| |
|
Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England
Twitter.
If you did not know Marlesford was there,
you might never find it. And yet it sits right beside the
busy A12 hurtling traffic north from Ipswich. Cycling,
I've always approached it from the other direction,
perhaps by the quiet lane down from Hacheston, across the
ford, and into the lovely village. Coming from this side,
the busy road to the east does not intrude. The church
sits on a back lane, full of familiar greenness on this
spring day in 2019. The fields around were verdant too,
horses kicking their heels in restlessness at the
still-unfamiliar sunshine. Birdsong filled the graveyard,
and I felt good to be alive, good to be here.
And I remember other visits, one late on a chilly
September afternoon at the other end of a year. A smell
of woodsmoke blended with the rising dampness of the
graveyard, a feel of Suffolk beginning to prepare itself
for winter. I thought of this now and considered this is
simply one of the loveliest little villages in East
Suffolk.
This is a small church, with a pretty south aisle but no
clerestory. The renewed sanctus bell turret on the nave
gable probably reflects what was there before. You step
into an interior which balances perfectly an ancient
space and an enticingly rustic 19th century restoration.
This brought the church its collection of Ward &
Hughes windows, depicting the children coming to Christ
on the north side, and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in
the garden on the south. They are by no means the best of
19th Century workshops, but on a sunny day the scheme
here is memorable.
The south aisle has its own little sanctuary, with modern
wrought iron rails enclosing the sweetest little altar.
The Alstons gaze rather severely from their 17th century
memorial, while further west is a later memorial to
Lemuel Shuldham, who at the age of 21 was killed in the
Battle of Waterloo: Far in advance, within the right
of the French lines, his body was found the next morning
and buried on the spot. Above the inscription is a
cornucopia of the paraphernalia of battle, a cannon, a
banner, a cornet, and so on. But the memorial is not
wholly secular, because the inscription goes on to say
that the memorial was erected to preserve in his
native village a record of one so early and nobly lost...
in the blessed hope again to behold him in the beauty of
immortal life.
Marlesford is probably most famous for being the home
village of Flora Sandes. She was born in Yorkshire in
1876, but her father moved to Marlesford to be rector
here when she was nine. She spent almost the next thirty
years living in this little backwater, where she seems to
have made quite an impact, tearing around the local lanes
in a French racing car which she had taught herself to
drive. On the outbreak of World War One she joined the St
John's Ambulance Brigade, and set sail with a group of
other nurses to the Balkans.
However, she became separated from them behind Serbian
lines. For safety, she joined a Serbian regiment, and was
soon promoted to the rank of Corporal. Shortly after her
40th birthday, she was seriously injured in a grenade
attack, but recovered to reach the rank of Sergeant-Major
and to be awarded the King George Star, the Serbian
equivalent of the Victoria Cross.
She retired from the Serbian Army in 1922 to run a
hospital. At the start of World War Two she was interned
by the invading Nazis, but then expelled, and she
returned to Suffolk to spend the rest of her life. She
undertook lecture tours in her Serbian Army uniform, and
eventually died at the age of 80. A small brass plaque in
the chancel remembers her here, but her life is best
known for being the subject of the book and film The
Lovely Sergeant. It is the quite extraordinary tale
of a remarkable woman.
Simon Knott, May 2019
Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England
Twitter.
|
|
|
