View allAll Photos Tagged BurghNextAylsham
In this shot, Sanders former Wilts & Dorset Wright bodied Volvo B7RLE type number 505 - HF54 HHA is captured as it travels along Norwich Road between Tuttington and Burgh-next-Aylsham with the above service 18A journey, which is a one journey each way college day only variation of service 18.
Having reached this point from North Walsham by way of Felmingham and Tuttington the route continues via Burgh-next-Aylsham, Aylsham, Ingworth, Erpingham and Calthorpe to Aldborough. Upon reaching the latter village it runs through to Roughton via Hanworth Post Office and the A140 if there are students to setdown.
Burgh-next-Aylsham aerial image: St Marys Church overlooking the River Bure in Norfolk #BurghNextAylsham #aerail #image #Norfolk #Church #aerialphotography
Norfolk aerial image
Another shot of a school service/contract operating over a section of road which would otherwise be busless and here we see Sanders former Nottingham City Transport Scania N94UD East Lancs Omnidekka type number 123 - YN07 EYY “ROMULUS” as it heads along Church Road between Burgh-next-Aylsham and Skeyton whilst working the above Aylsham High School to North Walsham journey on school day only service 88. At this time of day, with the bus more or less travelling due east, it is only possible to capture this view under an overcast sky.
Although service 88 appears on Sanders website, it is not included in the Norfolk County Council schedule of routes serving Aylsham High School, therefore I assume that it is used by children of North Walsham parents who prefer to send their offspring to Aylsham rather than to their home town High School.
Burgh-next-Aylsham aerial image: St Marys Church overlooking the River Bure in Norfolk #BurghNextAylsham #aerail #image #Norfolk #Church #aerialphotography
Norfolk aerial image
Here we see Sanders Coasthopper liveried Wright bodied Volvo B7RLE type number 508 - HF54 HGN at Brampton White Cross, some way from the coast, as it turns from Norwich Road towards Burgh-next-Aylsham whilst working the above service 18A journey. The 18A is a one journey each way college day only variation of service 18 which, by deviating from the normal route between Felmingham and Aylsham, omits Banningham Crown to serve Tuttington and Burgh-next-Aylsham.
This is the first time that I have captured a Coasthopper bus working a non Coasthopper service. Interestingly, 508 is displaying the correct destination, although the standard liveried single deck fleet do not appear to have had their destination displays configured to show Coasthopper destinations or route numbers.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
Burgh-next-Aylsham aerial image: St Marys Church overlooking the River Bure in Norfolk #BurghNextAylsham #aerail #image #Norfolk #Church #aerialphotography
Norfolk aerial image
William Hubert Postle
Name: POSTLE, WILLIAM HUBERT
Rank: Rifleman
Regiment: Rifle Brigade
Unit Text: 10th Bn.
Age: 20
Date of Death: 12/12/1916
Service No: B/200099
Additional information: Son of John and Mary Ann Postle, of Burgh, Aylsham, Norfolk,. Grave/Memorial Reference: II. E. 11. Cemetery: GROVE TOWN CEMETERY, MEAULTE
CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=31595
No match on Norlink
The 5 year old William, born Burgh, is recorded on the 1901 census at “Cottages“. Burgh.. This is the household of his parents, John, (aged 45 and an Agricultural Labourer from Burgh, Aylsham) and Mary Ann, (aged 43 and from East Ruston). Their other children are:-
Charles……..aged 20.…..Agricultural Labourer……Born Burgh
Lily…………aged 7.……born Burgh
Sarah……….aged 11.…..born Burgh
GROVE TOWN CEMETERY, MEAULTE
In September 1916, the 34th and 2/2nd London Casualty Clearing Stations were established at this point, known to the troops as Grove Town, to deal with casualties from the Somme battlefields. They were moved in April 1917 and, except for a few burials in August and September 1918, the cemetery was closed. Grove Town Cemetery contains 1,395 First World War burials. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_details.aspx?cemetery=3200&a...
While the battle of the Somme had finally petered out in November. There were numerous small actions along the Ancre Heights during the winter of 1916-1917, plus the constant attrition of life in the front-line and illness.
Updated 10th March 2021 - see comment 1 below
**********************************************************
Robert Charles Quadling
Possibly
Name: QUADLING Initials: R C
Rank: Private
Regiment: Royal Fusiliers
Unit Text: 8th Bn.
Date of Death: 18/04/1917
Service No: 34581
Additional information: Husband of R. Quadling, of Lamas, Buxton, Norwich.
Grave/Memorial Reference: II. G. 15. Cemetery: DUISANS BRITISH CEMETERY, ETRUN
CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=40976
No match on Norlink
Military Genealogy has a Robert Charles Quadling born “Causton, Norfolk” and resident Gillingham when he enlisted. On the 1901 census there is an 11 year old Robert, (born Cawston), who is recorded at a dwelling, “Near the Rectory”, Salle near Aylsham. This is the household of his parent, Robert, (aged 47 and a Farm Bailiff from Seething, Norfolk) and his wife Matilda (aged 47 and from Berghapton). Their other children are:-
Frederick…………………….aged 16.……..Harness Maker…….born Seething
Matilda………………………aged 9.………born Cawston
Also in the household is Robert’s uncle, William Quadling, (aged 49 and a General Farm Labourer from Seething), and his mothers sister, Lily Smith, who is married, aged 26 and from Ashby, Norfolk.
The baptism of Robert Charles took place at St Agnes, Cawston on the 27th February 1893. His parents are listed as Robert and Matilda, with his fathers occupation listed as Labourer. The baptism was overseen by the Reverend Theodore H Marsh, Rector of this Parish.
DUISANS BRITISH CEMETERY, ETRUN
The area around Duisans was occupied by Commonwealth forces from March 1916, but it was not until February 1917 that the site of this cemetery was selected for the 8th Casualty Clearing Station. The first burials took place in March and from the beginning of April the cemetery grew very quickly, with burials being made from the 8th Casualty Clearing Station (until April 1918), the 19th (until March 1918), and the 41st (until July 1917). Most of the graves relate to the Battles of Arras in 1917, and the trench warfare that followed.
www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_details.aspx?cemetery=4300&a...
The 8th Battalion were part of the 12th (Eastern) Division, a Division which included the 7th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment. As the war progressed it was not uncommon for training drafts from one divisional regiment to be switched to make a sudden shortfall arising from combat. Also soldiers returning from convalescence could find themselves posted elsewhere in the Division for the same reason.
The division itself had recently been involved in the First Battle of the Scarpe. 9-14 Apr 1917, including the capture Monchy le Preux and the Wancourt Ridge.
warpath.orbat.com/divs/12_div.htm
Updated 10th March 2021 - see comment 2 below
**********************************************************
Robert Stackwood
Name: STACKWOOD, ROBERT
Rank: Private
Regiment: Norfolk Regiment
Unit Text: 9th Bn.
Age: 22
Date of Death: 05/05/1916
Service No: 14784
Additional information: Son of John and Jane Stackwood, of Burgh, Aylsham, Norwich. Born at Roughton, Norwich.
Grave/Memorial Reference: 25. 151. Cemetery: NORWICH CEMETERY, Norfolk
CWGC: www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2803329
No match on Norlink
The 7 year old Robert, (born Sustead, Norfolk), is recorded at 6, The Cottages and Shop (Burrs), Burgh. This is the household of his parents, John, (aged 39 and an Agricultural Labourer from Carbrooke, Norfolk) and Jane, (aged 39 and from Roughton). Their other children are:-
John Henry…………aged 8.……..born Roughton
William Lawrence….aged 14.……born Roughton….Agricultural Labourer
The death of Robert, aged 22, was recorded in the Norwich District in the April - June 1916 Quarter
Updated 10th March 2021 - see comment 3 below
**********************************************************
William Hubert Postle
Name: POSTLE, WILLIAM HUBERT
Rank: Rifleman
Regiment: Rifle Brigade
Unit Text: 10th Bn.
Age: 20
Date of Death: 12/12/1916
Service No: B/200099
Additional information: Son of John and Mary Ann Postle, of Burgh, Aylsham, Norfolk,. Grave/Memorial Reference: II. E. 11. Cemetery: GROVE TOWN CEMETERY, MEAULTE
CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=31595
No match on Norlink
The 5 year old William, born Burgh, is recorded on the 1901 census at “Cottages“. Burgh.. This is the household of his parents, John, (aged 45 and an Agricultural Labourer from Burgh, Aylsham) and Mary Ann, (aged 43 and from East Ruston). Their other children are:-
Charles……..aged 20.…..Agricultural Labourer……Born Burgh
Lily…………aged 7.……born Burgh
Sarah……….aged 11.…..born Burgh
GROVE TOWN CEMETERY, MEAULTE
In September 1916, the 34th and 2/2nd London Casualty Clearing Stations were established at this point, known to the troops as Grove Town, to deal with casualties from the Somme battlefields. They were moved in April 1917 and, except for a few burials in August and September 1918, the cemetery was closed. Grove Town Cemetery contains 1,395 First World War burials. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.
CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_details.aspx?cemetery=3200&a...
While the battle of the Somme had finally petered out in November. There were numerous small actions along the Ancre Heights during the winter of 1916-1917, plus the constant attrition of life in the front-line and illness.
Updated 10th March 2021 - see comment 1 below
**********************************************************
Robert Charles Quadling
Possibly
Name: QUADLING Initials: R C
Rank: Private
Regiment: Royal Fusiliers
Unit Text: 8th Bn.
Date of Death: 18/04/1917
Service No: 34581
Additional information: Husband of R. Quadling, of Lamas, Buxton, Norwich.
Grave/Memorial Reference: II. G. 15. Cemetery: DUISANS BRITISH CEMETERY, ETRUN
CWGC www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=40976
No match on Norlink
Military Genealogy has a Robert Charles Quadling born “Causton, Norfolk” and resident Gillingham when he enlisted. On the 1901 census there is an 11 year old Robert, (born Cawston), who is recorded at a dwelling, “Near the Rectory”, Salle near Aylsham. This is the household of his parent, Robert, (aged 47 and a Farm Bailiff from Seething, Norfolk) and his wife Matilda (aged 47 and from Berghapton). Their other children are:-
Frederick…………………….aged 16.……..Harness Maker…….born Seething
Matilda………………………aged 9.………born Cawston
Also in the household is Robert’s uncle, William Quadling, (aged 49 and a General Farm Labourer from Seething), and his mothers sister, Lily Smith, who is married, aged 26 and from Ashby, Norfolk.
The baptism of Robert Charles took place at St Agnes, Cawston on the 27th February 1893. His parents are listed as Robert and Matilda, with his fathers occupation listed as Labourer. The baptism was overseen by the Reverend Theodore H Marsh, Rector of this Parish.
DUISANS BRITISH CEMETERY, ETRUN
The area around Duisans was occupied by Commonwealth forces from March 1916, but it was not until February 1917 that the site of this cemetery was selected for the 8th Casualty Clearing Station. The first burials took place in March and from the beginning of April the cemetery grew very quickly, with burials being made from the 8th Casualty Clearing Station (until April 1918), the 19th (until March 1918), and the 41st (until July 1917). Most of the graves relate to the Battles of Arras in 1917, and the trench warfare that followed.
www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_details.aspx?cemetery=4300&a...
The 8th Battalion were part of the 12th (Eastern) Division, a Division which included the 7th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment. As the war progressed it was not uncommon for training drafts from one divisional regiment to be switched to make a sudden shortfall arising from combat. Also soldiers returning from convalescence could find themselves posted elsewhere in the Division for the same reason.
The division itself had recently been involved in the First Battle of the Scarpe. 9-14 Apr 1917, including the capture Monchy le Preux and the Wancourt Ridge.
warpath.orbat.com/divs/12_div.htm
Updated 10th March 2021 - see comment 2 below
**********************************************************
Robert Stackwood
Name: STACKWOOD, ROBERT
Rank: Private
Regiment: Norfolk Regiment
Unit Text: 9th Bn.
Age: 22
Date of Death: 05/05/1916
Service No: 14784
Additional information: Son of John and Jane Stackwood, of Burgh, Aylsham, Norwich. Born at Roughton, Norwich.
Grave/Memorial Reference: 25. 151. Cemetery: NORWICH CEMETERY, Norfolk
CWGC: www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2803329
No match on Norlink
The 7 year old Robert, (born Sustead, Norfolk), is recorded at 6, The Cottages and Shop (Burrs), Burgh. This is the household of his parents, John, (aged 39 and an Agricultural Labourer from Carbrooke, Norfolk) and Jane, (aged 39 and from Roughton). Their other children are:-
John Henry…………aged 8.……..born Roughton
William Lawrence….aged 14.……born Roughton….Agricultural Labourer
The death of Robert, aged 22, was recorded in the Norwich District in the April - June 1916 Quarter
Updated 10th March 2021 - see comment 3 below
**********************************************************
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
In this view of Sanders Plaxton bodied VDL SB120 type number 207 caught in pleasant afternoon sunshine we see it passing through Burgh-next-Aylsham whilst working the above journey on service 18A, with the War Memorial to the left as we look. As mentioned on a previous upload of Sanders 208 working the same run on 9th October 2013, the 18A is a one journey each way college day only variation of service 18 which deviates from the normal route between Felmingham and Aylsham to serve Tuttington as well as Burgh.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
In late afternoon September sunshine, with the shadows lengthening, Sanders Wright Pulsar bodied VDL SB200 type number 401 is captured on the outskirts of Burgh-next-Aylsham as it crosses over the River Bure by Burgh Bridge whilst working the above Aldborough bound journey on service 18A. The 18A is a one journey each way school/college day only variation of service 18 which deviates from the normal 18 route between Felmingham and Aylsham to serve the villages of Tuttington and Burgh instead of Banningham.
Couldn’t make up my mind which shot I liked best, so I have uploaded a couple.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
St Mary, Burgh-next-Aylsham, Norfolk
Burgh-next-Aylsham probably seems a busy little place if you approach it from east or west along the busy Aylsham to Wroxham road, but I have never done this. If you come down the narrow lane through the Tuttington woods out of high Norfolk, you get a quite different impression, crossing the main road being the only sign of civilisation before you get to the church. Better still, across the water meadows of the Bure from Brampton to the south - no traffic here, just footpaths and footbridges over the lazy river as it meanders pointlessly between the two villages. The view of St Mary across the river from the south is one of the finest of any church in East Anglia, and you should go and see it if you can.
The church is aisleless and clerestoryless, but you step into a great feeling of light and space, and turning to the east you find something thrilling, for here as Pevsner so eloquently puts it, is unexpectedly, the finest Early English chancel in East Anglia. It is as if part of Lincoln Cathedral were shrunk down and transported across to the Bure valley. The basic plan here can be dated fairly accurately to the first decade of the 13th century. I say plan, because you will not be surprised to learn that a lot of what you see here today is, in fact, Victorian. We know that no less a person than George Gilbert Scott came and saw it before the restoration, and that what he saw was a smaller version of what you see today.
The restoration itself was by Richard Phipson, Diocesan architect, responsible for the restoration of St Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the complete rebuilding of St Mary le Tower in Ipswich. Phipson was not the most exciting architect of the 19th century, having an eye for the letter rather than the spirit, but this served St Mary well. The east wall is his, as, indeed, is everything east of the second lancet. You can see this more clearly from outside. He also built the north chapel, probably intending it as an organ chamber. Pevsner says this was a rebuilding, but it looks wholly Victorian in form to me. There's also a fair amount of recutting and harmonising, but it is good work of its kind and is, above all else, still very beautiful. The brick floors count for a lot, the clearing of clutter and the way you step down in to the chancel - it is an inspiring sight, in a special place.
And it is for more than this that St Mary is a church of special interest, for back at the west end of the nave is one of Norfolk's twenty-two seven sacrament fonts. These fonts date from the 15th century, at a time when local landed families were trying to assert the official doctrine of the Catholic Church in the face of local superstitions and abuses. One way of doing this was to bequeath money in your will to pay for images in the Church of aspects of doctrine - the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments - in windows, and on walls, and on fonts.
On an octagonal font, of course, there are eight panels, so as well as the seven sacraments you get an eighth panel, which varies from place to place. Most commonly, it is the Baptism of Christ, although the Crucifixion is also popular. There are a few seven sacrament fonts in East Anglia with unique eighth panels - the martyrdom of St Andrew at Melton in Suffolk, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin at Great Witchingham in Norfolk. Interestingly, here at Burgh-next-Aylsham there is some disagreement about exactly what the eighth panel is. It shows a figure kneeling at an altar before an object, and this has been interpreted as the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. But the object looks to me to have human form, and I think it is actually the Mass of St Gregory, as represented on the rood screen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. A doubting Priest, celebrating Mass, has his doubts cast away when the host turns into the human form of Christ.
The font is not in terribly good condition. The injunctions against images in the later years of the reign of Henry VIII, and especially under his son, the boy king Edward VI, would have left the parish here with a problem. Wall paintings were easily whitewashed, statues and sculptures smashed and burned. Stained glass was usually allowed to remain, since its replacement was not cheap or practical. The Anglicans were more pragmatic than the Puritans of a century later. But what was to be done with a font? Many of the fonts were fairly new, seven sacrament fonts were less than a century old at the time of the Reformation. Anglicans may have thrown off Catholic teachings to do with Mary, Saints and the souls of the faithful departed, but they still believed in infant Baptism, and they still needed fonts for the purpose. In a few cases, for example Loddon, the font was completely excised of its images in the 1540s (not, as the guide book there suggests, a century later). But this seems a bit drastic, and the result is less than pleasing. Much better to use a hammer to knock the reliefs flush with the outer panelling (hence the loss of most of the heads) and then plaster the whole piece over. That, almost certainly, was what happened here at Burgh towards the middle years of the sixteenth century, as the new model Church of England was forged into being.
This font is more battered than most, principally, I suspect, because of the shallowness of the images, and more needed to be knocked flush. But enough survives to identify every sacrament. It has a slimness and elegance that puts me in mind of the one at Earsham, although the shaft is like that at nearby Sloley, with the four evangelistic symbols at the corner of the foot. It is set on a simple Maltese cross. The panels, clockwise from the east, are Mass (the Priest with his back to the viewer), the odd panel out (probably the Mass of St Gregory), Last Rites, Matrimony, Confession (taking place at a shriving pew), Baptism, Confirmation (involving an infant) and ordination.
The magic of the view to the east is worth more than the scholarly examination of the font, I think. And now to step out and across the Bure water meadows to Brampton on the other side, knowing that on a spring day there are few lovelier places in England.
In late afternoon September sunshine, with the shadows lengthening, Sanders Wright Pulsar bodied VDL SB200 type number 401 is captured on the outskirts of Burgh-next-Aylsham as it crosses over the River Bure by Burgh Bridge whilst working the above Aldborough bound journey on service 18A. The 18A is a one journey each way school/college day only variation of service 18 which deviates from the normal 18 route between Aylsham and Felmingham to serve the villages of Tuttington and Burgh instead of Banningham.
Couldn’t make up my mind which shot I liked best, so I have uploaded a couple.
Further to my previous upload of vehicle 123, in this shot, Sanders former Parks of Hamilton Plaxton bodied Volvo B9R type number 912 - PVF 377 is also captured at the Brampton White Cross crossroads between Burgh-next-Aylsham and Skeyton as it works the above Swanton Abbott bound journey on Aylsham High School contract service 82. Unlike schoolday only service 88, which continues straight ahead, the 82 route makes a right turn here onto Oxnead Lane before continuing by way of Brampton - see below, Buxton, Lammas, Badersfield and Skeyton.
Currently two vehicles are required to operate service 82 and it seems some of the picking up/setdown points are divided between them. As a result, although both vehicles appear to pass this way with the morning school bound journeys, in the afternoon one of them runs directly from AHS to Buxton via the former B1354 thus omitting Burgh-next-Aylsham and Brampton.
Reregistered from Parks cherished plate 15 RWM to SO12 VOD immediately prior to sale, upon acquisition by Sanders in March 2015 this coach received their cherished plate PVF 377 which was previously carried by fleet member 1002. The latter, a Plaxton bodied Dennis Javelin type, reverting to registration P44 TCC at the same date.
It is almost two years since 912 last appeared before my camera at Gresham back on 29th June 2022.
....should not be larger than 7'0" x 2'6" unless the size of the deceased requires it - e.g. you're the Norfolk giant Robert Hales.
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
TSE