of the people who made them this way. They are
places we can understand, for of course the world we live
in today was forged in the 19th century.
The most striking feature of St Peter is the east window,
which dates from 1990. It was installed after an
unfortunate incident when an unhappy young man took an
axe to Christopher Gibbs's 1860s Gospel scenes. The
lovely replacement glass is by Mellis-based artist
Surinder Warboys, perhaps the best of her work, depicting
a risen Christ ascending above meadows and fields like
those of East Suffolk.
  
Part of the tracery from the Gibbs
window has been reset in a nave window, but otherwise the
one surviving 19th Century window is to the west, Edward
Frampton's depiction of Christ walking on the waters
while the incredulous disciples look on in wonder and
fear.
Standing at the back of the narrow
nave looking east, you see one of the narrowest chancel
arches in Suffolk. Above it sits a small, carved Stuart
royal arms. Looking at the narrow arch beneath, you can
see clearly that, historically, chancels and naves
started out as essentially separate constructions. The
east end of the nave is actually a wall with an opening
to divide them. Back in the early centuries of the
Church, church buildings were little more than covered
altars, but it wasn't long before the gathering people
were building their naves as a shelter for themselves as
they witnessed the sacrifice of the mass. Over the
centuries, these buildings were completely renewed and
rebuilt, until, in most cases, they became unified. But
here, the chancel is still what is known as a 'weeping'
chancel, which is to say that it is not directly in line
with the nave, but at an angle.
Perhaps this is because lining them
up exactly was not a great priority for the
early-medieval Church. More likely, there wasn't the
skill or technology to do so. Over the centuries,
successive rebuildings have not corrected the error, and
so here they remain, evidence of the distant past,
despite the 19th century restoration, and despite how
energetic the Victorians were here.
There are some large
squints either side of the chancel arch, found
elsewhere in Suffolk only at Wantisden, Gedding
and Chevington with similarly narrow chancel
arches. But one glance tells you that they are
new, dating from the 1860s. Mortlock thought that
these squints might be renewals, replacing
squints that already existed. This is certainly
possible, especially with such a narrow chancel
arch. But they might just as easily be modelled
on those up the lane at Wantisden.
There is a gorgeous medieval piscina in the south
nave wall, still retaining much of its original
colour. On the wall beside the vestry door is a
floor brass, which presumably sat in the chancel
floor before the 1860s. It tells us in Latin
that, beneath it, lies Agnes Clopton of the
ancient family of Cloptons of Kentwell in the
County of Suffolk, along with her daughter. Hands
at the bottom point to where mother and daughter
lay. |
|
 |
|
|
|
