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Outside the towns, Suffolk
is largely a patchwork of fields and woods, and
so the setting of St Genevieve is quite out of
the ordinary. The walled graveyard is set in the
open parkland of Euston Hall, home of the Dukes
of Grafton. The green park spreads for hundreds
of acres on three sides, a sward punctuated by
patiently grazing sheep. Beyond the fourth side
are the grounds of the Hall, but the sense of
remoteness is not disturbed by this. In the past,
it is a long way to walk to discover that you
need to go all the way back to the estate office
to get the key (a round trip of about four
miles), but I am afraid the the estate office no
longer keep the key. The church is left locked,
and there is no longer a keyholder notice.
Be that as it may, the walk across the park to
the church is a pleasant one on a sunny spring
day, with the wide open blue sky enfolding the
green. Occasional clouds scuttered slowly,
reflecting the sheep below, who found me even
more interesting than I did them. On the hill
behind, a building like an observatory was
obscured by the trees. It was built in the late
17th century as a banqueting hall by the
architect William Kent, for Lord Arlington, owner
of the Euston estate. More accurately, Kent
designed it; it was built by hundreds of local
peasants. Arlington was one of Charles II's
advisers, and is remembered in the name of the
settlement that is now a suburb of Washington DC,
and home of the US's national cemetery. He had
got the estate for a pittance thanks to his
slavish devotion to the crown; previously, it had
been owned by the Rokewodes of Stanningfield; but
they were Catholics, and were ruined by
implication in the Gunpowder Plot.
William Kent also designed the great pile of
Euston Hall, but barely a quarter of it survives
today after a serious fire and rationalisation.
Capability Brown and John Evelyn are responsible
for the Park. The setting would be even better
without the churchyard wall; the sheep would be
able to get in among the gravestones to keep the
grass down, and it wouldn’t have been
necessary to move some of the stones into a line
against the wall. However, the gift of hindsight
is a rare and precious one.
Long before you get to the church, as soon as you
see it in fact, you know that here is something
rather extraordinary. St Genevieve is a purpose
built 17th century Anglican parish church. It is
unusual in England, and unique in Suffolk. It has
a touch of the Christopher Wrens about it, but
the outline and tower owe something to Suffolk
medieval as well, and I like it for that. It is
probably exactly on the site of a medieval
predecessor, of which it retains some features,
as we shall see. Arlington wrote in the 1660s
that his heart grieved that he sould see Gods
house in the ruins it lay at Euston, so a rebuild
was timely. In the years after the construction
of St Genevieve, Euston Hall park enclosed the
settlement and church of Little Fakenham, which
were completely erased from the face of the
Earth.
Beside the unused south door, a simple
inscription tells us that the Duches of
Grafton and Countese of Ewston layed this stone
21st day of April 1676 - they were the same
person, of course - and a later restoration is
remembered beside it. Coming back here in 2016, unable to
see inside, I have to fall back on my previous
visit, which was as long ago as 2003. Then, I
walked around to the west end, and instantly
found myself transported to the City of London.
Curved steps lead up to a double door, with rails
narrowing on either side. It was so much like a
Wren city church, I found myself watching for
traffic.
I recall that we had enjoyed a certain amount of
suspicion when we obtained the key. The keyholder
recognised me, but still insisted on taking my
address, as well as the car registration of my
colleague. Since he drove a Lotus Elise, and
there's hardly room in the boot for my camera let
alone for a font or a pitch-pine bench, we were
scarcely likely to be plundering the furnishings.
As if this wasn't enough, the doors of the church
were chained at the top so that it was only
possible to enter by moving sideways and
breathing in - and I have met other
churchcrawlers far less sylph-like than me.
However, once inside the illusion of a Wren city
church is sustained. This is partly because of
the merciful removal of some of the most
hideously awful Victorian glass in the county.
Now, the church is full of enfolding waves of
white light, from round and round-arched windows.
It is all in the late 17th century baroque style,
sensitively restored and maintained. The
plasterwork is magnificent, the woodwork wholly
in keeping. It is breathtaking. These are the
photographs I took in 2003, I apologise for the
2003-sized thumbnails and the fact that they are
not digital photographs, but you can click on
them to see larger versions.
                 
Lord Arlington's daughter married his friend the
Duke of Grafton, and Euston has been in the hands
of the Graftons ever since. Inevitably, the
church is a bit of a mausoleum (I have recently
heard this kind of building described as a
'tribute-church', which is rather neat) but it is
all very understated, and a far cry from Boxted
or Helmingham. The family pew in the south aisle
is backed by a couple of grand memorials,
including one to Arlington himself; there are
some simple ones at the back of the church and on
the arcade, and about twenty coffin plates that
have, in recent years, been taken from the
Grafton vault and placed around the walls, that's
all. It is very seemly.
The 1882 memorial to the 6th Duke of Grafton in
the south aisle is probably the best, but I did
like very much the simple mosaic memorial in the
arcade to Edward Fitzroy, killed in France in
1917, and the 1810 inscription to Frances
Fitzroy,which includes 'her own words on her
death bed': I thank Almighty God for granting
me such an end. I am an object of envy not of
pity. Well, maybe that is how it seemed to
her at the time.
Looking around, the names resonated a kind of
nostalgia for me. I grew up in the part of
Cambridge where the Grafton Shopping Centre is
now, a maze of streets named after the Graftons:
Fitzroy Street, Burleigh Street, Edward Street,
James Street, and so on. The terraced streets
were built on land owned by the Graftons. It was
curious to think that this was where they had all
ended up.
The woodwork of the pulpit, and especially that
of the reredos, is attributed often to Grinling
Gibbons. It is certainly in his style, recalling
similar work at the Ipswich churches of St Mary
le Tower and the Unitarian chapel. The pulpit is
magnificent, a focus for the whole church. The
church has some excellent brasses, but the two
best are beneath the carpet. I am afraid to say
that we removed the carpet to photograph them,
and the underlay broke up a bit. I did look
around for a hoover, but there wasn't one. I
apologised to the keyholder later.
| There are six
brasses all told. Three of them are
couples (the large one under the carpet
is probably the Rokewodes), one a single
woman, one a priest (the most
interesting, this - he seems to have died
at the age of 104) and the other a simple
inscription. Most date from the early
years of the sixteenth century. Despite a certain amount of
20th century clearing, the graveyard is
fascinating, and there are some fine late
18th and early 19th century survivals.
Many, if not all, of the people here must
have worked for the Graftons or on the
Estate, but an 1840s memorial to a house
servant particularly struck me. Several
of the larger tombs commemorated
Graftons, but there is nothing outrageous
or vulgar. The air was silent except for
a light wind in the trees, birdsong, and
the calling of the sheep. It was a lovely
place to wander.
I've since found
out who to borrow the key from, so I'll
go back. I'll try not to leave it
thirteen years this time.
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