HOLYTRINITY photos on Flickr

Holy Trinity, Queenborough, Kent by Jelltex

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The only place in Kent that begins with the letter Q that has a church.

Just so you know.

I have John Vigar to blame for me crossing over onto the island, I never usually crib on a church before I go, but I did wonder if Holy Trinity was worth a visit.

Turns out it very much was, and as I was just the other side of The Swale, a short drive to get here.

Queenborough is an industrial, busy, tightly packed place, like a borough of London uprooted into the Kent marshes.

It seems so unlikely to have a fine church, but then the town is ancient, and the links with the sea, long.

I followed the sat nav past the old castle mound, and to the church, on a main road in residential housing.

First look was unpromising, with what looked like a garden shed bolted on the north side: turns out this is the vestry, and in a poor state. But the churchyard was packed full of interesting and grand monuments.

Don't know why I'm trying to get in, I told myself as I walked to the porch, bound to be locked.

But the porch door is unlocked, and although the church is empty, I can hear people in the vestry to the north, I try to make as much noise as possible so not to surprise them.

My eye goes straight to the font of 1610, and then the painted ceiling, the details of which are partially hidden under nearly a century-old covering of soot, but still stunning.

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The town of Queenborough grew to serve the long-vanished castle which had been founded in the fourteenth century by Edward III. The church - which should not be missed - dates from 1366 and consists of nave, chancel, west tower and south porch. Its churchyard is entirely crowded with headstones to those associated with the Royal Dockyard at Sheerness. Inside the church are two main items of interest. The most striking is the nave roof which is ceiled and painted with looming clouds. This work dates from the seventeenth century, as does the other item of note: the font. This is dated 1610 and includes a finely carved picture of Queenborough Castle, with four corner turrets and two cannon halfway up the walls. The fine Royal Arms are of Queen Anne's reign - the lion has the head of Charles I - and show the loyalty of the people of Queenborough to the monarch who had granted them their town charter.

www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Queenborough

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QUEENBOROUGH,

THE parish of which lies the next adjoining southwestward from that of Minster, on the western shore of this island, was so called in honor of Philippa, queen to Edward III.

THERE was an antient castle here, called the Castle of Shepey, situated at the western mouth of the Swale formerly, as has been already mentioned, accounted likewise the mouth of the river Thames, which was built for the defence both of the island and the passage on the water, the usual one then being between the main land of the county and this island.

This castle was begun to be new built by king Edward III. about the year 1361, being the 36th of his reign, (fn. 1) and was finished about six years afterwards, being raised, as he himself says in his letters patent, in his 42d year, for the strength of the realm, and for the refuge of the inhabitants of this island.

This was undertaken under the inspection of William of Wickham, the king's chief architect, afterwards bishop of Winchester, who considering the difficulties arising from the nature of the ground, and the lowness of the situation, acquitted himself in this task with his usual skill and abilities, and erected here a large, strong, and magnificent building, fit equally for the defence of the island, and the reception of his royal master. When it was finished, the king paid a visit to it, and remained here for some days, during which time he made this place a free borough, in honor of Philippa his queen, naming it from thence Queenborough, and by charter in 1366, he created it a corporation, making the townsmen burgesses, and giving them power to choose yearly a mayor and two bailiffs, who should make their oath of allegiance before the constable of the castle, and be justices within the liberties of the corporation, exclusive of all others; and endowing them with cognizance of pleas, with the liberty of two markets weekly on Mondays and Thursdays, and two fairs yearly, one on the eve of our Lady, and the other on the feast of St. James, and benefiting them with freedom of tholle, and several other privileges, which might induce men to inhabit this place. Three years after which, as a further favor to it, he appoined a staple for wool at it.

King Henry VIII. repaired this castle in the year 1536, at the time he rebuilt several others in these parts, for the defence of the sea-coast; but even then it was become little more than a mansion for the residence of the constable of it. And Mr. Johnston, in his book intitled Iter Plantarum Investigationis ergo susceptum, anno 1629, tells us, that he saw in this castle at that time, a noble large dining-room or hall, round the top of which were placed the arms of the nobility and gentry of Kent, and in the middle those of queen Elizabeth, with the following verses underneath:

Lilia virgineum pectus regale leonis

Significant; vivas virgo, regasque leo:

Umbra placet vultus, vultus quia mentis imago;

Mentis imago placet, mens quia plena Deo:

Virgo Deum vita, Regina imitata regendo,

Viva mihi vivi fiat imago Dei.

Qui leo de Juda est, et flos de jesse, leones

Protegat et flores, Elizabetha, tuos.

Lillies the lion's virgin breast explain,

Then live a virgin, and a lion reign.

Pictures are pleasing, for the mind they shew;

And in the mind the Deity we view:

May she who God in life and empire shews,

To me th' eternal Deity disclose!

May Jesse's flower, and Judah's lion deign

Thy flowers and lions to protect, great Queen.

¶In this situation it continued till the death of king Charles I. in 1648; soon after which the state seized on this castle, among the rest of the possessions of the crown, and then vested them in trustees, to be surveyed and sold, to supply the necessities of government, accordingly this castle was surveyed in 1650, when it appears to have consisted of a capital messuage, called Queenborough-castle, lying within the common belonging to the town, called Queenborough Marsh, in the parish of Minster, and containing about twelve rooms of one range of buildings below stairs, and of about forty rooms from the first story upwards, being circular and built of stone, with six towers, and certain out-offices belonging to it, the roof being covered with lead; that within the circumference of the castle was one little round court, paved with stone, and in the middle of that one great well, and without the castle was one great court surrounding it; both court and castle being surrounded with a great stone wall, and the outside of that moated round, the whole containing upwards of three acres of land. That the whole was much out of repair, and no ways defensive by the commonwealth, or the island on which it stood, being built in the time of bows and arrows. That as no platform for the planting of cannon could be erected on it, and it having no command of the sea, although near unto it, they adjudged it not fit to be kept, but demolished, and that the materials were worth, besides the charge of taking down, 1792l. 12½d.

The above survey sufficiently points out the size and grandeur of this building, which was soon afterwards sold to Mr. John Wilkinson, who pulled the whole of it down and removed the materials.

The scite of the castle remained in his possession afterwards till the restoration of king Charles II. when the inheritance of it returned again to the crown, where it has continued ever since. There are no remains of the castle or walls to be seen at this time, only the moat continues still as such, and the antient well in the middle of the scite within it, a further account of which will be given hereafter.

THE CONSTABLES of this castle were men of considerable rank, as appears by the following lift of them:

In the reign of queen Elizabeth, the annual fee of the keeper of this castle was 29l. 2s. 6d. (fn. 7)

ALTHOUGH Queenborough was formerly, whilst the castle waas standing, a place of much more consequence than it is at present, yet as to its size and number of inhabitants, it was much less so; for in the reign of queen Elizabeth, as may be seen by the return made of it in the 8th year of that reign, it ap pears, that there were here houses inhabited only 23; persons lacking proper habitation one; boats and ships twelve, from four tons to sixteen; and a key and landing-place to the town; proper persons occupied in carrying things from port to port, and in fishing, forty-five. At present this town consists of one principal wide street, the houses of which are neat, and mostly well-built, in number about one hundred and twenty, or more. The market house is a small antient brick building, in the middle of the street, with a room over over it. The court-hall is the upper part of a mean plaistered dwelling-house, close to the church-yard.

Notwithstanding the above-mentioned increase both of houses and inhabitants, it is, even now, but a poor fishing town, consisting chiefly of alehousekeepers, fishermen, and dredgers for oysters; the principal source of wealth to it being the election for members of parliment, which secures to some of the chief inhabitants many lucrative places in the ordnance, and other branches of government.

The corporation still subsists, consisting of a mayor, chosen on Sept. 29th, four jurats, two bailiffs, a recorder, town-clerk, chamberlain, and other officers, chosen annually by the free burgesses of the town and parish. (fn. 8)

The liberties of the corporation extend by water from the point of land joining to the river Medway to King's Ferry.

The arms of the town are, On a mount vert, a tower, with five spires on it, argent.

There is a copper as-work carried on in this place, which is the property of several different persons.

¶Though the water throughout the whole island of Shepey has been mentioned before to be in general exceeding unwholesome and brackish, yet the well be fore-mentioned on the scite of the castle here, is one of the exceptions to it. This well has been useless for many years, having little or no water in it, though several attempts had been made to restore it, when in the year 1723 it was more effectually opened by order of the commissioners of the navy, a full account of which was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Peter Collinson, F. R. S. (fn. 9) The depth of it was then found to be two hundred feet, and artificially steamed, the whole of it with circular Portland stone, the mean diameter four feet eight inches, there was little or no water then in it; on boring down they brought up a very close blueish clay, and after three days endeavours the augur slipping down, the water flowed up very fast, and kept increasing for some days, till there was one hundred and seventy six feet and upwards depth of water; what was extraordinary, they bored eighty-one feet below the trunk they had fixed four feet below the curb at the bottom of the well, before they met with this body of water, which by comparison is one hundred and sixty-six feet below the deepest place in the adjacent seas. This water proved excellently good, soft, sweet, and fine, and in such plenty as in great measure, excepting in time of war, when there is a more than ordinary call for it, to supply the inhabitants, as well as the shipping and several departments of government, which, jointly with the new well at Sheerness before-described, it now fully does.

The corporation have taken upon themselves to repair this well for several years past, at their own expence; notwithstanding which, it still continues the property of the crown, there having never yet been any grant made of it.

Anno 7 George III. an act passed for the better and more effectual maintenance and relief of the poor of the borough and parish of Queen borough.

Though Queenborough was made a borough by king Edward III. as before-mentioned, yet it had not the privilege of returning burgesses to parliament till the 13th year of queen Elizabeth's reign, in which year it made its first return of them.

QUEENBOROUGH is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Sittingborne.

¶The church, which is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a handsome building, consisting of one isle and one chancel; it is decorated with a painted roof, and other ornaments, and very neatly kept. There is a high-raised seat in it, for the mayor and two bailiffs. The whole of it was raised, paved, and ceiled, and the gallery at the west end, erected by Thomas King, esq. the first time he was elected member of parliament in 1695. It has a square tower steeple at the west end, which seems much older than the church itself, and at the top of it there is a small wooden turret, in which hang five bells. It was once accounted as a chapel to the mother church of Minster, and belonged with it to the monastery of St. Sexburg in that parish, but it has long since been independent of it.

It is now esteemed as a donative, in the gift of the corporation of this place, and is of the yearly certified value of 20l. 2s. 6d.

www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol6/pp233-245

Holy Trinity, Barsham, Suffolk by Jelltex

As I have said previously, I used to travel from Lowestoft to Bungay every day for over 5 years; sometimes by car, but for the last three years by coach.

The coach used to pick up at various places, and once we had left Beccles we used to pick up at the bottom of the hill from the short stretch of dual carriageway and again at the main part of the village, where the church was.

I used to think, even back in the 80s, that Barsham was a fine location for a church: down a private lane where where the vicarage and church are. I thought this really was private, and so never did go for a look.

And so on my only full day in the area, Barsham was once church I really did want to visit, and so taking the now much quieter road out of Beccles and slowing down for the turn to the church.

In the 25 years since I last traveled the road to work, the trees have grown even larger, to the extent the church is all but invisible from the road now, well in summer for sure.

The church is still hidden as I approached, hidden behind a line of trees, but the round tower could be seen over the top of the lych gate.

Inside, there was bunting, a Nelson connection, and two of the wardens were doing the weekly cleaning, and were very chatty, but polite enough to let me get on with my snapping.

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e decided to spend the day visiting the churches of the Lothingland peninsula, but it had taken less time than I'd thought it would. Some of the churches that we'd expected to find locked were open, but none of the ones that were locked had keyholders. The ones on the Suffolk side of the border were open, as you'd expect, but we were also pleased to find the Norfolk churches of Fritton and Bradwell open to strangers and pilgrims. The grim parish church at dismal Hopton was padlocked up to the eyeballs, and the graffiti-stricken Belton church appeared to have been completely abandoned, a ruin in the making. It was with some relief that we decided to head back south into gentle Suffolk - the alternative, leaving the peninsula via Yarmouth, was too awful a prospect to contemplate.

Where to go next? I hadn't been to Barnby or North Cove for a number of years, and so I suggested that we take a look there. Both churches have no less than three keyholders each, but at each church not a single one of them answered the phone - perhaps they were all at a keyholders' conference or something.

Inevitably then, my thoughts turned to Barsham, a bit further down the road on the other side of Beccles. Barnby and North Cove straddle the A146, a rat-run between Bungay and the sea. It is not a road a cyclist should spend any amount of time on. But the Church of the Most Holy Trinity is gorgeous in its setting across a meadow from the road. Once in its pretty churchyard, the sound of the traffic is left behind. The splendid former rectory slumbers just beyond the fence. This was one of Suffolk's great Anglo-catholic shrines, and generations of visitors have made the same journey as we were making. And even before that extraordinary movement reared its head, this parish touched the world in a significant way, at least once.

The exterior of this building is the most beautiful of any small church in Suffolk. I dare say that the setting was even more idyllic before the elm trees which Arthur Mee saw here in the 1930s were lost to Dutch Elm disease. The most striking feature is at the east end. Here, like an extension of the window, an extraordinary flint lattice spreads across the face of the wall. It has been variously dated as anything between the early 12th century and the late 19th century; Clive Hart, in his excellent book East Anglian Flushwork, dates it as 16th Century. It is most unusual; there's nothing exactly like it anywhere else in Suffolk, although something rather similar has been picked out in brick on the east wall at Spexhall. Near the south porch sits a memorial to one of the famous names associated with Barsham. Adrian Bell was the finest author to write books about Suffolk in the 20th century, particularly Corduroy and Silver Ley. He was the father of the white-suited former Independent MP, Martin Bell.

Curiously,the tower and nave are not fully joined above head height. There is a window in the west wall of the nave, suggesting that the body of the church here is older than the tower against which it stands - or, more precisely, the west wall is. The Caen stone of the south doorway suggests a post-1066 date for that feature, at least. You step down into a charming, devotional space. The chapel to St Catherine on the north side creates an unusual dynamic, the chancel pressed as it is against the south wall. As elsewhere in Suffolk, much work was done here from the 1870s onwards. The restoring architect was Charles Kempe, best known these days for the glass he produced in vast volume.

Kempe had a number of assistants during his long career, two of whom would have a part to play in the story of this church. One was Frederick Eden, who would return here at the start of the new century and furnish this understated, devotional shrine. His loving and meticulous attention to detail is ultimately what, internally at least, makes Holy Trinity the church it is today. He was responsible for the rebuilding and furnishing of the chapel of St Catherine in 1908. He found a Norman font bowl under the chapel floorboards, which is now on display there. Also his are the communion rails, the sanctuary carpet, the aumbry, the war memorial and even the lychgate outside. Most important of all, however, is the glass, which is almost all his.

The other Kempe apprentice was the young Ninian Comper, that flamboyant Anglo-catholic, whose finest hour, in East Anglia at least, would come up the road at Lound. The church guide quotes a letter which the nineteen year old Comper wrote to his mother from Barsham rectory on Good Friday 1883: Dearest Mother mine, it is a lovely place - a sweet rectory in the midst of splendid trees & the little church almost touching the house. There is a curious East window all in diamond tracery down to the cill and most of the diamonds contain a Saint or Angel painted by my master so I feel at home. And there is a pretty Elizabethan screen, done up & supplied with a rood and iron gates by my master also. Mr Williams is what I call a regular thorough priest and not a rector or a clergyman and is much to my mind but Father knows him well, I believe, and so need not try to dwell upon his virtues!

The rood screen is very unusual - again, there's nothing quite like it anywhere else in Suffolk. It is probably Laudian, as at Kedington, having been put up in the 1630s to replace that torn down at the Reformation a century before.The rood, which is not the one Comper saw, and the arch of honour were put up in the 1890s, and painted in 1919. I can't help thinking that the archway has a DIY feel to it, but the little statues are rather sweet. Another unusual feature of the church is the restored low side window in the chancel. The shutter and its hinges were made by a local blacksmith, probably under the supervision of Kempe. The window above shows Jesus healing the ten lepers, a reference to the then-current misguided belief that low side windows had something to do with allowing lepers a view of the altar. This idea has now been entirely discredited, but still the window remains, a memory of the enthusiasm for the medieval in the last years of the 19th century.

A roughly surviving St Christopher wall painting is discernible on the north wall of the nave. These are relatively common in this part of East Anglia, and you probably wouldn't notice this one unless you looked for it. The length of the wall is now taken up with the famious England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty signal in flags. There's a good reason for this, as we will see. The George III coat of arms comes from nearby Shipmeadow, now a private house, as do the paschal candlestick and the Jacobean Holy Table in the rebuilt chapel of St Catherine. A simpler memory of the past is the memorial board to Harry Stebbings, gassed in the First World War, which was painted by Arthur Batchelor of Norwich at cost of materials only, according to the Rector of the time. More elaborate is the important terracotta table tomb, one of seven in East Anglia, built from parts manufactured in and shipped from Flanders in the 1520s. It was probably to Sir Edward Etchingham, and it served as an Easter sepulchre. There are also a number of floor brasses and ledger stones. The 'rectors and patrons' board was salvaged from a Catholic church in Norwich, presumably the Jesuit chapel in Willow Lane.

On the 8th of February 1906, lightning struck the east end of the church, destroying the stonework of the east window and smashing the medieval mensa which had been reinstalled on the high altar. The fund raised to repair this damage also paid for the building of the north aisle as the chapel of St Catherine. In 1979, a fire destroyed the nave roof, and scorch marks caused by fallen clumps of smouldering straw can still be seen on several benches.

There are a number of Suffolk churches where a dynasty of vicars has handed the living down through the generations. Most famous, perhaps, are the Wallers at Waldringfield, where present rector John Waller is fourth in an unbroken line stretching back to the 1850s.

But here at Barsham, the situation is illustrated in extremis. The Suckling family held the living here from the 17th century right up until the parish was merged into a benefice in the late 20th century. They were the local landed family, and in a position to present themselves to the living on each occasion. This was not unusual, up until the mid-19th century, but the Sucklings carried the tradition beyond that. This was partly by tenaciously bequeathing the property, presentation rights and living to distant cousins when the male line died out, on the condition that the recipient changed his name to Suckling before inheriting. Marriage to a Suckling daughter was another way of qualifying.

But the other thing that ensured this remarkable dynasty's survival was the way they embraced Anglo-catholicism so wholeheartedly, at a time when a career in the Church was increasingly seen as a poor alternative to the fortunes to be made out in the British Empire. They tapped into the energy of the movement in the East End of London, where they also presented livings.

They were particularly associated with the extreme High Church social action movement of the late 19th century, being good friends of Father McKonochie, one of a number of Anglican priests shamefully prosecuted by the Church of England and imprisoned for 'popish practices'. McKonchie retired, a broken man, to Barsham Rectory, before his life ended tragically some five years later. He is remembered by a memorial at the west end of the north aisle here. The Sucklings were also associated with the nearby Anglican convent of All Hallows, at Ditchingham in Norfolk, an institution that scandalised upright Victorian protestants. As at Claydon, the parish priest here suffered vile abuse for his connection with it.

For a few people, this church is a place of pilgrimage for reasons unconnected with its colourful liturgical history. In the 18th century, one of the Suckling daughters grew up to be mother of Admiral Horatio Nelson. In the days when a patriotic pride was taken in the waging of war and advance of imperial adventure, Nelson was considered a great British hero.

Simon Knott, June 2008

www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/barsham.html