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St Mary, Flixton, Suffolk
As the Waveney twists eastwards, the rolling, tree-shrouded bluffs on either side hide narrow lanes and secrets. St Mary sits above its village, but there are no views of it until you actually enter the graveyard. If it could be seen from a distance, it would be much better known, because the tower of this important 19th century church is quite like any other in East Anglia. The architect was Anthony Salvin, a flamboyant character, who seems to have based the design of the tower here on the Saxon helm tower of the church at Sompting in Sussex. Salvin was working here in the 1850s, and earlier in the decade there had been a major restoration at Sompting, which had featured heavily in the architectural press. Perhaps it could be said that Sompting was in the contemporary zeitgeist.
This Flixton is not to be confused with its namesake some fifteen miles east on the outskirts of Lowestoft. The current St Mary, and, presumably, the original, were bankrolled by two great landed families, who owned the Flixton estate and lived at Flixton Hall. They were the Tasburghs, and then the Adairs. It was the Adair family, Lord and Lady Waveney, who rebuilt St Mary. The original tower had fallen in the 1830s, and a sketch of 1818 shows it to have been a fairly conventional affair. Many churches rebuilt in the 1860s were done in an Early English style, but Salvin's tower seems to have been intended to complement a Norman survival. Or perhaps it was a preference of the Adairs?
Be that as it may, over the next twenty years the whole church was entirely rebuilt, the nave in a familiar East Anglian Perpendicular, and the chancel in a rather more exotic Norman. There are crisp, clean lines to the whole piece, offset nicely by the cushion of green of the tight little graveyard. Walking around to the north side, there is a curious little octagonal extension at the west end of the north aisle. The startlingly pointed south porch leads into the inner door, and then down into the nave. As you would expect with those great Perpendicular windows, you step into a building only a little less light than outside, but you look east to a chancel shrouded in Norman darkness. There is a stillness, a crispness, as if Salvin and his workers had only just packed up and headed off back to London.
Within the parish are the dramatic ruins of Flixton Priory, at the top of the hill from the church. After the Reformation, it fell into the hands of the Tasburgh family, formerly of St Peter's Hall in the nearby South Elmhams. However, it is unlikely that they saw the inside of St Mary very often, for they were recusants, remaining Catholics during the Elizabethan and Stuart penal years. They are said to have retained a small community of Benedictine monks. Charles II, visiting Flixton Hall, which they built in the ruins of the priory, is reported to have said that "these popish dogs have a beautiful kennel". When the Tasburghs died out, the hall was bought by the Adairs. The Adairs lived here until the 1940s, when the estate was split up, and Flixton Hall sold. In 1950, it was demolished. The last of the Adair line died as recently as 1988.
When the church was rebuilt, the driving force seems to have been Theodosia Adair, Lady Waveney, and the octagonal, vaulted structure at the west end of the north aisle is her memorial chapel, clear glass in the gothic windows illuminating her life-size statue, the work of John Bell. As Mortlock recalls, he is most famous for the work Babes in the Wood, the centrepiece of the main 19th century gallery at Norwich Castle Museum.
A pleasant backwater, but the wider world has been touched by this place. The helpful leaflet in the church remembers a connection which is often forgotten, between the Waveney Valley and the troubled recent history of the United Kingdom. Flixton vicarage, built by the Adairs in the 1870s, was found to be surplus to requirements, and so it was given to the Flixton Estate manager to live in. In the last decade of the 19th century, this was one Captain Charles Boycott, who, having disastrously failed to fulfil the same role in on an estate in Ireland, had given his name as a new word to the English language.
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late 15c font, much defaced which was thrown out lf the church by the puritans in the Civil War.
Round the bowl: - Transfiguration with saints Peter, James & John
It has been suggested that the Tudor rose and Corpus Christi emblems point to a donor such as Richard Fox of Ropsley nearby who was Keeper of the Privy Seal to Henry Vll, Henry Vlll & the Bishop of Winchester, who co-founded the king's school opposite the church in 1528. - Church of St Wulfram, Grantham, Lincolnshire
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probably a gift from Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester
from 1129 to 1171 ; this face depicts the legend of St. Nick in which he provides a dowry for the 3 daughters of an impoverished nobleman ; St. Nick stands in front of a church
St Margaret, Westhorpe, Suffolk
Dear, dirty, rough and ready Westhorpe. This church is one of my favourite places in England. It isn't Suffolk's finest church, but it has the great character of a much-loved old friend. It is idiosyncratic, scruffy and wise. It is not ashamed of its age, and doesn't try to hide the ways it has changed over time. I like people like this, and I like this church.
I'm always a bit worried about coming back here, in case some enthusiastic person has moved into the parish, rolled up their sleeves and cleared out all the clutter, possibly carpeting the floor and installing an overhead projector screen as well. Coming back after some five years away I opened the creaking 15th Century door with some trepidation, but I needn't have worried.
Westhorpe church is open every day, but you used to have to collect the the key from a lovely lady across the road who would always apologise for the state of the church. The reason for her apology was that St Margaret is home to a large colony of bats. A notice in the little porch also apologised for the state of the church. We can only clean the church once a week, it said. And as you know, when you have bats, you know you've got them.
Perhaps it was just the time of the year I was visiting, but the bats no longer made such an impression on me as I stepped down onto what must be Suffolk's most uneven brick floor - hardly any smell of urine, no crunch of bat poo underfoot. In a thoroughly Victorianised church, with tiled floors, pitch-pine pews and recut stonework, bats are a bit revolting. But here on previous visits I had thought that the whiff of bat urine was an essential part of the atmosphere. I imagined that Westhorpe church would be diminished without its bats. But the church was still full of its familiar character, the smell of the past, the greening of the font, moss showing here and there between the cracks, all in all a sense of the ancient. The west of the church has been cleared of benches, giving a sense of drama to the high font on its pedestal.
Part of the charm and fascination of St Margaret is that it has the slight air of a theological junk shop. Every century from the 13th to the 20th has contributed a curiosity. Firstly, there's the glorious painted parclose screen to the east end of the south aisle. It may have enclosed the Elmham chantry. The altar here is always dressed for use, and on winter visits I had seen the damp collected in puddles on the uneven brick floor. It is charming. Edwardian rood screen panels flank the altar, and there are others elsewhere in the church.
Nathaniel and Jane Fox are commemorated on a pillar of the north arcade. They died in the late 17th century, and their memorials are a good amateurish mixture of cherubs, skulls and schmaltzy verse: heavens voyage doth not over hard appear, she tooke it in her early virgin year. At the east end of the south aisle, a board reminds you that this church was the Sunday local of Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII and grandmother of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey. She had actually been married to the King of France, her ruthless brother sealing a shaky and ultimately fruitless pact with France by so doing. He married his other sister off to the King of Scotland. Her second husband was Charles Brandon, and they lived in the Hall here. Mary died in 1533. She's buried at Bury.
Surprising as this is, a further jolt comes from the imposing memorial to Maurice Barrow, who seems to have had lots of money in the 1660s. Unfortunately, he died before he could spend it, as so many of us will do. So this great tomb was constructed by the Shelton brothers, Maurice and Henry (Henry finishing it when, as the inscription observes, Maurice was suddenly snatched out of this world). Barrow reclines in great splendour beneath big fat grieving cherubs, behind contemporary spiked iron gates. Perhaps he thought someone might otherwise disturb his rest.
Up in the chancel there are more quirky fascinations. A high mounted memorial on the north wall is to an earlier Barrow, William. One might imagine for a moment that he is sitting with two concubines at the breakfast table, the servants looking on. But he's actually reading prayers with a Laudian air, facing across to his two wives Elizabeth and Frances (not at the same time, of course). They wear amusing hats, with sticky-outy bits, as if participating in a party game that has long-since been lost to us. Their children watch. But it is a curious little piece.
The big six candlesticks sit on the altar. Westhorpe was very much in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, and there are ancient notices in the south aisle explaining the sacraments and the significance of lighting candles. Quite how much this enthusiasm is still reflected in the liturgy here, I couldn't say. When the candles are alight, they must reflect brilliantly in Richard Elcock's wall-mounted brass memorial of 1630.
Elsewhere in the church, there are delightful little details, painted walls, shields and coffin lids, forgotten decalogue boards stacked up, two sets of Royal Arms, one a Stuart set leaning against the wall in the north aisle chapel and the other apparently for George II, although it is probably another overpainted Stuart set. There is a lonely 17th century box pew in the north aisle that may have come from here, but seems quite out of character with the rest of it. Barmy Arthur Mee was convinced that it had been Mary Tudor's family pew. All in all, exploring this church is a bit like being inside someone else's head.
I have a vivid memory of my first visit here, early in the spring of one of the last years of the old century. The tiny graveyard was full of birdsong and cowslips. Recently, the cowslip had been declared Suffolk's official flower, and the ground around seemed to validate this. That Spring day, I had seen them lovely and fair all across mid-Suffolk, but nowhere as lovely and fair as this, bats and all.
El servicio interno de la UAB, ha vuelto a ser reestructurado.
Ahora, pasan de 3 líneas, a 2 líneas circunvalarías con origen y final en la estación de Rodalies de Cerdanyola-Universitat.
También, se crea una variante de la L1 cuyo nombre es LV. Funcionando solo de 19:00 a 22:00.
St Mary's church in Huntingfield is one of those you simply have to see if you're in the area, and I'd frustratingly been only a village away on a previous expedition a year before (then looking at a church which disappointed me) without realising how close I was to something far better, so this time I knew I couldn't miss it again!
The reason why it shouldn't be missed becomes apparent once you're inside, otherwise the exterior doesn't prepare you, looking like a fairly ordinary 15th century church with some nice flushwork on the porch. The west tower is quite plain aside from a few accents of flushwork, however it did make a refreshing change to see a nave attached to it with aisles on both sides after the last few churches I'd just seen.
Inside everything looks bright and cheerful, the pleasing whiteness of the walls dispels any gloom and the north arcade of the nave with its square piers and round arches is a remnant of the Norman building. And then you look upwards and a riot of colour awaits! The entire roof of the nave and chancel ceiling beyond are a delicious display of colourful patterns, angels and saints, all painted over a seven year period by the vicar's wife, Mildred Holland in 1859-66. This really was a labour of love and the legacy she has left is astonishing, rendering what would have been a fairly ordinary space a sight you won't soon forget. She was apparently unaided in her work beyond help with erecting scaffolds, so this dazzling display is all her vision and countless hours of patient attention to every detail . The nave is mostly adorned with patterns and a few small figures of apostles, whereas the chancel has the most memorable design with its central panels of kneeling angels against a rich blue ground. The roof-beams feature angels carved in the same period (replacing lost originals?) and are similarly coloured and adorned. It was all done for pleasure, and pleasure it continues to give.
There are a few other features of note, a fine late medieval font at the west end is crowned by a tapering late 19th century cover, itself a memorial to the artist who enlivened the church's ceiling (though one might argue the ceiling performs this task better; reader, if you seek a monument look above you!). There are some nice Victorian carvings on the bench ends and a few pieces of ancient glass (that I managed to overlook completely) in the south chapel. A few monuments to the local landowners can be seen in the chancel, including a plain tomb which fills the former Easter Sepulchre recess, still showing some vestiges of its ancient mural painting.
Huntingfield church needs to be seen to be believed, it was a delight even on this dull afternoon, the low light subdued its colours somewhat but it still impressed, so I can only imagine how joyous it would look on a sunny day. I shall have to return in brighter conditions. It is happily normally open and welcoming and deserves to be visited and enjoyed.
For more see its entry on the Suffolk Churches site below:-
ans Martin | parcelles
Nans Martin | Cie les laboratoires animés
Vendredi 19 février à 18 h
Nans Martin
parcelles 1 h
CDC - Les Hivernales
Création - Première en Région
Nans Martin fait partie de ces jeunes chorégraphes qui prennent leur place dans le paysage chorégraphique français. A 30 ans à peine, son parcours laisse songeur : l’Opéra de Paris à 11 ans, diplômé du Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, interprète pour William Forsythe notamment puis des expériences en Egypte et en Inde qui font naître en lui l’envie de créer. En 2012, il établit à Grasse la compagnie les laboratoires animés avec la volonté de faire du corps le nouveau territoire in situ de son écriture. L’influence de ce qui nous entoure sur notre mouvement, de la relation entre les hommes et de son impact sur les corps est au coeur de sa recherche. Pour parcelles, Nans Martin a imaginé trois duos distincts dans lesquels les corps se confrontent à leurs propres contraintes mettant à nu leur singularité. Mais le jeu des duos révèle aussi un langage chorégraphique qui naît de la présence de l’autre et des frontières à respecter ou à franchir : le plateau devient le lieu d’un huis clos perméable au monde.
Nans Martin est ne´ a` Grasse en 1984. Il commence a` danser tre`s jeune et sait rapidement qu’il veut en faire son me´tier. En 2005 il sort diplo^me´ du Conservatoire National Supe´rieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris en danse classique et en danse contemporaine. Apre`s une formation pre´-professionnelle (DANCE) dirige´e par William Forsythe, Angelin Preljocaj, Fre´de´ric Flamand et Wayne Mac Gregor, il participe avec The Forsythe Company a` la performance Human Writes en 2006 a` Dresde. A` 22 ans, Nans Martin s’installe au Caire pour travailler a` l’Opera House comme assistant chore´graphe et enseigne e´galement a` l’Egyptian Modern Dance Company ainsi qu’a` la Modern Dance School. En 2008, il part en Inde transmettre son expe´rience en tant que professeur de danse contemporaine et de composition chore´graphique aux danseurs de l’Attakkalari Dance Centre for Movements Arts de Bangalore. Tout cela fait nai^tre en lui l’envie de cre´er, afin d’exprimer par l’art ce qui le touche, ce qu’il parcourt, et enfin pouvoir le partager. Apre`s 3 ans de collaboration avec la danseuse Mathilde Rondet avec laquelle il se spe´cialise en cre´ation chore´graphique en milieu naturel et la cre´ation d’une Plateforme Artistique de Recherche Chore´graphique qui donnera lieu a` une pie`ce collective en 2012 (Echoes) il cre´e sa propre compagnie les laboratoires anime´s. En janvier 2014, co-produit par le The´a^tre de Grasse, il signe seul sa premie`re pie`ce, muo^. Il obtient le Prix Incandescences Beaumarchais- SACD pour cette cre´ation programme´e au Festival Les Incandescences. Suivra le projet parcelles en 2015 co-produit par Micadanses pour le Festival Faits d’Hiver.
Depuis le mois de septembre, Nans Martin et toute son e´quipe travaillent a` la cre´ation de
D’oeil et d’oubli dont la première aura au CDC - Les Hivernales en 2017.
A premiere opens in Provence
Nans Martin is one of the young choreographers who have made a name for themselves on the French dance scene. Just reaching 30, his career is already a dream: the Paris Opera at the age of 11, graduate of the National Conservatory for Music and Dance in Paris, performer for William Forsythe, and experiences in Egypt and India that have left him with a drive to create. In 2012, he set up Les laboratoires animés, with the firm intention of making the body the new territory where his writing would take root. The core of his research examines how our surroundings affect our movements and relationships between people, as well as their impact on the body. For parcelles, Nans Martin imagined three distinct duos where bodies are confronted with their own constraints, revealing their singularity. As these duos play out, they also reveal a choreographic language born from the presence of the Other, and borders that may or may not be crossed: the stage becomes a meeting place behind closed doors that is nonetheless permeable to the world.
Choreography created and written by Nans Martin Collaboration and performance by Guillaume Barre, Nans Martin, Martin Barré, Tatanka Gombaud, Claire Malchrowicz, Joan Vercoutere Live music by Sylvain Ollivier
Traduction Deborah Wirick
La glacière de Font-d'Urle est entièrement givrée du fait du manque de neige ce qui n’empêche pas de faire de belles photos.
Tout de même attention à la glissade! (j'en ai moi même fais l’expérience.)
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Eu amei essa blend. Ficou bem simples, limpinha, mas legal. A Hayley é muito legal de blendar. u_u E como eu não achei um shoot completo dela, tive que pegar esse de uma performance, que no caso, eu não sei qual é -qq e blendei! Bom, espero que gostem. :D
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Els veiem aparcats a aquesta población el 28 Abril 2013
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St Mary, Wimbotsham, Norfolk
An interesting church in a lovely village just to the north of Downham Market. It is open every day. Substantially rebuilt in the 19th Century, it retains a grand Norman north doorway.
Inside, the bench ends in the late medieval style are the work of the great James Rattee.
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The fonts on either side of the entrance to the mid-16th century Church of Santiago in Coporaque, Peru, are beautiful and enigmatic.
Beauty is a matter of opinion, so I'll not pursue that any further.
But their simple style makes them enigmatic, to me at least.
They're all about geometric volumes and the most basic repetitive designs.
Now, the fonts I've seen in South America are quite simple, which suggests the aesthetic that required religious images to be dazzlingly ornate did not carry over to fonts.
This one is especially simple and, yes, "primitive." It's the sort of piece I can see having pride of place in a secluded Santa Fe, NM, residence in Architectural Digest.
I am confident in saying the base did not come directly from a pre-Columbian structure, because as far as I know they did not use columns.
On the other hand, the Spaniards did re-use pre-Columbian stone in churches. Perhaps that's the origin of the bowl.
Later, I will post a photo that I believe shows a cross was cut into the bowl by flattening one of its sides while leaving a flat cross-shaped section in low relief.
Had a bowl been created from new material, a relief cross could easily have followed the contours of the bowl.
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The remarkable Seven Sacrament font, one of the very finest surviving examples among a group found only in East Anglia (my itinerary took in three more of the best in Suffolk later that same day). The carved reliefs have been savagely defaced alas, and yet still much detail and original polychrome remains.
St Andrew's church at Westhall wasn't one I was familiar with on my previous visit to the area, if I had realised what I was missing on that occasion I may have changed my itinerary to include it. Subsequently learning of it along with the recommendations of those who know it convinced me that my next trip to Suffolk had to somehow include it, thus my plans for this excursion were largely built around making sure I didn't miss it again.
One can see why this church isn't as well known as it should be, it isn't the easiest one to find and stands some distance from the small village of Westhall itself, hidden away down a leafy lane. It is still somewhat elusive once one has even entered the churchyard, being beset by so much foliate cover that I could only get a full view of the building from the north side. It already promises good things, a fairly large 14th century building of chancel, nave and south aisle with the tower at the west end of this beside a fine Norman doorway. The tower was actually built in front of the original Norman facade and its main doorway which is still preserved within, thus one shouldn't neglect the small room at the west end of the south aisle when exploring inside.
One enters however via the north porch and finds within a spacious interior with that delightful sense of antiquity that churches spared by over-zealous Victorians posses. Above is a fine old roof which springs from carved angels, still with their original colour though alas iconoclasts have sadly deprived us of their wings and heads (why is it iconoclastic zealots so embrace beheading?!). Ahead the east window retains some non-figurative 14th century glass in its reticulated traceries, while on both sides of the church significant sections of medieval wall-painting survive.
The best features here however are the medieval fittings that remain, most notably the Seven Sacrament font, one of the very best survivors; sadly it too has suffered from a frenzy of iconoclasm, though it may be the case here that the projecting details of the figures were hacked away to allow them to be more easily plastered over, which might also account for how well preserved the original colouring is (extremely rare on any font) and the remarkable small figure reliefs applied in gesso inbetween each panel (possibly a unique survival). The base of the rood screen also survives with its painted iconography, which includes yet another rarity in the depiction of Christ's transfiguration amongst the figures of saints.
Westhall church is a real treat and certainly deserves to be better known, a place of much charm and great interest that was happily normally open and welcoming to visitors in pre-Covid days. For more on the church see Simon's entry on his Suffolk Churches site below (it is mainly thanks to his recommendation that I came here, and much appreciated it was too).
St Botolph, Iken, Suffolk
Iken is one of those fabulous spots that some people think of as their favourite Suffolk place. Others come across it by accident, as if it were a happy secret. And there must be many people, I suppose, who do not even know that it exists. The little thatched church on its mound jutting out into the wide River Alde is part of the panoply of Suffolk mysticism, an element in an ancient story of the birth of England, of grey mists and sad, crying wading birds swinging low over the mudflats, as if this were a piece of Benjamin Britten's chamber music made flesh.
You may have seen this church without ever visiting it. Its tower is the one you can see in the distance across the marshes from Snape Maltings beyond Barabara Hepworth's Family of Man, and there is another sight of it on the main road to Aldeburgh. But these two civilisations are far away, and the isolated church and the dubious delights of shopping in the craft shops of the Maltings seem to have nothing in common.
I hope I can begin to convey an impression of what this place is like. Iken, pronounced eye-k'n, is one of Suffolk's most extraordinary places, and anyone who has ever been here will not easily forget it. Here, the River Alde snakes through mudflats and around islands. The reed beds shiver and flow in the silence, and the avocet and curlew cry out in their isolation. As the seasons turn, and even as the day passes, it can seem different. Light plays exquisitely on the silver water, or the wind comes from far away, and on a cold winter's afternoon there are few places I'd rather be.
But I had not been back to Iken for years. And then it was a bright, frosty day in January 2020, and it was generally agreed by all that I needed some fresh air. So we drove up to Snape Maltings, parked, and wandered up through the marshes alongside the sleepy River Alde to Iken. It was bitterly cold, and the footpath once you left the boardwalk was a sea of slippery mud. But there were quite a few people about and we greeted each other cheerfully, and eventually the path emerged in the lane just before the turn off to Iken church.
I was walking with my son James, and it brought back a memory of almost twenty years before. On a gorgeous day in November 2000 we had set off from Snape in the same way with my friend Malcolm, Jimmy's godfather. We took the same path through the marshes, following the river eastwards. Jimmy, then seven, was soon in a world of his own, playing games in his head with the wilderness of reed beds and thickets. After about half a mile, the pathway enters the marshes, and is carried through the mudflats by a mile or more of duckboards, the reeds and creeks encroaching on both sides. I suggested to Jim that it might not be such a good idea if he was to step off the boards, as this would lead to sudden death - or, at least, very muddy trousers.
Taking the way of least resistance, the pathway veers from side to side, so that every time I looked up the tower of St Botolph was in a new position. We reached the edge of the winding river again, and you could see at once how the church and its two neighbouring houses are on the end of a spit that sticks out into the marsh, St Botolph itself on a little knoll at the end. A narrow road runs along the spit, the only way to the church, unless you have a boat; and even then, you could only reach it at high tide, for at other times the river drains to a silver thread, leaving a vast shimmering expanse of grey mud to be picked over by wading birds. As the river fills again, you are sometimes rewarded with the sight of a marsh harrier, looming over small creatures forced higher and drier by the rising water.
There is also the other designated footpath from Snape to Iken, as I said earlier. It cuts straight across the marshes, island hopping across the muddy creeks. You could only do it at low tide, and I think that in winter you could not do it at all. When we reached the point where it was supposed to join the path we were on, there were 20 metres or so of shiny, lethal mud spreading where it was marked on the map. We gazed at it. I imagined trying to cross it, and thought to myself that I would get about three, perhaps four metres. I simply wouldn't stand a chance. My children would come at low tides, to see the bony, skeletal hand protruding from the flat mud. "Look!" their mother would say. "There's Daddy!" I could tell that Malcolm was slightly disconcerted to see a footpath marked on a map disappear into grey nothingness. But then, he's from Derbyshire, he's used to the permanence of stone, not coastlines that melt with the seasons.
From here, the full drama of St Botolph catches your breath. It is an ancient site. Well, that's easy to say, of course, and true of many churches. But the site of St Botolph really is ancient; you are looking at a place where there has been a church for almost 1350 years. This is almost certainly the spot where St Botolph came ashore in AD 654, and founded his monastery. Some people will claim the same honour for Boston in Lincolnshire, but don't listen to them. This place was then Icanho, and St Botolph and his monks set out across east Suffolk to evangelise the pagans under the direction of Felix, first Bishop of East Anglia, from his Cathedral at Dumnoc, probably Walton Castle. Botolph died at or near Burgh, where he was buried, probably in an attempt to exorcise evil spirits. There is a case made for Burgh being the setting for the dragon's lair in the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, probably written in Suffolk. The corpse was later translated to Bury, where the monks knew a pilgrimage opportunity when they saw one.
The church as we see it today is in three parts. The most ancient bit is the nave, albeit restored. It dates from before 1200. The chancel, like all others in England, fell into disuse after the reformation. By the 18th century it was ruinous, and was demolished and rebuilt in 1853, and looks all of this date. The tower is a proud one of the mid-15th century, very much in the Suffolk style.
The church sits in its pretty churchyard across a private road. This caused a considerable problem a few years ago, as we shall see. The funny thing is that, although this churchyard is surrounded on three sides by the marshes, and the river spools around it like a cord of mercury, the Alde still has six miles to go to reach the open sea from here. A mile to the east, it reaches Aldeburgh. At St Botolph's time this was the river mouth, but now the river turns back inland, and heads south. As if this wasn't contrary enough, it changes its name to the Ore.
After running parallel to the coast for three miles, it reaches Orford, where it formed a natural harbour in medieval times. But that, too, is now blocked, and the river slinks westward of Havergate Island for another two miles, coming out to sea at Shingle Street, just north of the Deben estuary. This is a secret world, full of hidden creeks and inlets. About twice a year, the local papers report that coastguards have caught boats on this river attempting to avoid duty by running tobacco or alcohol ashore. The field immediately to the north of the churchyard contained two Highland cattle, surprisingly. Well, it certainly surprised me. It surprised seven year old Jimmy even more, he thought they were yaks. The sky had changed, a grey leaden colour seemed to have condensed out of the icy blue. We stepped inside.
Low benches lined the north and south walls (today, these have been replaced by ranks of angled 19th Century benches, too mundane to be appropriate). To the west is the great font, one of the best in the East Anglian style. The angels that alternate with the evangelistic symbols carry the instruments of the Passion. Beside it, another large object is hardly discernible in the darkness. The walls to north and south are blackened, calcified. The plaster has almost all gone, and we are left with the rubble core, common to all Suffolk churches, but normally hidden. What happened here?
On the afternoon of the 4th April, 1968, a gardener clearing the churchyard lit a bonfire to burn rubbish. Sparks from it caught the thatched roof of the nave, and within minutes the whole place was alight. In this remote spot there was no prospect of a speedy rescue, and the church completely burned out, leaving a shell. It took twenty years for repairs to be completed to the extent you find them today, because a dispute over access meant that materials had to be carried by hand from the road, for vehicles were not allowed through into the churchyard. First, the chancel was restored for use as the parish church. A rather ill-fitting partition separated it from the ruins. Later, a roof was put on the nave, and the font (which had been removed to protect it from the elements) was returned. But the interior of the nave could not be protected, and for a decade or more it was exposed to the Suffolk winters. And that is how you find it today.
On my first visit, I noticed that the person before me in the visitors' book had written a true taste of the medieval! Poetic, but nonsense of course. In the Middle Ages, this church would have been alive with light and colour, of the flicker of candles and the smell of incense. The walls would have been covered with brightly coloured paintings, the bare shadow of one still surviving behind a glass screen on the south wall today. No, what we see today is more primal, ageless. The architect of the restoration was Derek Woodley, also responsible for the magnificent extension at Kesgrave All Saints.
On the south wall is the war memorial. It is stunning to realise that this tiny hamlet lost ten men in the First World War. There can barely be that many men living in the whole parish today. With your back to the nave, the chancel is of a homely, dull character. Johnson's engraving of 1818 shows it in ruins. There is a picture of this in the excellent guidebook and surreally another picture shows the church after the fire, exactly the opposite of Johnson's engraving, with the chancel whole, but the nave in ruins. Only the tower stands in both, and that was restored as part of the post-fire work. And that's where we come to the most interesting thing of all about Iken, for the large object by the font is nothing other than part of a Saxon cross, discovered in the superstructure of the tower when it was restored. It is the bottom 1.5 metres of a cross that must have been about 3 metres high, and the tenon that connected it to the crossbar survives. It probably dates from the 9th Century, and may have been raised on the site as a commemoration after the Vikings had destroyed the original monastery. The most interesting side faces the wall, unfortunately, for a curled dragon bites his own tail, but keeps his beady eye on you.
Today, the tiny congregation regularly use the chancel for services, but the nave has become a haven for pilgrims, who make their ecumenical way here in droves if the visitors book is anything to go by. And I'm sorry to harp on about the visitor's book, but another mistake made by people leaving comments is to describe the cross as Celtic. This is, I think, a result of the way we have been conditioned in the modern era to think of the Celts as 'New Age' artists and mystics, and the Saxons as dull, plodding farmers. This is, of course, also nonsense, as a sight of the Sutton Hoo treasure in the British Museum will show immediately. Saxon art was gorgeous. It was intimate and intricate, mysterious and beautiful. All too soon, the Normans would come along with their big ideas and corporate imagery, but it was the Saxons who built the English imagination, and anyone who tells you that the work here at Iken is Celtic should be immediately disavowed of that notion.
We wandered back outside to the east of the church, and the memorial to the writer Julian Tennyson Who fought and died for a new world and love. Tennyson's most famous book is Suffolk Scene, a stunning 1939 evocation of the county on the eve of the outbreak of War. He was just 23 years old when he wrote it, and it is a young man's book about an ancient county. It is probably one of the best books written about Suffolk in the 20th Century. Sadly, Tennyson did not survive the war whose storm clouds he had noticed, being killed in Burma shortly before it ended. An extraordinary man, he was a grandson of the famous 19th century poet, although that is one of the less interesting things about him. I had been pleased to come across it newly set some fifteen years ago, and once again it set me thinking about what Tennyson would find different about Suffolk if he saw it today, and what he would find unchanged. When he left to fight he left a request that if he should die a memorial should be erected in Iken churchyard. This request was not fulfilled at the time, but it was carried out by his daughter at the start of the current century when she found reference to it in her father's papers after her mother died. And Iken is a beautifully appropriate place for him to be remembered, for to return here is to return to where the story of Suffolk Christianity began. Across the shifting, shimmering mudflats, the failing light enfolds a beating heart, a pilgrim church where St Botolph's journey has come full circle.
Esta foto la hice en una improvisada salida con Pablo, era para él una despedida ya que se iba de Erasmus, y no iba a ver sus montañas en unos meses.
Íbamos más a fotografiar que de ruta, no obstante, llegamos a subir hasta el “Plà dels galers” y allí contemplamos uno de los fenómenos más curiosos que he visto y me hacia ilusión. El ver cómo una gran nube iba subiendo a paso ligero por la montaña, y ver cómo la sobrepasaba. En un principio el viento dirigía la nube hacia nosotros, pero finalmente pasó justo por el lado. Tengo un video hecho, que si algún día puedo hago un TimeLapse.
Fue en el Plà dels Galers dónde hice el vídeo del post anterior, llamado “Perduts”.
All Saints, Longstanton, Cambridgeshire
From Willingham I cycled back across the Cambridge Guided Busway into Longstanton, which will in time become the largest of the fen edge villages - the planned 'new village' of Northstowe on the old airbase will have 10,000 houses and facilities for 30,000 people, the largest new settlement built in England since Milton Keynes, and a new dormitory town for Cambridge. Perhaps, then, it was a little lack of foresight which meant that one of the two parish churches in the village was declared redundant in the 1970s. St Michael sulks broodily half a mile to the east, but first I explored the working one, All Saints.
The tower and spire of flint rubble and dressed stone are straight out of the same mould as Landbeach and Chesterton, and the church makes a nice 14th Century trio with neighbouring Over and Willingham. But there is something quieter and more reflective about the architecture here, and this may be because, although the language is still that of the early 14th Century, the church appears to have been reconstructed after the village was burnt in 1349 at the time of the Black Death. The church that heads eastwards of the tower starts conventionally, but then blossoms out into a large, wide, south transept, which houses the Hatton mausoleum. Sir Thomas and Lady Mary Hatton lie inside on a vast double bed, as naked an act of arrogance and privilege that the mid-17th Century can provide.
Hatton, who was MP for Stamford and official surveyor for Queen Henrietta Maria, the consort of Charles I, bought the Hatton estates in 1633, 25 years before his death. An uncontroversial figure, the Parliament On-Line site notes drily that There is little sign that he supported either side during the Civil War, although the parliamentarians accused him of refusing to take the Covenant and only paying taxes under compulsion.
His wife Mary, however, appears to have thought him the very summa cum laude of his age. Her elegiac Latin inscription for him records that Nature rendered him illustrious, and through him the University learned, the Court elegant, the Law just, the Church blessed. A Jacobean knight, a Caroline baronet, he was companion and servant to both kings.
Their characterful children flank their monument, three boys to the north, three girls to the south. Beyond them in the transept is a sepulchrum, the coffins of their descendants walled up in pods each with a memorial inscription on the end, the most recent dating from the mid-19th Century.
There is a beautiful window of about 1920 of Faith, Hope and Charity by Louis Davis in the east end of the north aisle. It depicts the virtues as young girls in his usual semi-erotic style, which may explain why someone has partly blocked it with large vases of dried flowers, a sign of how much more puritanical we have become in the last ninety-odd years. In fact, Davis later lived as man and wife with his muse Edith Webster, who was about 15 years old when he sketched her for these and other windows.
To the west of it is a good late 20th Century window depicting airmen and aircraft from 7 Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps and then Royal Air Force, which was based at the nearby Oakington airfield in both World Wars. One panel shows the hangers and standing planes of the airfield, another a plane coming into land above the village of Longstanton, the spire of the church prominent.
Otherwise this is a church full of light thanks to a goodly quantity of clear glass, and if it is not as grand as its near neighbours, this is a likeable church nonetheless.