| |
|
Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England
Twitter.
Sweffling is a lovely little village in an
area of lovely little villages. Its church sits in
hilltop splendour, clearly a successor to a fortified
building, perhaps even a pagan site. The churchyard rises
above the houses, two of which flank the entrance. They
must be fine places in which to live. The one to the left
has windows overlooking the graves. I remember once
seeing a poster for the annual Sweffling v Rendham
football match pinned to the church noticeboard, and
these two adjacent parishes are traditional rivals.
The view from the graveyard is gorgeous, of rolling hills
beyond the cottages. This really is High Suffolk.
Externally, this is rather a grand building, and looks
old. There is obvious renewal along the top of the nave
walls, and the tower doesn't look quite right, and
Mortlock thought it had been truncated. However, it is
not unattractive, and adds to the impression of a strong
and solid church.
The best feature of the exterior is the grand porch, so
typical of Suffolk's 15th century flintwork. It is
set-off well by the nave's red-brick walls. A wild man
and a wyvern spar in the spandrels, quite clearly to me,
although Cautley thought them St George fighting a
dragon. There are three splendid crowned alcoves for
statues, which, as so often in Suffolk, must have had
very short lives before their removal and probable
destruction in the 1540s.
To step inside is a bit of a disappointment at first,
because it appears that the inside has been so thoroughly
Victorianised, but the church retains the feel of a
quiet, prayerful space, and is certainly not without
interest.
The most striking survival is the set of 18th Century
decalogue boards painted directly on to the north wall.
It is done so well that, at first, you might think them
to be painted on hanging wood. They are a reminder that
it is not safe to assume these boards were always moved
by the Victorians from behind the altar. They are painted
over an even earlier set, and topped off by a set of
Queen Anne royal arms.
The font is made of grey Purbeck marble. It's an
off-the-peg job of the 13th century, with curved arches
all around. A fretwork Our Father hangs on the
west wall, a pleasing 19th Century period piece. On the
south side of the nave, Paul Quail's depiction of St
Andrew as a Suffolk fisherman being summoned by Christ is
striking, and good for the workshop. At the other end of
the church, the Y-tracery of the east window is elegant
and seemly.
The one disappointment to me was that Sweffling church is
now left locked without a keyholder notice. Luckily, I
could remember where the key had been kept on my previous
visit. On that occasion I had been pleased to find the
Sweffling Museum, a collection of photographs and
artifacts about people and events in Sweffling in days
gone by, tucked under the little ringing platform at the
west end. It seemed a pleasing touchstone to the long
local generations. Here were available, with full public
access, copies of the parish records. The exhibits are
still there, but today the area is used for storage, with
tables, chairs and other equipment making it impossible
to see the displays. This seemed a shame.
Simon Knott, May 2019
Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England
Twitter.
|
|
|
