St Peter, Felsham
www.suffolkchurches.co.uk - a journey through the churches of Suffolk
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St Peter, Felsham |
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www.suffolkchurches.co.uk - a journey through the churches of Suffolk |
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| Felsham
is one of a number of lovely villages in this part of
Suffolk, and like the best of the others it has a decent
pub as well, directly opposite the church in the
village's main street. St Mary is an imposing church full
of decorated confidence, with a grand late 15th Century
north porch as the icing on the cake. In fact,
considerable will evidence survives to give a fair idea
of the building and furnishing programmes here. Simon
Cotton identified a succession of bequests through the
15th Century. In 1423 John Goodrych was leaving money
towards the building of the new tower, by which
time the body of the church was probably complete. In
1457 and 1462 money was willed towards the paving of
the interior. By 1469 there was a bequest to pay for a
new font cover of the same form as that of Rattlesden
church, and in the following decade it was at last
the porch that concerned those who were leaving money to
the church. Later wills pay further attention to the
furnishings, and poignantly in 1532 Edmund Tassell left
twenty shillings to pay for a new silver pax, a
tablet engraved with the agnus dei that was passed around
at Mass during the peace. Within a few years it would
become redundant. The chequered flushwork and hearty front buttresses of the great porch funnel you in through a tunnel-like space punctuated by matching arches. Here are the boards of honour detailing everyone from the twin parishes (there is another church at nearby Gedding) who fought in WWI. I was pleased to see the same names displayed in the village pub. The Victorians are often blamed for the destruction of medieval interiors, although in fact they were more often saving what they could after years of neglect at a time when church attendances were greatly on the rise. So perhaps we should not be too harsh on the young future diocesan architect Herbert Green's activities here in the 1870s, the result of which is that you step into what is to all intents and purposes a 19th Century space. The chancel had been rebuilt in the early years of the decade, and when Green arrived with his sleeves rolled up he was still only in his mid-twenties. In future years Green would show that he was not always a sympathetic restorer, certainly not in comparison with his predecessor as diocesan architect Richard Phipson, and this was the case here. Perhaps it was his youthful energy that galvanised him to undertake what was a thorough scouring. The furnishings were pretty much all renewed, and the glass by William Pepper & Co is all of a piece with the tiled floors and pitch pine pews. The contrast with the elegant and determined 15th Century exterior is striking, though the interior has been ameliorated somewhat with carpeting since I first visited in the 1990s. The one great survival here is the font - or, to be accurate, the two fonts, for the typical 15th Century font is set upon a base which appears to consist of a more interesting 14th Century font. The panels of the lower font are carved in reliefs of green men, fish, a cleric, a serpent perhaps. Only the top two thirds of each panel appeared to be visible, although I have no idea if the rest is sunk into the ground or if it was chopped off. It would be interesting to know if this construction was the work of the young Herbert Green, and if so perhaps he can be forgiven for the rest. |
Simon Knott, September 2020
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