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At one time, the Victorians
were much maligned for 'ruining' medieval
churches with their restorations. That
accusation seems to have gone out of
fashion, as the realisation grows that
most East Anglian churches were in a
pretty dreadful state after the long
years of 18th century neglect. There are
still some wonderful interiors surviving
from pre-Victorian days - Badley is
probably Suffolk's best - but they would
in any case have been the exception
rather than the rule, and in general the
Victorians saved the churches rather than
ruining them. Anyone
who still remains to be convinced that
the Victorians were not complete villains
would do well to come to Somerleyton.
Here, that great 19th century millionaire
eccentric, Sir Morton Peto, commissioned
the London architect John Thomas to
construct the extraordinary Somerleyton
Hall. Then, in 1854, he paid him to
rebuild the church. Bearing in mind that
Peto was a strict Baptist, there was
either something altruistic about this
gesture, or entirely secular; the action
of a man who wanted a view. Thomas found
the building derelict,but rescued much of
the tower, as well as parts of the
chancel and north aisle; but the nave is
all his, and the whole thing looks very
well together. It isn't necessary to pay
for a visit to Somerleyton Hall to see
this church. You can reach it by a pretty
drive across a bridge off the Somerleyton
to Blundeston
road.
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St
Mary is just about the only church in these parts
which isn't round-towered, and a lesser man than
John Thomas might have demolished it to replace
it with a competitor for nearby Herringfleet, Blundeston, Lound and Ashby. All four
of these are particularly fine, but St Mary
retains its square 15th century tower. The new
work merges well, and Peto was keen to encourage
(and pay for) the use of high quality materials.
Ironically, at a time when so many Victorian
buildings are requiring structural makeovers, it
is the tower here which has recently needed of
repair.
Coming
from the road, you approach the church in its
wild graveyard from the south. The porch is in
Thomas's restrained East Anglian style, and you
pass through it into the nave. Turning back to
face the south door, There is a stone panel
bearing the evangelistic
symbols above the doorway. It is a rare
pre-Reformation reredos; Thomas's
workers found it hidden under the floorboards in
the 1850s. The glass is generally lovely, but the
star of the show is one of Suffolk's finest rood screens. It is
similar in style to that at Ranworth in Norfolk.
The artist was not the same, but the person who
painted this had certainly seen the one at
Ranworth. From north to south, the saints are
Michael, Edmund, Apollonia, Laurence, Faith,
Thomas of Canterbury, Anne, Andrew, John, Mary
Magdalene, Felix, Petronilla, Stephen, Dorothy,
Edward the Confessor and George. If you stand
back and take in the screen as a whole, you can
see that there is an interesting dynamic at work.
The saints are paired, so that they have a
relationship across the nave: thus, the two
outside saints, Michael (N) and George (S) are
killing dragons. The next two in, Edmund (N) and
Edward (S) are the two traditional patron saints
of East Anglia. And so on. Some of the
relationships are more obvious than others; for
instance, Laurence (N) and Stephen (S) are both
martyrs, and the two bishops are also paired.
Apollonia is found on several East Anglian rood
screens. She was that most essential of all
saints in the medieval economy of grace; you
asked her to intercede for you against toothache.
She carries the instrument of her own martyrdom,
as does her neighbour Laurence; these two are
often found together on rood screens.
Thomas
of Canterbury has had his face rather more
restored than the others, explained simply by the
fact that he was the one of all these saints most
viciously circumscribed by the Anglican reformers
of the 1540s. His face was usually scratched out
as a salutary warning. Dorothy is beautiful with
her flowers, although I think Mary of Magdala the
most gorgeous of all. St Andrew has a wisdom and
serenity I've not seen anywhere else in Suffolk.


A
huge black and white monument dominates the north
side of the chancel. It is to John and Anna
Wentworth, who are represented by conventional
busts, but is of interest because it was
commisioned in the 1650s, during the puritan
Commonwealth. The Wentworths must have been
people of some influence, but the Latin
inscription is carefully worded to ensure that
this great edifice could be manufactured and
erected under the eyes of the local Taliban. Not
far from it is a later memorial to the splendidly
named General de Bathe. He not only served in an
official capacity at the coronation of Queen
Victoria in 1838; he did so again at her funeral,
63 years later.
Although this church is some
way from the village it serves,
Somerleyton itself is worth exploring.
Its Tudor cottages are pastoral and
perfect. Too perfect, in fact; they were
all built in the 19th century at Peto's
direction. To build his vast palace, Peto
had also demolished the 16th Century
Somerleyton Hall, built by the Jernegan
family, and later passing through the the
hands of the Garneys and the Anguishs,
two curious names, but common enough in
this part of East Anglia. Peto
provided his village with a railway
station. This survives in use on the
Lowestoft to Norwich line, and has a
great sense of the wildness of Norfolk,
the marshes of which spread bleakly away
on the other side of the tracks. Unlike
Norfolk, Suffolk got off very lightly at
the time of the Beeching cuts, and there
are still plenty of little railway
stations out in the fields. You can visit
many of them on the slow, stopping East
Suffolk line, which takes an hour and a
half to meander the forty miles from
Ipswich to Lowestoft. Further north, over
the Norfolk border, Berney Arms station
is a mile and a half from the nearest
road, and is thus the most remote railway
station in England.
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