The (hidden) date on the stone is 1721 but according to Wikipedia Aubach died in 1722. Whatever.. This is an 18-century ledger stone in the south facade of Speyer Cathedral. The inscription reads: ""Reverendissimus et illustrissimus Dom(inus) Dom(inus) HERMANNUS LOTHARIUS L(iber) Baro ab AUWACH Ecclesiarum Cathedralium Wormatiensis et Spirensis nec non Equestris Bruchsalensis respe(ctiv)e Decanus Scholasticus et Capitularis senior Eminentissimi Reverendissi(mi) ac Celsissimi S:R:E: Cardinalis Principis et Episcopi Spirensis Consiliarius intimus eiusdemque Regiminis Praeses et Obiit in Domino die X May anno aetatis suae LXX - LVX aeterna LVCeat eI DoMIne"."

Church of the former monastery of Panagia Kamariotissa (Παναγία Καμαριώτισσα) on the island of Heybeliada / Chalkē (Χάλκη). Built in the 11th-12th century, with subsequent 17th, 18th and late 19th century interventions. The surrounding buildings housed at the time of the photo a National Shelter (Εθνική Στέγη) for Greek refugees coming from Asia Minor. The entire complex became Turkish state property in 1942 and has since housed the Naval Highschool (Deniz Lisesi).

 

Gelatin silver print, 103 x 144 mm;

attributed to W. Sender (Istanbul / Constantinople), ca. 1927-1932;

acquired in 2021 from a dealer in Istanbul;

Theodor E. Ulieriu-Rostás collection. Accession number: 2021.003.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. According to traditions dating back to the 4th century, it contains the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified, at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus's empty tomb, where he is believed by Christians to have been buried and resurrected. Each time the church was rebuilt, some of the antiquities from the preceding structure were used in the newer renovation. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule. The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site.

 

Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the 4th century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection').

 

Control of the church itself is shared, a simultaneum, among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic, and to a lesser degree the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.

 

Following the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish–Roman War, Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins. In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of a Roman colony, the new city of Aelia Capitolina, on the site. Circa AD 135, he ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb be filled in to create a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus. The temple remained until the early 4th century.

 

After allegedly seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312, Constantine the Great began to favor Christianity, signed the Edict of Milan legalising the religion, and sent his mother, Helena, to Jerusalem to look for Christ's tomb. With the help of Bishop of Caesarea Eusebius and Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb; one which allegedly cured people of death was presumed to be the True Cross Jesus was crucified on, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary. Constantine ordered in about 326 that the temple to Jupiter/Venus be replaced by a church. After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus. A shrine was built, enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own.

 

In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus.

 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, planned by the architect Zenobius, was built as separate constructs over the two holy sites: a rotunda called the Anastasis ("Resurrection"), where Helena and Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried, and across a courtyard to the east, the great basilica, an enclosed colonnaded atrium (the Triportico, sometimes called the Martyrium) with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner. The church was consecrated on 13 September 335. The Church Of The Holy Sepulchre site has been recognized since early in the 4th century as the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead.

 

This building was destroyed by a fire in May of AD 614, when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrau II, invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city. After Jerusalem came under Islamic rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, but at the time of prayer, turned away from the church and prayed outside. He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius of Alexandria adds that Umar wrote a decree saying that Muslims would not inhabit this location. The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746.

 

Early in the 9th century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas I. In 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, a riot broke out, which was followed by reprisals. The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, and Patriarch John VII was murdered.

 

On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt. The damage was extensive, with few parts of the early church remaining, and the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged; the original shrine was destroyed. Some partial repairs followed. Christian Europe reacted with shock and expulsions of Jews, serving as an impetus to later Crusades.

 

In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–28, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir (al-Hakim's son) agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the church. The rebuilding was finally completed during the tenures of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople in 1048. As a concession, the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az-Zahir's name. Muslim sources say a by-product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under al-Hakim's persecutions. In addition, the Byzantines, while releasing 5,000 Muslim prisoners, made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by al-Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem. Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made. Still, "a total replacement was far beyond available resources. The new construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings: the great basilica remained in ruins."

 

The rebuilt church site consisted of "a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it." The chapels were east of the court of resurrection (when reconstructed, the location of the tomb was under open sky), where the western wall of the great basilica had been. They commemorated scenes from the passion, such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation, and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets. The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims' devotion to the suffering of Christ. They have been described as 'a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature'... since little or no rebuilding took place on the site of the great basilica. Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the 11th century found much of the sacred site in ruins." Control of Jerusalem, and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks (loyal to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad) until the Crusaders' arrival in 1099.

 

Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II, when calling for the First Crusade, was the threat to Constantinople from the Turkish invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also of concern, if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids (who had recently taken it from the Abassids) by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099.

 

The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage, and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. The classical theory is that Crusader leader Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem, decided not to use the title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri ("Protector [or Defender] of the Holy Sepulchre"). By the Crusader period, a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been where Helena had found the True Cross, and began to be venerated as such; the cistern later became the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross, but there is no evidence of the site's identification before the 11th century, and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th-century repairs by Monomachos.

 

According to the German priest and pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim, the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians", and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given to them by the pilgrims at the south door of the church.

 

Eight 11th- and 12th-century Crusader leaders (Godfrey, Baldwin I, Baldwin II, Fulk, Baldwin III, Amalric, Baldwin IV and Baldwin V — the first eight rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem) were buried in the south transept and inside the Chapel of Adam. The royal tombs were destroyed by the Greeks in 1809–1810. It is unclear if the remains of those men were exhumed; some researchers hypothesize that some of them may still be in unmarked pits under the church.

 

William of Tyre, chronicler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, reports on the renovation of the Church in the mid-12th century. The Crusaders investigated the eastern ruins on the site, occasionally excavating through the rubble, and while attempting to reach the cistern, they discovered part of the original ground level of Hadrian's temple enclosure; they transformed this space into a chapel dedicated to Helena, widening their original excavation tunnel into a proper staircase. The Crusaders began to refurnish the church in Romanesque style and added a bell tower. These renovations unified the small chapels on the site and were completed during the reign of Queen Melisende in 1149, placing all the holy places under one roof for the first time. The church became the seat of the first Latin patriarchs and the site of the kingdom's scriptorium. It was lost to Saladin, along with the rest of the city, in 1187, although the treaty established after the Third Crusade allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the site. Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–50) regained the city and the church by treaty in the 13th century while under a ban of excommunication, with the curious consequence that the holiest church in Christianity was laid under interdict. The church seems to have been largely in the hands of Greek Orthodox patriarch Athanasius II of Jerusalem (c. 1231–47) during the Latin control of Jerusalem. Both city and church were captured by the Khwarezmians in 1244.

 

There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian (Church of the East) presence at the Holy Sepulchre from the years 1348 through 1575, as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate. The Franciscan friars renovated the church in 1555, as it had been neglected despite increased numbers of pilgrims. The Franciscans rebuilt the Aedicule, extending the structure to create an antechamber. A marble shrine commissioned by Friar Boniface of Ragusa was placed to envelop the remains of Christ's tomb, probably to prevent pilgrims from touching the original rock or taking small pieces as souvenirs. A marble slab was placed over the limestone burial bed where Jesus's body is believed to have lain.

 

After the renovation of 1555, control of the church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox, depending on which community could obtain a favorable firman from the "Sublime Porte" at a particular time, often through outright bribery. Violent clashes were not uncommon. There was no agreement about this question, although it was discussed at the negotiations to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. During the Holy Week of 1757, Orthodox Christians reportedly took over some of the Franciscan-controlled church. This may have been the cause of the sultan's firman (decree) later developed into the Status Quo.

 

A fire severely damaged the structure again in 1808, causing the dome of the Rotunda to collapse and smashing the Aedicule's exterior decoration. The Rotunda and the Aedicule's exterior were rebuilt in 1809–10 by architect Nikolaos Ch. Komnenos of Mytilene in the contemporary Ottoman Baroque style.[citation needed] The interior of the antechamber, now known as the Chapel of the Angel, was partly rebuilt to a square ground plan in place of the previously semicircular western end.

 

Another decree in 1853 from the sultan solidified the existing territorial division among the communities and solidified the Status Quo for arrangements to "remain in their present state", requiring consensus to make even minor changes.

 

The dome was restored by Catholics, Greeks and Turks in 1868, being made of iron ever since.

 

By the time of the British Mandate for Palestine following the end of World War I, the cladding of red marble applied to the Aedicule by Komnenos had deteriorated badly and was detaching from the underlying structure; from 1947 until restoration work in 2016–17, it was held in place with an exterior scaffolding of iron girders installed by the British authorities.

 

In 1948, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and the Old City with the church were made part of Jordan. In 1967, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in the Six Day War, and that area has remained under Israeli control ever since. Under Israeli rule, legal arrangements relating to the churches of East Jerusalem were maintained in coordination with the Jordanian government. The dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was restored again in 1994–97 as part of extensive modern renovations that have been ongoing since 1959. During the 1970–78 restoration works and excavations inside the building, and under the nearby Muristan bazaar, it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white meleke limestone was struck.

 

East of the Chapel of Saint Helena, the excavators discovered a void containing a second-century[dubious – discuss] drawing of a Roman pilgrim ship, two low walls supporting the platform of Hadrian's second-century temple, and a higher fourth-century wall built to support Constantine's basilica. After the excavations of the early 1970s, the Armenian authorities converted this archaeological space into the Chapel of Saint Vartan, and created an artificial walkway over the quarry on the north of the chapel, so that the new chapel could be accessed (by permission) from the Chapel of Saint Helena.

 

After seven decades of being held together by steel girders, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared the visibly deteriorating Aedicule structure unsafe. A restoration of the Aedicule was agreed upon and executed from May 2016 to March 2017. Much of the $4 million project was funded by the World Monuments Fund, as well as $1.3 million from Mica Ertegun and a significant sum from King Abdullah II of Jordan. The existence of the original limestone cave walls within the Aedicule was confirmed, and a window was created to view this from the inside. The presence of moisture led to the discovery of an underground shaft resembling an escape tunnel carved into the bedrock, seeming to lead from the tomb. For the first time since at least 1555, on 26 October 2016, marble cladding that protects the supposed burial bed of Jesus was removed. Members of the National Technical University of Athens were present. Initially, only a layer of debris was visible. This was cleared in the next day, and a partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved was revealed. By the night of 28 October, the original limestone burial bed was shown to be intact. The tomb was resealed shortly thereafter. Mortar from just above the burial bed was later dated to the mid-fourth century.

 

On 25 March 2020, Israeli health officials ordered the site closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the keeper of the keys, it was the first such closure since 1349, during the Black Death. Clerics continued regular prayers inside the building, and it reopened to visitors two months later, on 24 May.

 

During church renovations in 2022, a stone slab covered in modern graffiti was moved from a wall, revealing Cosmatesque-style decoration on one face. According to an IAA archaeologist, the decoration was once inlaid with pieces of glass and fine marble; it indicates that the relic was the front of the church's high altar from the Crusader era (c. 1149), which was later used by the Greek Orthodox until being damaged in the 1808 fire.

 

The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis. Two streets open into the parvis: St Helena Road (west) and Suq ed-Dabbagha (east). Around the parvis are a few smaller structures.

 

South of the parvis, opposite the church:

 

Broken columns—once forming part of an arcade—stand opposite the church, at the top of a short descending staircase stretching over the entire breadth of the parvis. In the 13th century, the tops of the columns were removed and sent to Mecca by the Khwarezmids.

The Gethsemane Metochion, a small Greek Orthodox monastery (metochion).

On the eastern side of the parvis, south to north:

 

The Monastery of St Abraham (Greek Orthodox), next to the Suq ed-Dabbagha entrance to the parvis.

The Chapel of St John the Evangelist (Armenian Orthodox)

The Chapel of St Michael and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures (both are disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians), giving access to Deir es-Sultan (also disputed), a rooftop monastery surrounding the dome of the Chapel of St Helena.

North of the parvis, in front of the church façade or against it:

 

Chapel of the Franks (Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows): a blue-domed Roman Catholic Crusader chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which once provided exclusive access to Calvary. The chapel marks the 10th Station of the Cross (the stripping of Jesus's garments).

Oratory of St. Mary of Egypt: a Greek Orthodox oratory and chapel, directly beneath the Chapel of the Franks, dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt.

The tomb (including a ledgerstone) of Philip d'Aubigny aka Philip Daubeney (died 1236), a knight, tutor, and royal councilor to Henry III of England and signer of the Magna Carta—is placed in front of, and between, the church's two original entrance doors, of which the eastern one is walled up. It is one of the few tombs of crusaders and other Europeans not removed from the Church after the Khwarizmian capture of Jerusalem in 1244. In the 1900s, during a fight between the Greeks and Latins, some monks damaged the tomb by throwing stones from the roof. A stone marker[clarification needed] was placed on his tomb in 1925, sheltered by a wooden trapdoor that hides it from view.[citation needed]

A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side. They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church. The southernmost chapel was the vestibule, the middle chapel the baptistery, and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex. Now they are dedicated as (from south to north)

 

The Chapel of St. James the Just (Greek Orthodox),

The Chapel of St. John the Baptist (Greek Orthodox),

The Chapel of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (Greek Orthodox; at the base of the bell tower).

 

The 12th-century Crusader bell tower is just south of the Rotunda, to the left of the entrance. Its upper level was lost in a 1545 collapse. In 1719, another two storeys were lost.

 

The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved arched doors. Today, only the left-hand entrance is currently accessible, as the right doorway has long since been bricked up. The entrance to the church leads to the south transept, through the crusader façade in the parvis of a larger courtyard. This is found past a group of streets winding through the outer Via Dolorosa by way of a souq in the Muristan. This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times. For example, when a fire broke out in 1840, dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death.

 

According to their own family lore, the Muslim Nuseibeh family has been responsible for opening the door as an impartial party to the church's denominations already since the seventh century. However, they themselves admit that the documents held by various Christian denominations only mention their role since the 12th century, in the time of Saladin, which is the date more generally accepted. After retaking Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, Saladin entrusted the Joudeh family with the key to the church, which is made of iron and 30 centimetres (12 in) long; the Nuseibehs either became or remained its doorkeepers.

 

The 'immovable ladder' stands beneath a window on the façade.

 

Just inside the church entrance is a stairway leading up to Calvary (Golgotha), traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus's crucifixion and the most lavishly decorated part of the church. The exit is via another stairway opposite the first, leading down to the ambulatory. Golgotha and its chapels are just south of the main altar of the catholicon.

 

Calvary is split into two chapels: one Greek Orthodox and one Catholic, each with its own altar. On the left (north) side, the Greek Orthodox chapel's altar is placed over the supposed rock of Calvary (the 12th Station of the Cross), which can be touched through a hole in the floor beneath the altar. The rock can be seen under protective glass on both sides of the altar. The softer surrounding stone was removed when the church was built. The Roman Catholic (Franciscan) Chapel of the Nailing of the Cross (the 11th Station of the Cross) stretches to the south. Between the Catholic Altar of the Nailing to the Cross and the Orthodox altar is the Catholic Altar of the Stabat Mater, which has a statue of Mary with an 18th-century bust; this middle altar marks the 13th Station of the Cross.

 

On the ground floor, just underneath the Golgotha chapel, is the Chapel of Adam. According to tradition, Jesus was crucified over the place where Adam's skull was buried. According to some, the blood of Christ ran down the cross and through the rocks to fill Adam's skull. Through a window at the back of the 11th-century apse, the rock of Calvary can be seen with a crack traditionally held to be caused by the earthquake that followed Jesus's death;[78] some scholars claim it is the result of quarrying against a natural flaw in the rock.

 

Behind the Chapel of Adam is the Greek Treasury (Treasury of the Greek Patriarch). Some of its relics, such as a 12th-century crystal mitre, were transferred to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Museum (the Patriarchal Museum) on Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Street.

 

Just inside the entrance to the church is the Stone of Anointing (also Stone of the Anointing or Stone of Unction), which tradition holds to be where Jesus's body was prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea, though this tradition is only attested since the crusader era (notably by the Italian Dominican pilgrim Riccoldo da Monte di Croce in 1288), and the present stone was only added in the 1810 reconstruction.

 

The wall behind the stone is defined by its striking blue balconies and taphos symbol-bearing red banners (depicting the insignia of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre), and is decorated with lamps. The modern mosaic along the wall depicts the anointing of Jesus's body, preceded on the right by the Descent from the Cross, and succeeded on the left by the Burial of Jesus.

 

The wall was a temporary addition to support the arch above it, which had been weakened after the damage in the 1808 fire; it blocks the view of the rotunda, separates the entrance from the catholicon, sits on top of four of the now empty and desecrated Crusader graves and is no longer structurally necessary. Opinions differ as to whether it is to be seen as the 13th Station of the Cross, which others identify as the lowering of Jesus from the cross and located between the 11th and 12th stations on Calvary.

 

The lamps that hang over the Stone of Unction, adorned with cross-bearing chain links, are contributed by Armenians, Copts, Greeks and Latins.

 

Immediately inside and to the left of the entrance is a bench (formerly a divan) that has traditionally been used by the church's Muslim doorkeepers, along with some Christian clergy, as well as electrical wiring. To the right of the entrance is a wall along the ambulatory containing the staircase leading to Golgotha. Further along the same wall is the entrance to the Chapel of Adam.

 

The rotunda is the building of the larger dome located on the far west side. In the centre of the rotunda is a small chapel called the Aedicule in English, from the Latin aedicula, in reference to a small shrine. The Aedicule has two rooms: the first holds a relic called the Angel's Stone, which is believed to be a fragment of the large stone that sealed the tomb; the second, smaller room contains the tomb of Jesus. Possibly to prevent pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs, by 1555, a surface of marble cladding was placed on the tomb to prevent further damage to the tomb. In October 2016, the top slab was pulled back to reveal an older, partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved in it. Beneath it, the limestone burial bed was revealed to be intact.

 

Under the Status Quo, the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches all have rights to the interior of the tomb, and all three communities celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Holy Mass there daily. It is also used for other ceremonies on special occasions, such as the Holy Saturday ceremony of the Holy Fire led by the Greek Orthodox patriarch (with the participation of the Coptic and Armenian patriarchs). To its rear, in the Coptic Chapel, constructed of iron latticework, lies the altar used by the Coptic Orthodox. Historically, the Georgians also retained the key to the Aedicule.

 

To the right of the sepulchre on the northwestern edge of the Rotunda is the Chapel of the Apparition, which is reserved for Roman Catholic use.

 

In the central nave of the Crusader-era church, just east of the larger rotunda, is the Crusader structure housing the main altar of the Church, today the Greek Orthodox catholicon. Its dome is 19.8 metres (65 ft) in diameter, and is set directly over the centre of the transept crossing of the choir where the compas is situated, an omphalos ("navel") stone once thought to be the center of the world and still venerated as such by Orthodox Christians (associated with the site of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection).

 

Since 1996 this dome is topped by the monumental Golgotha Crucifix, which the Greek Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem consecrated. It was at the initiative of Israeli professor Gustav Kühnel to erect a new crucifix at the church that would not only be worthy of the singularity of the site, but that would also become a symbol of the efforts of unity in the community of Christian faith.

 

The catholicon's iconostasis demarcates the Orthodox sanctuary behind it, to its east. The iconostasis is flanked to the front by two episcopal thrones: the southern seat (cathedra) is the patriarchal throne of the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, and the northern seat is for an archbishop or bishop. (There is also a popular claim that both are patriarchal thrones, with the northern one being for the patriarch of Antioch — which has been described as a misstatement, however.)

 

South of the Aedicule is the "Place of the Three Marys", marked by a stone canopy (the Station of the Holy Women) and a large modern wall mosaic. From here one can enter the Armenian monastery, which stretches over the ground and first upper floor of the church's southeastern part.

 

West of the Aedicule, to the rear of the Rotunda, is the Syriac Chapel with the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, located in a Constantinian apse and containing an opening to an ancient Jewish rock-cut tomb. This chapel is where the Syriac Orthodox celebrate their Liturgy on Sundays.

 

The Syriac Orthodox Chapel of Saint Joseph of Arimathea and Saint Nicodemus. On Sundays and feast days it is furnished for the celebration of Mass. It is accessed from the Rotunda, by a door west of the Aedicule.

 

On the far side of the chapel is the low entrance to an almost complete first-century Jewish tomb, initially holding six kokh-type funeral shafts radiating from a central chamber, two of which are still exposed. Although this space was discovered relatively recently and contains no identifying marks, some believe that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were buried here. Since Jews always buried their dead outside the city, the presence of this tomb seems to prove that the Holy Sepulchre site was outside the city walls at the time of the crucifixion.

 

The Franciscan Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene – The chapel, an open area, indicates the place where Mary Magdalene met Jesus after his resurrection.

 

The Franciscan Chapel of the Apparition (Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament), directly north of the above – in memory of Jesus's meeting with his mother after the Resurrection, a non-scriptural tradition. Here stands a piece of an ancient column, allegedly part of the one Jesus was tied to during his scourging.

 

The Arches of the Virgin are seven arches (an arcade) at the northern end of the north transept, which is to the catholicon's north. Disputed by the Orthodox and the Latin, the area is used to store ladders.

 

In the northeast side of the complex, there is the Prison of Christ, alleged to be where Jesus was held. The Greek Orthodox are showing pilgrims yet another place where Jesus was allegedly held, the similarly named Prison of Christ in their Monastery of the Praetorium, located near the Church of Ecce Homo, between the Second and Third Stations of the Via Dolorosa. The Armenians regard a recess in the Monastery of the Flagellation at the Second Station of the Via Dolorosa as the Prison of Christ. A cistern among the ruins beneath the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu on Mount Zion is also alleged to have been the Prison of Christ. To reconcile the traditions, some allege that Jesus was held in the Mount Zion cell in connection with his trial by the Jewish high priest, at the Praetorium in connection with his trial by the Roman governor Pilate, and near the Golgotha before crucifixion.

 

The chapels in the ambulatory are, from north to south: the Greek Chapel of Saint Longinus (named after Longinus), the Armenian Chapel of the Division of Robes, the entrance to the Chapel of Saint Helena, and the Greek Chapel of the Derision.

 

Chapel of Saint Helena – between the Chapel of the Division of Robes and the Greek Chapel of the Derision are stairs descending to the Chapel of Saint Helena. The Armenians, who own it, call it the Chapel of St. Gregory the Illuminator, after the saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians.

 

Chapel of St Vartan (or Vardan) Mamikonian – on the north side of the Chapel of Saint Helena is an ornate wrought iron door, beyond which a raised artificial platform affords views of the quarry, and which leads to the Chapel of Saint Vartan. The latter chapel contains archaeological remains from Hadrian's temple and Constantine's basilica. These areas are open only on request.

 

Chapel of the Invention of the Cross (named for the Invention (Finding) of the Holy Cross) – another set of 22 stairs from the Chapel of Saint Helena leads down to the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross, believed to be the place where the True Cross was found.

 

An Ottoman decree of 1757 helped establish a status quo upholding the state of affairs for various Holy Land sites. The status quo was upheld in Sultan Abdülmecid I's firman (decree) of 1852/3, which pinned down the now-permanent statutes of property and the regulations concerning the roles of the different denominations and other custodians.

 

The primary custodians are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches. The Greek Orthodox act through the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as well as through the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Roman Catholics act through the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. In the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox also acquired lesser responsibilities, which include shrines and other structures in and around the building.

 

None of these controls the main entrance. In 1192, Saladin assigned door-keeping responsibilities to the Muslim Nusaybah family. The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved doors. The Joudeh al-Goudia (al-Ghodayya) family were entrusted as custodian to the keys of the Holy Sepulchre by Saladin in 1187. Despite occasional disagreements, religious services take place in the Church with regularity and coexistence is generally peaceful. An example of concord between the Church custodians is the full restoration of the Aedicule from 2016 to 2017.

 

The establishment of the modern Status Quo in 1853 did not halt controversy and occasional violence. In 1902, 18 friars were hospitalized and some monks were jailed after the Franciscans and Greeks disagreed over who could clean the lowest step of the Chapel of the Franks. In the aftermath, the Greek patriarch, Franciscan custos, Ottoman governor and French consul general signed a convention that both denominations could sweep it. On a hot summer day in 2002, a Coptic monk moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting fight. In another incident in 2004, during Orthodox celebrations of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a door to the Franciscan chapel was left open. This was taken as a sign of disrespect by the Orthodox and a fistfight broke out. Some people were arrested, but no one was seriously injured.

 

On Palm Sunday, in April 2008, a brawl broke out when a Greek monk was ejected from the building by a rival faction. Police were called to the scene but were also attacked by the enraged brawlers. On Sunday, 9 November 2008, a clash erupted between Armenian and Greek monks during celebrations for the Feast of the Cross.

 

In February 2018, the church was closed following a tax dispute over 152 million euros of uncollected taxes on church properties. The city hall stressed that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all other churches are exempt from the taxes, with the changes only affecting establishments like "hotels, halls and businesses" owned by the churches. NPR had reported that the Greek Orthodox Church calls itself the second-largest landowner in Israel, after the Israeli government.

 

There was a lock-in protest against an Israeli legislative proposal which would expropriate church lands that had been sold to private companies since 2010, a measure which church leaders assert constitutes a serious violation of their property rights and the Status Quo. In a joint official statement the church authorities protested what they considered to be the peak of a systematic campaign in:

 

a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of the Christian community in the Holy Land ... This reminds us all of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe.

 

The 2018 taxation affair does not cover any church buildings or religious related facilities (because they are exempt by law), but commercial facilities such as the Notre Dame Hotel which was not paying the municipal property tax, and any land which is owned and used as a commercial land. The church holds the rights to land where private homes have been constructed, and some of the disagreement had been raised after the Knesset had proposed a bill that will make it harder for a private company not to extend a lease for land used by homeowners. The church leaders have said that such a bill will make it harder for them to sell church-owned lands. According to The Jerusalem Post:

 

The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand.

 

In June 2019, a number of Christian denominations in Jerusalem raised their voice against the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the sale of three properties by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Ateret Cohanim – an organization that seeks to increase the number of Jews living in the Old City and East Jerusalem. The church leaders warned that if the organization gets to control the sites, Christians could lose access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In June 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the sale and ended the legal battle.

 

The site of the church had been a temple to Jupiter or Venus built by Hadrian before Constantine's edifice was built. Hadrian's temple had been located there because it was the junction of the main north–south road with one of the two main east–west roads and directly adjacent to the forum (now the location of the Muristan, which is smaller than the former forum). The forum itself had been placed, as is traditional in Roman towns, at the junction of the main north–south road with the other main east–west road (which is now El-Bazar/David Street). The temple and forum together took up the entire space between the two main east–west roads (a few above-ground remains of the east end of the temple precinct still survive in the Alexander Nevsky Church complex of the Russian Mission in Exile).

 

From the archaeological excavations in the 1970s, it is clear that construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure and that the Triportico and Rotunda roughly overlapped with the temple building itself; the excavations indicate that the temple extended at least as far back as the Aedicule, and the temple enclosure would have reached back slightly further. Virgilio Canio Corbo, a Franciscan priest and archaeologist, who was present at the excavations, estimated from the archaeological evidence that the western retaining wall of the temple itself would have passed extremely close to the east side of the supposed tomb; if the wall had been any further west any tomb would have been crushed under the weight of the wall (which would be immediately above it) if it had not already been destroyed when foundations for the wall were made.

 

Other archaeologists have criticized Corbo's reconstructions. Dan Bahat, the former city archaeologist of Jerusalem, regards them as unsatisfactory, as there is no known temple of Aphrodite (Venus) matching Corbo's design, and no archaeological evidence for Corbo's suggestion that the temple building was on a platform raised high enough to avoid including anything sited where the Aedicule is now; indeed Bahat notes that many temples to Aphrodite have a rotunda-like design, and argues that there is no archaeological reason to assume that the present rotunda was not based on a rotunda in the temple previously on the site.

 

The New Testament describes Jesus's tomb as being outside the city wall,[l] as was normal for burials across the ancient world, which were regarded as unclean. Today, the site of the Church is within the current walls of the old city of Jerusalem. It has been well documented by archaeologists that in the time of Jesus, the walled city was smaller and the wall then was to the east of the current site of the Church. In other words, the city had been much narrower in Jesus's time, with the site then having been outside the walls; since Herod Agrippa (41–44) is recorded by history as extending the city to the north (beyond the present northern walls), the required repositioning of the western wall is traditionally attributed to him as well.

 

The area immediately to the south and east of the sepulchre was a quarry and outside the city during the early first century as excavations under the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer across the street demonstrated.[citation needed]

 

The church is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old City of Jerusalem.

 

The Christian Quarter and the (also Christian) Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem are both located in the northwestern and western part of the Old City, due to the fact that the Holy Sepulchre is located close to the northwestern corner of the walled city. The adjacent neighbourhood within the Christian Quarter is called the Muristan, a term derived from the Persian word for hospital – Christian pilgrim hospices have been maintained in this area near the Holy Sepulchre since at least the time of Charlemagne.

 

From the ninth century onward, the construction of churches inspired by the Anastasis was extended across Europe. One example is Santo Stefano in Bologna, Italy, an agglomeration of seven churches recreating shrines of Jerusalem.

 

Several churches and monasteries in Europe, for instance, in Germany and Russia, and at least one church in the United States have been wholly or partially modeled on the Church of the Resurrection, some even reproducing other holy places for the benefit of pilgrims who could not travel to the Holy Land. They include the Heiliges Grab ("Holy Tomb") of Görlitz, constructed between 1481 and 1504, the New Jerusalem Monastery in Moscow Oblast, constructed by Patriarch Nikon between 1656 and 1666, and Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery built by the Franciscans in Washington, DC in 1898.

 

Author Andrew Holt writes that the church is the most important in all Christendom.

 

Jerusalem is an ancient city in West Asia, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital; Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there, and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Neither claim, however, is widely recognized internationally.

 

Throughout its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. During the Canaanite period (14th century BCE), Jerusalem was named as Urusalim on ancient Egyptian tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 10th century BCE (Iron Age II), and by the 9th century BCE, the city had developed into the religious and administrative centre of the Kingdom of Judah. In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for a last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. Today those walls define the Old City, which since the 19th century has been divided into four quarters – the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Since 1860, Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2022, Jerusalem had a population of some 971,800 residents, of which almost 60% were Jews and almost 40% Palestinians. In 2020, the population was 951,100, of which Jews comprised 570,100 (59.9%), Muslims 353,800 (37.2%), Christians 16,300 (1.7%), and 10,800 unclassified (1.1%).

 

According to the Hebrew Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel, and his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous—and later monotheistic—religion centred on El/Yahweh. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of holy city (Hebrew: עיר הקודש, romanized: 'Ir ha-Qodesh) was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which Christians adopted as their own "Old Testament", was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. The city was the first qibla, the standard direction for Muslim prayers (salah), and in Islamic tradition, Muhammad made his Night Journey there in 621, ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran. As a result, despite having an area of only 0.9 km2 (3⁄8 sq mi), the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

 

Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and later annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently effectively annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory.[note 6] One of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the residences of the Prime Minister (Beit Aghion) and President (Beit HaNassi), and the Supreme Court. The international community rejects the annexation as illegal and regards East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.

 

Etymology

The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation (Semitic yry' 'to found, to lay a cornerstone') of the pagan god Shalem"; the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city.

 

Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived (Shalom in Hebrew, cognate with Arabic Salam). The name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace", "Dwelling of Peace" ("founded in safety"), or "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors.

 

The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city initially sat on two hills.

 

Ancient Egyptian sources

The Execration Texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 19th century BCE), which refer to a city called rwšꜣlmm or ꜣwšꜣmm, variously transcribed as Rušalimum, or Urušalimum, may indicate Jerusalem. Alternatively, the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba (1330s BCE), which reference an Úrušalim, may be the earliest mention of the city.

 

Hebrew Bible and Jewish sources

The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of two names united by God, Yireh ("the abiding place", the name given by Abraham to the place where he planned to sacrifice his son) and Shalem ("Place of Peace", the name given by high priest Shem).

 

Oldest written mention of Jerusalem

One of the earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states: "I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem", or as other scholars suggest: "Yahweh is the God of the whole earth. The mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem". An older example on papyrus is known from the previous century.

 

In extra-biblical inscriptions, the earliest known example of the -ayim ending was discovered on a column about 3 km west of ancient Jerusalem, dated to the first century BCE.

 

Jebus, Zion, City of David

An ancient settlement of Jerusalem, founded as early as the Bronze Age on the hill above the Gihon Spring, was, according to the Bible, named Jebus. Called the "Fortress of Zion" (metsudat Zion), it was renamed as the "City of David", and was known by this name in antiquity. Another name, "Zion", initially referred to a distinct part of the city, but later came to signify the city as a whole, and afterwards to represent the whole biblical Land of Israel.

 

Greek, Roman and Byzantine names

In Greek and Latin, the city's name was transliterated Hierosolyma (Greek: Ἱεροσόλυμα; in Greek hieròs, ἱερός, means holy), although the city was renamed Aelia Capitolina for part of the Roman period of its history.

 

Salem

The Aramaic Apocryphon of Genesis of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QapGen 22:13) equates Jerusalem with the earlier "Salem" (שלם), said to be the kingdom of Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Other early Hebrew sources, early Christian renderings of the verse and targumim, however, put Salem in Northern Israel near Shechem (Sichem), now Nablus, a city of some importance in early sacred Hebrew writing. Possibly the redactor of the Apocryphon of Genesis wanted to dissociate Melchizedek from the area of Shechem, which at the time was in possession of the Samaritans. However that may be, later Rabbinic sources also equate Salem with Jerusalem, mainly to link Melchizedek to later Temple traditions.

 

Arabic names

In Arabic, Jerusalem is most commonly known as القُدس, transliterated as al-Quds and meaning "the holy" or "the holy sanctuary", cognate with Hebrew: הקדש, romanized: ha-qodesh. The name is possibly a shortened form of مدينة القُدس Madīnat al-Quds "city of the holy sanctuary" after the Hebrew nickname with the same meaning, Ir ha-Qodesh (עיר הקדש). The ق (Q) is pronounced either with a voiceless uvular plosive (/q/), as in Classical Arabic, or with a glottal stop (ʔ) as in Levantine Arabic. Official Israeli government policy mandates that أُورُشَلِيمَ, transliterated as Ūrušalīm, which is the name frequently used in Christian translations of the Bible into Arabic, be used as the Arabic language name for the city in conjunction with القُدس, giving أُورُشَلِيمَ-القُدس, Ūrušalīm-al-Quds. Palestinian Arab families who hail from this city are often called "Qudsi" (قُدسي) or "Maqdasi" (مقدسي), while Palestinian Muslim Jerusalemites may use these terms as a demonym.

 

Given the city's central position in both Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and Palestinian nationalism, the selectivity required to summarize some 5,000 years of inhabited history is often influenced by ideological bias or background. Israeli or Jewish nationalists claim a right to the city based on Jewish indigeneity to the land, particularly their origins in and descent from the Israelites, for whom Jerusalem is their capital, and their yearning for return. In contrast, Palestinian nationalists claim the right to the city based on modern Palestinians' longstanding presence and descent from many different peoples who have settled or lived in the region over the centuries. Both sides claim the history of the city has been politicized by the other in order to strengthen their relative claims to the city, and that this is borne out by the different focuses the different writers place on the various events and eras in the city's history.

 

Prehistory

The first archaeological evidence of human presence in the area comes in the form of flints dated to between 6000 and 7000 years ago, with ceramic remains appearing during the Chalcolithic period, and the first signs of permanent settlement appearing in the Early Bronze Age in 3000–2800 BCE.

 

Bronze and Iron Ages

The earliest evidence of city fortifications appear in the Mid to Late Bronze Age and could date to around the 18th century BCE. By around 1550–1200 BCE, Jerusalem was the capital of an Egyptian vassal city-state, a modest settlement governing a few outlying villages and pastoral areas, with a small Egyptian garrison and ruled by appointees such as king Abdi-Heba. At the time of Seti I (r. 1290–1279 BCE) and Ramesses II (r. 1279–1213 BCE), major construction took place as prosperity increased. The city's inhabitants at this time were Canaanites, who are believed by scholars to have evolved into the Israelites via the development of a distinct Yahweh-centric monotheistic belief system.

 

Archaeological remains from the ancient Israelite period include the Siloam Tunnel, an aqueduct built by Judahite king Hezekiah and once containing an ancient Hebrew inscription, known as the Siloam Inscription; the so-called Broad Wall, a defensive fortification built in the 8th century BCE, also by Hezekiah; the Silwan necropolis (9th–7th c. BCE) with the Monolith of Silwan and the Tomb of the Royal Steward, which were decorated with monumental Hebrew inscriptions; and the so-called Israelite Tower, remnants of ancient fortifications, built from large, sturdy rocks with carved cornerstones. A huge water reservoir dating from this period was discovered in 2012 near Robinson's Arch, indicating the existence of a densely built-up quarter across the area west of the Temple Mount during the Kingdom of Judah.

 

When the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem was strengthened by a great influx of refugees from the northern kingdom. When Hezekiah ruled, Jerusalem had no fewer than 25,000 inhabitants and covered 25 acres (10 hectares).

 

In 587–586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem after a prolonged siege, and then systematically destroyed the city, including Solomon's Temple. The Kingdom of Judah was abolished and many were exiled to Babylon. These events mark the end of the First Temple period.

 

Biblical account

This period, when Canaan formed part of the Egyptian empire, corresponds in biblical accounts to Joshua's invasion, but almost all scholars agree that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel.

 

In the Bible, Jerusalem is defined as lying within territory allocated to the tribe of Benjamin though still inhabited by Jebusites. David is said to have conquered these in the siege of Jebus, and transferred his capital from Hebron to Jerusalem which then became the capital of a United Kingdom of Israel, and one of its several religious centres. The choice was perhaps dictated by the fact that Jerusalem did not form part of Israel's tribal system, and was thus suited to serve as the centre of its confederation. Opinion is divided over whether the so-called Large Stone Structure and the nearby Stepped Stone Structure may be identified with King David's palace, or dates to a later period.

 

According to the Bible, King David reigned for 40 years and was succeeded by his son Solomon, who built the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah. Solomon's Temple (later known as the First Temple), went on to play a pivotal role in Jewish religion as the repository of the Ark of the Covenant. On Solomon's death, ten of the northern tribes of Israel broke with the United Monarchy to form their own nation, with its kings, prophets, priests, traditions relating to religion, capitals and temples in northern Israel. The southern tribes, together with the Aaronid priesthood, remained in Jerusalem, with the city becoming the capital of the Kingdom of Judah.

 

Classical antiquity

In 538 BCE, the Achaemenid King Cyrus the Great invited the Jews of Babylon to return to Judah to rebuild the Temple. Construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE, during the reign of Darius the Great, 70 years after the destruction of the First Temple.

 

Sometime soon after 485 BCE Jerusalem was besieged, conquered and largely destroyed by a coalition of neighbouring states. In about 445 BCE, King Artaxerxes I of Persia issued a decree allowing the city (including its walls) to be rebuilt. Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and centre of Jewish worship.

 

Many Jewish tombs from the Second Temple period have been unearthed in Jerusalem. One example, discovered north of the Old City, contains human remains in a 1st-century CE ossuary decorated with the Aramaic inscription "Simon the Temple Builder". The Tomb of Abba, also located north of the Old City, bears an Aramaic inscription with Paleo-Hebrew letters reading: "I, Abba, son of the priest Eleaz(ar), son of Aaron the high (priest), Abba, the oppressed and the persecuted, who was born in Jerusalem, and went into exile into Babylonia and brought (back to Jerusalem) Mattathi(ah), son of Jud(ah), and buried him in a cave which I bought by deed." The Tomb of Benei Hezir located in Kidron Valley is decorated by monumental Doric columns and Hebrew inscription, identifying it as the burial site of Second Temple priests. The Tombs of the Sanhedrin, an underground complex of 63 rock-cut tombs, is located in a public park in the northern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sanhedria. These tombs, probably reserved for members of the Sanhedrin and inscribed by ancient Hebrew and Aramaic writings, are dated to between 100 BCE and 100 CE.

 

When Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, Jerusalem and Judea came under Macedonian control, eventually falling to the Ptolemaic dynasty under Ptolemy I. In 198 BCE, Ptolemy V Epiphanes lost Jerusalem and Judea to the Seleucids under Antiochus III. The Seleucid attempt to recast Jerusalem as a Hellenized city-state came to a head in 168 BCE with the successful Maccabean revolt of Mattathias and his five sons against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and their establishment of the Hasmonean Kingdom in 152 BCE with Jerusalem as its capital.

 

In 63 BCE, Pompey the Great intervened in a struggle for the Hasmonean throne and captured Jerusalem, extending the influence of the Roman Republic over Judea. Following a short invasion by Parthians, backing the rival Hasmonean rulers, Judea became a scene of struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Parthian forces, eventually leading to the emergence of an Edomite named Herod. As Rome became stronger, it installed Herod as a client king of the Jews. Herod the Great, as he was known, devoted himself to developing and beautifying the city. He built walls, towers and palaces, and expanded the Temple Mount, buttressing the courtyard with blocks of stone weighing up to 100 tons. Under Herod, the area of the Temple Mount doubled in size. Shortly after Herod's death, in 6 CE Judea came under direct Roman rule as the Iudaea Province, although the Herodian dynasty through Agrippa II remained client kings of neighbouring territories until 96 CE.

 

Roman rule over Jerusalem and Judea was challenged in the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), which ended with a Roman victory. Early on, the city was devastated by a brutal civil war between several Jewish factions fighting for control of the city. In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus wrote that the city "was so thoroughly razed to the ground by those that demolished it to its foundations, that nothing was left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a place of habitation." Of the 600,000 (Tacitus) or 1,000,000 (Josephus) Jews of Jerusalem, all of them either died of starvation, were killed or were sold into slavery. Roman rule was again challenged during the Bar Kokhba revolt, beginning in 132 CE and suppressed by the Romans in 135 CE. More recent research indicates that the Romans had founded Aelia Capitolina before the outbreak of the revolt, and found no evidence for Bar Kokhba ever managing to hold the city.

 

Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population at the end of the Second Temple Period, when the city covered two km2 (3⁄4 sq mi) and had a population of 200,000.

 

Late Antiquity

Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Emperor Hadrian combined Iudaea Province with neighbouring provinces under the new name of Syria Palaestina, replacing the name of Judea. The city was renamed Aelia Capitolina, and rebuilt it in the style of a typical Roman town. Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death, except for one day each year, during the holiday of Tisha B'Av. Taken together, these measures (which also affected Jewish Christians) essentially "secularized" the city. Historical sources and archaeological evidence indicate that the rebuilt city was now inhabited by veterans of the Roman military and immigrants from the western parts of the empire.

 

The ban against Jews was maintained until the 7th century, though Christians would soon be granted an exemption: during the 4th century, the Roman emperor Constantine I ordered the construction of Christian holy sites in the city, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Burial remains from the Byzantine period are exclusively Christian, suggesting that the population of Jerusalem in Byzantine times probably consisted only of Christians.

 

Jerusalem.

In the 5th century, the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire, ruled from the recently renamed Constantinople, maintained control of the city. Within the span of a few decades, Jerusalem shifted from Byzantine to Persian rule, then back to Roman-Byzantine dominion. Following Sassanid Khosrau II's early 7th century push through Syria, his generals Shahrbaraz and Shahin attacked Jerusalem (Persian: Dej Houdkh) aided by the Jews of Palaestina Prima, who had risen up against the Byzantines.

 

In the Siege of Jerusalem of 614, after 21 days of relentless siege warfare, Jerusalem was captured. Byzantine chronicles relate that the Sassanids and Jews slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians in the city, many at the Mamilla Pool, and destroyed their monuments and churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This episode has been the subject of much debate between historians. The conquered city would remain in Sassanid hands for some fifteen years until the Byzantine emperor Heraclius reconquered it in 629.

 

Middle Ages

After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Byzantine Jerusalem was taken by Umar ibn al-Khattab in 638 CE. Among the first Muslims, it was referred to as Madinat bayt al-Maqdis ("City of the Temple"), a name restricted to the Temple Mount. The rest of the city "was called Iliya, reflecting the Roman name given the city following the destruction of 70 CE: Aelia Capitolina". Later the Temple Mount became known as al-Haram al-Sharif, "The Noble Sanctuary", while the city around it became known as Bayt al-Maqdis, and later still, al-Quds al-Sharif "The Holy, Noble". The Islamization of Jerusalem began in the first year A.H. (623 CE), when Muslims were instructed to face the city while performing their daily prostrations and, according to Muslim religious tradition, Muhammad's night journey and ascension to heaven took place. After 13 years, the direction of prayer was changed to Mecca. In 638 CE the Islamic Caliphate extended its dominion to Jerusalem. With the Muslim conquest, Jews were allowed back into the city. The Rashidun caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab signed a treaty with Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius, assuring him that Jerusalem's Christian holy places and population would be protected under Muslim rule. Christian-Arab tradition records that, when led to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites for Christians, the caliph Umar refused to pray in the church so that Muslims would not request conversion of the church to a mosque. He prayed outside the church, where the Mosque of Umar (Omar) stands to this day, opposite the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. According to the Gaullic bishop Arculf, who lived in Jerusalem from 679 to 688, the Mosque of Umar was a rectangular wooden structure built over ruins which could accommodate 3,000 worshipers.

 

When the Arab armies under Umar went to Bayt Al-Maq

At Irstead church, Norfolk.

St Andrew, Bramfield, Suffolk

 

An attractive thatched church with a detached round tower in a lovely village. Most memorable is the 1629 memorial to Arthur and Elizabeth Coke by Nicholas Stone, but there is also a good screen which incorporates gessowork as at nearby Southwold, and some memorable ledgerstone inscriptions.

 

The 1860s decorative glass by Emily Owles & Son is excellent, so like that by Constantine Woolnough at Dennington that they may be to his design. There is more of their glass at South Elmham All Saints.

 

Bramfield: www.suffolkchurches.co.uk/bramfield.htm

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. According to traditions dating back to the 4th century, it contains the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified, at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus's empty tomb, where he is believed by Christians to have been buried and resurrected. Each time the church was rebuilt, some of the antiquities from the preceding structure were used in the newer renovation. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule. The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site.

 

Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the 4th century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection').

 

Control of the church itself is shared, a simultaneum, among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic, and to a lesser degree the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.

 

Following the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish–Roman War, Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins. In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of a Roman colony, the new city of Aelia Capitolina, on the site. Circa AD 135, he ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb be filled in to create a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus. The temple remained until the early 4th century.

 

After allegedly seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312, Constantine the Great began to favor Christianity, signed the Edict of Milan legalising the religion, and sent his mother, Helena, to Jerusalem to look for Christ's tomb. With the help of Bishop of Caesarea Eusebius and Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb; one which allegedly cured people of death was presumed to be the True Cross Jesus was crucified on, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary. Constantine ordered in about 326 that the temple to Jupiter/Venus be replaced by a church. After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus. A shrine was built, enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own.

 

In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus.

 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, planned by the architect Zenobius, was built as separate constructs over the two holy sites: a rotunda called the Anastasis ("Resurrection"), where Helena and Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried, and across a courtyard to the east, the great basilica, an enclosed colonnaded atrium (the Triportico, sometimes called the Martyrium) with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner. The church was consecrated on 13 September 335. The Church Of The Holy Sepulchre site has been recognized since early in the 4th century as the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead.

 

This building was destroyed by a fire in May of AD 614, when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrau II, invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city. After Jerusalem came under Islamic rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, but at the time of prayer, turned away from the church and prayed outside. He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius of Alexandria adds that Umar wrote a decree saying that Muslims would not inhabit this location. The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746.

 

Early in the 9th century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas I. In 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, a riot broke out, which was followed by reprisals. The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, and Patriarch John VII was murdered.

 

On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt. The damage was extensive, with few parts of the early church remaining, and the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged; the original shrine was destroyed. Some partial repairs followed. Christian Europe reacted with shock and expulsions of Jews, serving as an impetus to later Crusades.

 

In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–28, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir (al-Hakim's son) agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the church. The rebuilding was finally completed during the tenures of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople in 1048. As a concession, the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az-Zahir's name. Muslim sources say a by-product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under al-Hakim's persecutions. In addition, the Byzantines, while releasing 5,000 Muslim prisoners, made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by al-Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem. Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made. Still, "a total replacement was far beyond available resources. The new construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings: the great basilica remained in ruins."

 

The rebuilt church site consisted of "a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it." The chapels were east of the court of resurrection (when reconstructed, the location of the tomb was under open sky), where the western wall of the great basilica had been. They commemorated scenes from the passion, such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation, and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets. The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims' devotion to the suffering of Christ. They have been described as 'a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature'... since little or no rebuilding took place on the site of the great basilica. Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the 11th century found much of the sacred site in ruins." Control of Jerusalem, and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks (loyal to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad) until the Crusaders' arrival in 1099.

 

Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II, when calling for the First Crusade, was the threat to Constantinople from the Turkish invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also of concern, if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids (who had recently taken it from the Abassids) by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099.

 

The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage, and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. The classical theory is that Crusader leader Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem, decided not to use the title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri ("Protector [or Defender] of the Holy Sepulchre"). By the Crusader period, a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been where Helena had found the True Cross, and began to be venerated as such; the cistern later became the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross, but there is no evidence of the site's identification before the 11th century, and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th-century repairs by Monomachos.

 

According to the German priest and pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim, the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians", and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given to them by the pilgrims at the south door of the church.

 

Eight 11th- and 12th-century Crusader leaders (Godfrey, Baldwin I, Baldwin II, Fulk, Baldwin III, Amalric, Baldwin IV and Baldwin V — the first eight rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem) were buried in the south transept and inside the Chapel of Adam. The royal tombs were destroyed by the Greeks in 1809–1810. It is unclear if the remains of those men were exhumed; some researchers hypothesize that some of them may still be in unmarked pits under the church.

 

William of Tyre, chronicler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, reports on the renovation of the Church in the mid-12th century. The Crusaders investigated the eastern ruins on the site, occasionally excavating through the rubble, and while attempting to reach the cistern, they discovered part of the original ground level of Hadrian's temple enclosure; they transformed this space into a chapel dedicated to Helena, widening their original excavation tunnel into a proper staircase. The Crusaders began to refurnish the church in Romanesque style and added a bell tower. These renovations unified the small chapels on the site and were completed during the reign of Queen Melisende in 1149, placing all the holy places under one roof for the first time. The church became the seat of the first Latin patriarchs and the site of the kingdom's scriptorium. It was lost to Saladin, along with the rest of the city, in 1187, although the treaty established after the Third Crusade allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the site. Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–50) regained the city and the church by treaty in the 13th century while under a ban of excommunication, with the curious consequence that the holiest church in Christianity was laid under interdict. The church seems to have been largely in the hands of Greek Orthodox patriarch Athanasius II of Jerusalem (c. 1231–47) during the Latin control of Jerusalem. Both city and church were captured by the Khwarezmians in 1244.

 

There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian (Church of the East) presence at the Holy Sepulchre from the years 1348 through 1575, as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate. The Franciscan friars renovated the church in 1555, as it had been neglected despite increased numbers of pilgrims. The Franciscans rebuilt the Aedicule, extending the structure to create an antechamber. A marble shrine commissioned by Friar Boniface of Ragusa was placed to envelop the remains of Christ's tomb, probably to prevent pilgrims from touching the original rock or taking small pieces as souvenirs. A marble slab was placed over the limestone burial bed where Jesus's body is believed to have lain.

 

After the renovation of 1555, control of the church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox, depending on which community could obtain a favorable firman from the "Sublime Porte" at a particular time, often through outright bribery. Violent clashes were not uncommon. There was no agreement about this question, although it was discussed at the negotiations to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. During the Holy Week of 1757, Orthodox Christians reportedly took over some of the Franciscan-controlled church. This may have been the cause of the sultan's firman (decree) later developed into the Status Quo.

 

A fire severely damaged the structure again in 1808, causing the dome of the Rotunda to collapse and smashing the Aedicule's exterior decoration. The Rotunda and the Aedicule's exterior were rebuilt in 1809–10 by architect Nikolaos Ch. Komnenos of Mytilene in the contemporary Ottoman Baroque style.[citation needed] The interior of the antechamber, now known as the Chapel of the Angel, was partly rebuilt to a square ground plan in place of the previously semicircular western end.

 

Another decree in 1853 from the sultan solidified the existing territorial division among the communities and solidified the Status Quo for arrangements to "remain in their present state", requiring consensus to make even minor changes.

 

The dome was restored by Catholics, Greeks and Turks in 1868, being made of iron ever since.

 

By the time of the British Mandate for Palestine following the end of World War I, the cladding of red marble applied to the Aedicule by Komnenos had deteriorated badly and was detaching from the underlying structure; from 1947 until restoration work in 2016–17, it was held in place with an exterior scaffolding of iron girders installed by the British authorities.

 

In 1948, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and the Old City with the church were made part of Jordan. In 1967, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in the Six Day War, and that area has remained under Israeli control ever since. Under Israeli rule, legal arrangements relating to the churches of East Jerusalem were maintained in coordination with the Jordanian government. The dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was restored again in 1994–97 as part of extensive modern renovations that have been ongoing since 1959. During the 1970–78 restoration works and excavations inside the building, and under the nearby Muristan bazaar, it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white meleke limestone was struck.

 

East of the Chapel of Saint Helena, the excavators discovered a void containing a second-century[dubious – discuss] drawing of a Roman pilgrim ship, two low walls supporting the platform of Hadrian's second-century temple, and a higher fourth-century wall built to support Constantine's basilica. After the excavations of the early 1970s, the Armenian authorities converted this archaeological space into the Chapel of Saint Vartan, and created an artificial walkway over the quarry on the north of the chapel, so that the new chapel could be accessed (by permission) from the Chapel of Saint Helena.

 

After seven decades of being held together by steel girders, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared the visibly deteriorating Aedicule structure unsafe. A restoration of the Aedicule was agreed upon and executed from May 2016 to March 2017. Much of the $4 million project was funded by the World Monuments Fund, as well as $1.3 million from Mica Ertegun and a significant sum from King Abdullah II of Jordan. The existence of the original limestone cave walls within the Aedicule was confirmed, and a window was created to view this from the inside. The presence of moisture led to the discovery of an underground shaft resembling an escape tunnel carved into the bedrock, seeming to lead from the tomb. For the first time since at least 1555, on 26 October 2016, marble cladding that protects the supposed burial bed of Jesus was removed. Members of the National Technical University of Athens were present. Initially, only a layer of debris was visible. This was cleared in the next day, and a partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved was revealed. By the night of 28 October, the original limestone burial bed was shown to be intact. The tomb was resealed shortly thereafter. Mortar from just above the burial bed was later dated to the mid-fourth century.

 

On 25 March 2020, Israeli health officials ordered the site closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the keeper of the keys, it was the first such closure since 1349, during the Black Death. Clerics continued regular prayers inside the building, and it reopened to visitors two months later, on 24 May.

 

During church renovations in 2022, a stone slab covered in modern graffiti was moved from a wall, revealing Cosmatesque-style decoration on one face. According to an IAA archaeologist, the decoration was once inlaid with pieces of glass and fine marble; it indicates that the relic was the front of the church's high altar from the Crusader era (c. 1149), which was later used by the Greek Orthodox until being damaged in the 1808 fire.

 

The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis. Two streets open into the parvis: St Helena Road (west) and Suq ed-Dabbagha (east). Around the parvis are a few smaller structures.

 

South of the parvis, opposite the church:

 

Broken columns—once forming part of an arcade—stand opposite the church, at the top of a short descending staircase stretching over the entire breadth of the parvis. In the 13th century, the tops of the columns were removed and sent to Mecca by the Khwarezmids.

The Gethsemane Metochion, a small Greek Orthodox monastery (metochion).

On the eastern side of the parvis, south to north:

 

The Monastery of St Abraham (Greek Orthodox), next to the Suq ed-Dabbagha entrance to the parvis.

The Chapel of St John the Evangelist (Armenian Orthodox)

The Chapel of St Michael and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures (both are disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians), giving access to Deir es-Sultan (also disputed), a rooftop monastery surrounding the dome of the Chapel of St Helena.

North of the parvis, in front of the church façade or against it:

 

Chapel of the Franks (Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows): a blue-domed Roman Catholic Crusader chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which once provided exclusive access to Calvary. The chapel marks the 10th Station of the Cross (the stripping of Jesus's garments).

Oratory of St. Mary of Egypt: a Greek Orthodox oratory and chapel, directly beneath the Chapel of the Franks, dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt.

The tomb (including a ledgerstone) of Philip d'Aubigny aka Philip Daubeney (died 1236), a knight, tutor, and royal councilor to Henry III of England and signer of the Magna Carta—is placed in front of, and between, the church's two original entrance doors, of which the eastern one is walled up. It is one of the few tombs of crusaders and other Europeans not removed from the Church after the Khwarizmian capture of Jerusalem in 1244. In the 1900s, during a fight between the Greeks and Latins, some monks damaged the tomb by throwing stones from the roof. A stone marker[clarification needed] was placed on his tomb in 1925, sheltered by a wooden trapdoor that hides it from view.[citation needed]

A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side. They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church. The southernmost chapel was the vestibule, the middle chapel the baptistery, and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex. Now they are dedicated as (from south to north)

 

The Chapel of St. James the Just (Greek Orthodox),

The Chapel of St. John the Baptist (Greek Orthodox),

The Chapel of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (Greek Orthodox; at the base of the bell tower).

 

The 12th-century Crusader bell tower is just south of the Rotunda, to the left of the entrance. Its upper level was lost in a 1545 collapse. In 1719, another two storeys were lost.

 

The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved arched doors. Today, only the left-hand entrance is currently accessible, as the right doorway has long since been bricked up. The entrance to the church leads to the south transept, through the crusader façade in the parvis of a larger courtyard. This is found past a group of streets winding through the outer Via Dolorosa by way of a souq in the Muristan. This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times. For example, when a fire broke out in 1840, dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death.

 

According to their own family lore, the Muslim Nuseibeh family has been responsible for opening the door as an impartial party to the church's denominations already since the seventh century. However, they themselves admit that the documents held by various Christian denominations only mention their role since the 12th century, in the time of Saladin, which is the date more generally accepted. After retaking Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, Saladin entrusted the Joudeh family with the key to the church, which is made of iron and 30 centimetres (12 in) long; the Nuseibehs either became or remained its doorkeepers.

 

The 'immovable ladder' stands beneath a window on the façade.

 

Just inside the church entrance is a stairway leading up to Calvary (Golgotha), traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus's crucifixion and the most lavishly decorated part of the church. The exit is via another stairway opposite the first, leading down to the ambulatory. Golgotha and its chapels are just south of the main altar of the catholicon.

 

Calvary is split into two chapels: one Greek Orthodox and one Catholic, each with its own altar. On the left (north) side, the Greek Orthodox chapel's altar is placed over the supposed rock of Calvary (the 12th Station of the Cross), which can be touched through a hole in the floor beneath the altar. The rock can be seen under protective glass on both sides of the altar. The softer surrounding stone was removed when the church was built. The Roman Catholic (Franciscan) Chapel of the Nailing of the Cross (the 11th Station of the Cross) stretches to the south. Between the Catholic Altar of the Nailing to the Cross and the Orthodox altar is the Catholic Altar of the Stabat Mater, which has a statue of Mary with an 18th-century bust; this middle altar marks the 13th Station of the Cross.

 

On the ground floor, just underneath the Golgotha chapel, is the Chapel of Adam. According to tradition, Jesus was crucified over the place where Adam's skull was buried. According to some, the blood of Christ ran down the cross and through the rocks to fill Adam's skull. Through a window at the back of the 11th-century apse, the rock of Calvary can be seen with a crack traditionally held to be caused by the earthquake that followed Jesus's death;[78] some scholars claim it is the result of quarrying against a natural flaw in the rock.

 

Behind the Chapel of Adam is the Greek Treasury (Treasury of the Greek Patriarch). Some of its relics, such as a 12th-century crystal mitre, were transferred to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Museum (the Patriarchal Museum) on Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Street.

 

Just inside the entrance to the church is the Stone of Anointing (also Stone of the Anointing or Stone of Unction), which tradition holds to be where Jesus's body was prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea, though this tradition is only attested since the crusader era (notably by the Italian Dominican pilgrim Riccoldo da Monte di Croce in 1288), and the present stone was only added in the 1810 reconstruction.

 

The wall behind the stone is defined by its striking blue balconies and taphos symbol-bearing red banners (depicting the insignia of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre), and is decorated with lamps. The modern mosaic along the wall depicts the anointing of Jesus's body, preceded on the right by the Descent from the Cross, and succeeded on the left by the Burial of Jesus.

 

The wall was a temporary addition to support the arch above it, which had been weakened after the damage in the 1808 fire; it blocks the view of the rotunda, separates the entrance from the catholicon, sits on top of four of the now empty and desecrated Crusader graves and is no longer structurally necessary. Opinions differ as to whether it is to be seen as the 13th Station of the Cross, which others identify as the lowering of Jesus from the cross and located between the 11th and 12th stations on Calvary.

 

The lamps that hang over the Stone of Unction, adorned with cross-bearing chain links, are contributed by Armenians, Copts, Greeks and Latins.

 

Immediately inside and to the left of the entrance is a bench (formerly a divan) that has traditionally been used by the church's Muslim doorkeepers, along with some Christian clergy, as well as electrical wiring. To the right of the entrance is a wall along the ambulatory containing the staircase leading to Golgotha. Further along the same wall is the entrance to the Chapel of Adam.

 

The rotunda is the building of the larger dome located on the far west side. In the centre of the rotunda is a small chapel called the Aedicule in English, from the Latin aedicula, in reference to a small shrine. The Aedicule has two rooms: the first holds a relic called the Angel's Stone, which is believed to be a fragment of the large stone that sealed the tomb; the second, smaller room contains the tomb of Jesus. Possibly to prevent pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs, by 1555, a surface of marble cladding was placed on the tomb to prevent further damage to the tomb. In October 2016, the top slab was pulled back to reveal an older, partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved in it. Beneath it, the limestone burial bed was revealed to be intact.

 

Under the Status Quo, the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches all have rights to the interior of the tomb, and all three communities celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Holy Mass there daily. It is also used for other ceremonies on special occasions, such as the Holy Saturday ceremony of the Holy Fire led by the Greek Orthodox patriarch (with the participation of the Coptic and Armenian patriarchs). To its rear, in the Coptic Chapel, constructed of iron latticework, lies the altar used by the Coptic Orthodox. Historically, the Georgians also retained the key to the Aedicule.

 

To the right of the sepulchre on the northwestern edge of the Rotunda is the Chapel of the Apparition, which is reserved for Roman Catholic use.

 

In the central nave of the Crusader-era church, just east of the larger rotunda, is the Crusader structure housing the main altar of the Church, today the Greek Orthodox catholicon. Its dome is 19.8 metres (65 ft) in diameter, and is set directly over the centre of the transept crossing of the choir where the compas is situated, an omphalos ("navel") stone once thought to be the center of the world and still venerated as such by Orthodox Christians (associated with the site of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection).

 

Since 1996 this dome is topped by the monumental Golgotha Crucifix, which the Greek Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem consecrated. It was at the initiative of Israeli professor Gustav Kühnel to erect a new crucifix at the church that would not only be worthy of the singularity of the site, but that would also become a symbol of the efforts of unity in the community of Christian faith.

 

The catholicon's iconostasis demarcates the Orthodox sanctuary behind it, to its east. The iconostasis is flanked to the front by two episcopal thrones: the southern seat (cathedra) is the patriarchal throne of the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, and the northern seat is for an archbishop or bishop. (There is also a popular claim that both are patriarchal thrones, with the northern one being for the patriarch of Antioch — which has been described as a misstatement, however.)

 

South of the Aedicule is the "Place of the Three Marys", marked by a stone canopy (the Station of the Holy Women) and a large modern wall mosaic. From here one can enter the Armenian monastery, which stretches over the ground and first upper floor of the church's southeastern part.

 

West of the Aedicule, to the rear of the Rotunda, is the Syriac Chapel with the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, located in a Constantinian apse and containing an opening to an ancient Jewish rock-cut tomb. This chapel is where the Syriac Orthodox celebrate their Liturgy on Sundays.

 

The Syriac Orthodox Chapel of Saint Joseph of Arimathea and Saint Nicodemus. On Sundays and feast days it is furnished for the celebration of Mass. It is accessed from the Rotunda, by a door west of the Aedicule.

 

On the far side of the chapel is the low entrance to an almost complete first-century Jewish tomb, initially holding six kokh-type funeral shafts radiating from a central chamber, two of which are still exposed. Although this space was discovered relatively recently and contains no identifying marks, some believe that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were buried here. Since Jews always buried their dead outside the city, the presence of this tomb seems to prove that the Holy Sepulchre site was outside the city walls at the time of the crucifixion.

 

The Franciscan Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene – The chapel, an open area, indicates the place where Mary Magdalene met Jesus after his resurrection.

 

The Franciscan Chapel of the Apparition (Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament), directly north of the above – in memory of Jesus's meeting with his mother after the Resurrection, a non-scriptural tradition. Here stands a piece of an ancient column, allegedly part of the one Jesus was tied to during his scourging.

 

The Arches of the Virgin are seven arches (an arcade) at the northern end of the north transept, which is to the catholicon's north. Disputed by the Orthodox and the Latin, the area is used to store ladders.

 

In the northeast side of the complex, there is the Prison of Christ, alleged to be where Jesus was held. The Greek Orthodox are showing pilgrims yet another place where Jesus was allegedly held, the similarly named Prison of Christ in their Monastery of the Praetorium, located near the Church of Ecce Homo, between the Second and Third Stations of the Via Dolorosa. The Armenians regard a recess in the Monastery of the Flagellation at the Second Station of the Via Dolorosa as the Prison of Christ. A cistern among the ruins beneath the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu on Mount Zion is also alleged to have been the Prison of Christ. To reconcile the traditions, some allege that Jesus was held in the Mount Zion cell in connection with his trial by the Jewish high priest, at the Praetorium in connection with his trial by the Roman governor Pilate, and near the Golgotha before crucifixion.

 

The chapels in the ambulatory are, from north to south: the Greek Chapel of Saint Longinus (named after Longinus), the Armenian Chapel of the Division of Robes, the entrance to the Chapel of Saint Helena, and the Greek Chapel of the Derision.

 

Chapel of Saint Helena – between the Chapel of the Division of Robes and the Greek Chapel of the Derision are stairs descending to the Chapel of Saint Helena. The Armenians, who own it, call it the Chapel of St. Gregory the Illuminator, after the saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians.

 

Chapel of St Vartan (or Vardan) Mamikonian – on the north side of the Chapel of Saint Helena is an ornate wrought iron door, beyond which a raised artificial platform affords views of the quarry, and which leads to the Chapel of Saint Vartan. The latter chapel contains archaeological remains from Hadrian's temple and Constantine's basilica. These areas are open only on request.

 

Chapel of the Invention of the Cross (named for the Invention (Finding) of the Holy Cross) – another set of 22 stairs from the Chapel of Saint Helena leads down to the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross, believed to be the place where the True Cross was found.

 

An Ottoman decree of 1757 helped establish a status quo upholding the state of affairs for various Holy Land sites. The status quo was upheld in Sultan Abdülmecid I's firman (decree) of 1852/3, which pinned down the now-permanent statutes of property and the regulations concerning the roles of the different denominations and other custodians.

 

The primary custodians are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches. The Greek Orthodox act through the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as well as through the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Roman Catholics act through the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. In the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox also acquired lesser responsibilities, which include shrines and other structures in and around the building.

 

None of these controls the main entrance. In 1192, Saladin assigned door-keeping responsibilities to the Muslim Nusaybah family. The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved doors. The Joudeh al-Goudia (al-Ghodayya) family were entrusted as custodian to the keys of the Holy Sepulchre by Saladin in 1187. Despite occasional disagreements, religious services take place in the Church with regularity and coexistence is generally peaceful. An example of concord between the Church custodians is the full restoration of the Aedicule from 2016 to 2017.

 

The establishment of the modern Status Quo in 1853 did not halt controversy and occasional violence. In 1902, 18 friars were hospitalized and some monks were jailed after the Franciscans and Greeks disagreed over who could clean the lowest step of the Chapel of the Franks. In the aftermath, the Greek patriarch, Franciscan custos, Ottoman governor and French consul general signed a convention that both denominations could sweep it. On a hot summer day in 2002, a Coptic monk moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting fight. In another incident in 2004, during Orthodox celebrations of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a door to the Franciscan chapel was left open. This was taken as a sign of disrespect by the Orthodox and a fistfight broke out. Some people were arrested, but no one was seriously injured.

 

On Palm Sunday, in April 2008, a brawl broke out when a Greek monk was ejected from the building by a rival faction. Police were called to the scene but were also attacked by the enraged brawlers. On Sunday, 9 November 2008, a clash erupted between Armenian and Greek monks during celebrations for the Feast of the Cross.

 

In February 2018, the church was closed following a tax dispute over 152 million euros of uncollected taxes on church properties. The city hall stressed that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all other churches are exempt from the taxes, with the changes only affecting establishments like "hotels, halls and businesses" owned by the churches. NPR had reported that the Greek Orthodox Church calls itself the second-largest landowner in Israel, after the Israeli government.

 

There was a lock-in protest against an Israeli legislative proposal which would expropriate church lands that had been sold to private companies since 2010, a measure which church leaders assert constitutes a serious violation of their property rights and the Status Quo. In a joint official statement the church authorities protested what they considered to be the peak of a systematic campaign in:

 

a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of the Christian community in the Holy Land ... This reminds us all of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe.

 

The 2018 taxation affair does not cover any church buildings or religious related facilities (because they are exempt by law), but commercial facilities such as the Notre Dame Hotel which was not paying the municipal property tax, and any land which is owned and used as a commercial land. The church holds the rights to land where private homes have been constructed, and some of the disagreement had been raised after the Knesset had proposed a bill that will make it harder for a private company not to extend a lease for land used by homeowners. The church leaders have said that such a bill will make it harder for them to sell church-owned lands. According to The Jerusalem Post:

 

The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand.

 

In June 2019, a number of Christian denominations in Jerusalem raised their voice against the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the sale of three properties by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Ateret Cohanim – an organization that seeks to increase the number of Jews living in the Old City and East Jerusalem. The church leaders warned that if the organization gets to control the sites, Christians could lose access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In June 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the sale and ended the legal battle.

 

The site of the church had been a temple to Jupiter or Venus built by Hadrian before Constantine's edifice was built. Hadrian's temple had been located there because it was the junction of the main north–south road with one of the two main east–west roads and directly adjacent to the forum (now the location of the Muristan, which is smaller than the former forum). The forum itself had been placed, as is traditional in Roman towns, at the junction of the main north–south road with the other main east–west road (which is now El-Bazar/David Street). The temple and forum together took up the entire space between the two main east–west roads (a few above-ground remains of the east end of the temple precinct still survive in the Alexander Nevsky Church complex of the Russian Mission in Exile).

 

From the archaeological excavations in the 1970s, it is clear that construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure and that the Triportico and Rotunda roughly overlapped with the temple building itself; the excavations indicate that the temple extended at least as far back as the Aedicule, and the temple enclosure would have reached back slightly further. Virgilio Canio Corbo, a Franciscan priest and archaeologist, who was present at the excavations, estimated from the archaeological evidence that the western retaining wall of the temple itself would have passed extremely close to the east side of the supposed tomb; if the wall had been any further west any tomb would have been crushed under the weight of the wall (which would be immediately above it) if it had not already been destroyed when foundations for the wall were made.

 

Other archaeologists have criticized Corbo's reconstructions. Dan Bahat, the former city archaeologist of Jerusalem, regards them as unsatisfactory, as there is no known temple of Aphrodite (Venus) matching Corbo's design, and no archaeological evidence for Corbo's suggestion that the temple building was on a platform raised high enough to avoid including anything sited where the Aedicule is now; indeed Bahat notes that many temples to Aphrodite have a rotunda-like design, and argues that there is no archaeological reason to assume that the present rotunda was not based on a rotunda in the temple previously on the site.

 

The New Testament describes Jesus's tomb as being outside the city wall,[l] as was normal for burials across the ancient world, which were regarded as unclean. Today, the site of the Church is within the current walls of the old city of Jerusalem. It has been well documented by archaeologists that in the time of Jesus, the walled city was smaller and the wall then was to the east of the current site of the Church. In other words, the city had been much narrower in Jesus's time, with the site then having been outside the walls; since Herod Agrippa (41–44) is recorded by history as extending the city to the north (beyond the present northern walls), the required repositioning of the western wall is traditionally attributed to him as well.

 

The area immediately to the south and east of the sepulchre was a quarry and outside the city during the early first century as excavations under the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer across the street demonstrated.[citation needed]

 

The church is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old City of Jerusalem.

 

The Christian Quarter and the (also Christian) Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem are both located in the northwestern and western part of the Old City, due to the fact that the Holy Sepulchre is located close to the northwestern corner of the walled city. The adjacent neighbourhood within the Christian Quarter is called the Muristan, a term derived from the Persian word for hospital – Christian pilgrim hospices have been maintained in this area near the Holy Sepulchre since at least the time of Charlemagne.

 

From the ninth century onward, the construction of churches inspired by the Anastasis was extended across Europe. One example is Santo Stefano in Bologna, Italy, an agglomeration of seven churches recreating shrines of Jerusalem.

 

Several churches and monasteries in Europe, for instance, in Germany and Russia, and at least one church in the United States have been wholly or partially modeled on the Church of the Resurrection, some even reproducing other holy places for the benefit of pilgrims who could not travel to the Holy Land. They include the Heiliges Grab ("Holy Tomb") of Görlitz, constructed between 1481 and 1504, the New Jerusalem Monastery in Moscow Oblast, constructed by Patriarch Nikon between 1656 and 1666, and Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery built by the Franciscans in Washington, DC in 1898.

 

Author Andrew Holt writes that the church is the most important in all Christendom.

 

Jerusalem is an ancient city in West Asia, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Both Israel and Palestine claim Jerusalem as their capital; Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there, and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Neither claim, however, is widely recognized internationally.

 

Throughout its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. During the Canaanite period (14th century BCE), Jerusalem was named as Urusalim on ancient Egyptian tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 10th century BCE (Iron Age II), and by the 9th century BCE, the city had developed into the religious and administrative centre of the Kingdom of Judah. In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for a last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. Today those walls define the Old City, which since the 19th century has been divided into four quarters – the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Since 1860, Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2022, Jerusalem had a population of some 971,800 residents, of which almost 60% were Jews and almost 40% Palestinians. In 2020, the population was 951,100, of which Jews comprised 570,100 (59.9%), Muslims 353,800 (37.2%), Christians 16,300 (1.7%), and 10,800 unclassified (1.1%).

 

According to the Hebrew Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel, and his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous—and later monotheistic—religion centred on El/Yahweh. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of holy city (Hebrew: עיר הקודש, romanized: 'Ir ha-Qodesh) was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, which Christians adopted as their own "Old Testament", was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. The city was the first qibla, the standard direction for Muslim prayers (salah), and in Islamic tradition, Muhammad made his Night Journey there in 621, ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran. As a result, despite having an area of only 0.9 km2 (3⁄8 sq mi), the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

 

Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and later annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently effectively annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory.[note 6] One of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the residences of the Prime Minister (Beit Aghion) and President (Beit HaNassi), and the Supreme Court. The international community rejects the annexation as illegal and regards East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.

 

Etymology

The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation (Semitic yry' 'to found, to lay a cornerstone') of the pagan god Shalem"; the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city.

 

Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived (Shalom in Hebrew, cognate with Arabic Salam). The name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace", "Dwelling of Peace" ("founded in safety"), or "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors.

 

The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city initially sat on two hills.

 

Ancient Egyptian sources

The Execration Texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 19th century BCE), which refer to a city called rwšꜣlmm or ꜣwšꜣmm, variously transcribed as Rušalimum, or Urušalimum, may indicate Jerusalem. Alternatively, the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba (1330s BCE), which reference an Úrušalim, may be the earliest mention of the city.

 

Hebrew Bible and Jewish sources

The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of two names united by God, Yireh ("the abiding place", the name given by Abraham to the place where he planned to sacrifice his son) and Shalem ("Place of Peace", the name given by high priest Shem).

 

Oldest written mention of Jerusalem

One of the earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states: "I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem", or as other scholars suggest: "Yahweh is the God of the whole earth. The mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem". An older example on papyrus is known from the previous century.

 

In extra-biblical inscriptions, the earliest known example of the -ayim ending was discovered on a column about 3 km west of ancient Jerusalem, dated to the first century BCE.

 

Jebus, Zion, City of David

An ancient settlement of Jerusalem, founded as early as the Bronze Age on the hill above the Gihon Spring, was, according to the Bible, named Jebus. Called the "Fortress of Zion" (metsudat Zion), it was renamed as the "City of David", and was known by this name in antiquity. Another name, "Zion", initially referred to a distinct part of the city, but later came to signify the city as a whole, and afterwards to represent the whole biblical Land of Israel.

 

Greek, Roman and Byzantine names

In Greek and Latin, the city's name was transliterated Hierosolyma (Greek: Ἱεροσόλυμα; in Greek hieròs, ἱερός, means holy), although the city was renamed Aelia Capitolina for part of the Roman period of its history.

 

Salem

The Aramaic Apocryphon of Genesis of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QapGen 22:13) equates Jerusalem with the earlier "Salem" (שלם), said to be the kingdom of Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Other early Hebrew sources, early Christian renderings of the verse and targumim, however, put Salem in Northern Israel near Shechem (Sichem), now Nablus, a city of some importance in early sacred Hebrew writing. Possibly the redactor of the Apocryphon of Genesis wanted to dissociate Melchizedek from the area of Shechem, which at the time was in possession of the Samaritans. However that may be, later Rabbinic sources also equate Salem with Jerusalem, mainly to link Melchizedek to later Temple traditions.

 

Arabic names

In Arabic, Jerusalem is most commonly known as القُدس, transliterated as al-Quds and meaning "the holy" or "the holy sanctuary", cognate with Hebrew: הקדש, romanized: ha-qodesh. The name is possibly a shortened form of مدينة القُدس Madīnat al-Quds "city of the holy sanctuary" after the Hebrew nickname with the same meaning, Ir ha-Qodesh (עיר הקדש). The ق (Q) is pronounced either with a voiceless uvular plosive (/q/), as in Classical Arabic, or with a glottal stop (ʔ) as in Levantine Arabic. Official Israeli government policy mandates that أُورُشَلِيمَ, transliterated as Ūrušalīm, which is the name frequently used in Christian translations of the Bible into Arabic, be used as the Arabic language name for the city in conjunction with القُدس, giving أُورُشَلِيمَ-القُدس, Ūrušalīm-al-Quds. Palestinian Arab families who hail from this city are often called "Qudsi" (قُدسي) or "Maqdasi" (مقدسي), while Palestinian Muslim Jerusalemites may use these terms as a demonym.

 

Given the city's central position in both Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and Palestinian nationalism, the selectivity required to summarize some 5,000 years of inhabited history is often influenced by ideological bias or background. Israeli or Jewish nationalists claim a right to the city based on Jewish indigeneity to the land, particularly their origins in and descent from the Israelites, for whom Jerusalem is their capital, and their yearning for return. In contrast, Palestinian nationalists claim the right to the city based on modern Palestinians' longstanding presence and descent from many different peoples who have settled or lived in the region over the centuries. Both sides claim the history of the city has been politicized by the other in order to strengthen their relative claims to the city, and that this is borne out by the different focuses the different writers place on the various events and eras in the city's history.

 

Prehistory

The first archaeological evidence of human presence in the area comes in the form of flints dated to between 6000 and 7000 years ago, with ceramic remains appearing during the Chalcolithic period, and the first signs of permanent settlement appearing in the Early Bronze Age in 3000–2800 BCE.

 

Bronze and Iron Ages

The earliest evidence of city fortifications appear in the Mid to Late Bronze Age and could date to around the 18th century BCE. By around 1550–1200 BCE, Jerusalem was the capital of an Egyptian vassal city-state, a modest settlement governing a few outlying villages and pastoral areas, with a small Egyptian garrison and ruled by appointees such as king Abdi-Heba. At the time of Seti I (r. 1290–1279 BCE) and Ramesses II (r. 1279–1213 BCE), major construction took place as prosperity increased. The city's inhabitants at this time were Canaanites, who are believed by scholars to have evolved into the Israelites via the development of a distinct Yahweh-centric monotheistic belief system.

 

Archaeological remains from the ancient Israelite period include the Siloam Tunnel, an aqueduct built by Judahite king Hezekiah and once containing an ancient Hebrew inscription, known as the Siloam Inscription; the so-called Broad Wall, a defensive fortification built in the 8th century BCE, also by Hezekiah; the Silwan necropolis (9th–7th c. BCE) with the Monolith of Silwan and the Tomb of the Royal Steward, which were decorated with monumental Hebrew inscriptions; and the so-called Israelite Tower, remnants of ancient fortifications, built from large, sturdy rocks with carved cornerstones. A huge water reservoir dating from this period was discovered in 2012 near Robinson's Arch, indicating the existence of a densely built-up quarter across the area west of the Temple Mount during the Kingdom of Judah.

 

When the Assyrians conquered the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem was strengthened by a great influx of refugees from the northern kingdom. When Hezekiah ruled, Jerusalem had no fewer than 25,000 inhabitants and covered 25 acres (10 hectares).

 

In 587–586 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered Jerusalem after a prolonged siege, and then systematically destroyed the city, including Solomon's Temple. The Kingdom of Judah was abolished and many were exiled to Babylon. These events mark the end of the First Temple period.

 

Biblical account

This period, when Canaan formed part of the Egyptian empire, corresponds in biblical accounts to Joshua's invasion, but almost all scholars agree that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel.

 

In the Bible, Jerusalem is defined as lying within territory allocated to the tribe of Benjamin though still inhabited by Jebusites. David is said to have conquered these in the siege of Jebus, and transferred his capital from Hebron to Jerusalem which then became the capital of a United Kingdom of Israel, and one of its several religious centres. The choice was perhaps dictated by the fact that Jerusalem did not form part of Israel's tribal system, and was thus suited to serve as the centre of its confederation. Opinion is divided over whether the so-called Large Stone Structure and the nearby Stepped Stone Structure may be identified with King David's palace, or dates to a later period.

 

According to the Bible, King David reigned for 40 years and was succeeded by his son Solomon, who built the Holy Temple on Mount Moriah. Solomon's Temple (later known as the First Temple), went on to play a pivotal role in Jewish religion as the repository of the Ark of the Covenant. On Solomon's death, ten of the northern tribes of Israel broke with the United Monarchy to form their own nation, with its kings, prophets, priests, traditions relating to religion, capitals and temples in northern Israel. The southern tribes, together with the Aaronid priesthood, remained in Jerusalem, with the city becoming the capital of the Kingdom of Judah.

 

Classical antiquity

In 538 BCE, the Achaemenid King Cyrus the Great invited the Jews of Babylon to return to Judah to rebuild the Temple. Construction of the Second Temple was completed in 516 BCE, during the reign of Darius the Great, 70 years after the destruction of the First Temple.

 

Sometime soon after 485 BCE Jerusalem was besieged, conquered and largely destroyed by a coalition of neighbouring states. In about 445 BCE, King Artaxerxes I of Persia issued a decree allowing the city (including its walls) to be rebuilt. Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and centre of Jewish worship.

 

Many Jewish tombs from the Second Temple period have been unearthed in Jerusalem. One example, discovered north of the Old City, contains human remains in a 1st-century CE ossuary decorated with the Aramaic inscription "Simon the Temple Builder". The Tomb of Abba, also located north of the Old City, bears an Aramaic inscription with Paleo-Hebrew letters reading: "I, Abba, son of the priest Eleaz(ar), son of Aaron the high (priest), Abba, the oppressed and the persecuted, who was born in Jerusalem, and went into exile into Babylonia and brought (back to Jerusalem) Mattathi(ah), son of Jud(ah), and buried him in a cave which I bought by deed." The Tomb of Benei Hezir located in Kidron Valley is decorated by monumental Doric columns and Hebrew inscription, identifying it as the burial site of Second Temple priests. The Tombs of the Sanhedrin, an underground complex of 63 rock-cut tombs, is located in a public park in the northern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sanhedria. These tombs, probably reserved for members of the Sanhedrin and inscribed by ancient Hebrew and Aramaic writings, are dated to between 100 BCE and 100 CE.

 

When Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire, Jerusalem and Judea came under Macedonian control, eventually falling to the Ptolemaic dynasty under Ptolemy I. In 198 BCE, Ptolemy V Epiphanes lost Jerusalem and Judea to the Seleucids under Antiochus III. The Seleucid attempt to recast Jerusalem as a Hellenized city-state came to a head in 168 BCE with the successful Maccabean revolt of Mattathias and his five sons against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and their establishment of the Hasmonean Kingdom in 152 BCE with Jerusalem as its capital.

 

In 63 BCE, Pompey the Great intervened in a struggle for the Hasmonean throne and captured Jerusalem, extending the influence of the Roman Republic over Judea. Following a short invasion by Parthians, backing the rival Hasmonean rulers, Judea became a scene of struggle between pro-Roman and pro-Parthian forces, eventually leading to the emergence of an Edomite named Herod. As Rome became stronger, it installed Herod as a client king of the Jews. Herod the Great, as he was known, devoted himself to developing and beautifying the city. He built walls, towers and palaces, and expanded the Temple Mount, buttressing the courtyard with blocks of stone weighing up to 100 tons. Under Herod, the area of the Temple Mount doubled in size. Shortly after Herod's death, in 6 CE Judea came under direct Roman rule as the Iudaea Province, although the Herodian dynasty through Agrippa II remained client kings of neighbouring territories until 96 CE.

 

Roman rule over Jerusalem and Judea was challenged in the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), which ended with a Roman victory. Early on, the city was devastated by a brutal civil war between several Jewish factions fighting for control of the city. In 70 CE, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple. The contemporary Jewish historian Josephus wrote that the city "was so thoroughly razed to the ground by those that demolished it to its foundations, that nothing was left that could ever persuade visitors that it had once been a place of habitation." Of the 600,000 (Tacitus) or 1,000,000 (Josephus) Jews of Jerusalem, all of them either died of starvation, were killed or were sold into slavery. Roman rule was again challenged during the Bar Kokhba revolt, beginning in 132 CE and suppressed by the Romans in 135 CE. More recent research indicates that the Romans had founded Aelia Capitolina before the outbreak of the revolt, and found no evidence for Bar Kokhba ever managing to hold the city.

 

Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population at the end of the Second Temple Period, when the city covered two km2 (3⁄4 sq mi) and had a population of 200,000.

 

Late Antiquity

Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Emperor Hadrian combined Iudaea Province with neighbouring provinces under the new name of Syria Palaestina, replacing the name of Judea. The city was renamed Aelia Capitolina, and rebuilt it in the style of a typical Roman town. Jews were prohibited from entering the city on pain of death, except for one day each year, during the holiday of Tisha B'Av. Taken together, these measures (which also affected Jewish Christians) essentially "secularized" the city. Historical sources and archaeological evidence indicate that the rebuilt city was now inhabited by veterans of the Roman military and immigrants from the western parts of the empire.

 

The ban against Jews was maintained until the 7th century, though Christians would soon be granted an exemption: during the 4th century, the Roman emperor Constantine I ordered the construction of Christian holy sites in the city, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Burial remains from the Byzantine period are exclusively Christian, suggesting that the population of Jerusalem in Byzantine times probably consisted only of Christians.

 

Jerusalem.

In the 5th century, the eastern continuation of the Roman Empire, ruled from the recently renamed Constantinople, maintained control of the city. Within the span of a few decades, Jerusalem shifted from Byzantine to Persian rule, then back to Roman-Byzantine dominion. Following Sassanid Khosrau II's early 7th century push through Syria, his generals Shahrbaraz and Shahin attacked Jerusalem (Persian: Dej Houdkh) aided by the Jews of Palaestina Prima, who had risen up against the Byzantines.

 

In the Siege of Jerusalem of 614, after 21 days of relentless siege warfare, Jerusalem was captured. Byzantine chronicles relate that the Sassanids and Jews slaughtered tens of thousands of Christians in the city, many at the Mamilla Pool, and destroyed their monuments and churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This episode has been the subject of much debate between historians. The conquered city would remain in Sassanid hands for some fifteen years until the Byzantine emperor Heraclius reconquered it in 629.

 

Middle Ages

After the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Byzantine Jerusalem was taken by Umar ibn al-Khattab in 638 CE. Among the first Muslims, it was referred to as Madinat bayt al-Maqdis ("City of the Temple"), a name restricted to the Temple Mount. The rest of the city "was called Iliya, reflecting the Roman name given the city following the destruction of 70 CE: Aelia Capitolina". Later the Temple Mount became known as al-Haram al-Sharif, "The Noble Sanctuary", while the city around it became known as Bayt al-Maqdis, and later still, al-Quds al-Sharif "The Holy, Noble". The Islamization of Jerusalem began in the first year A.H. (623 CE), when Muslims were instructed to face the city while performing their daily prostrations and, according to Muslim religious tradition, Muhammad's night journey and ascension to heaven took place. After 13 years, the direction of prayer was changed to Mecca. In 638 CE the Islamic Caliphate extended its dominion to Jerusalem. With the Muslim conquest, Jews were allowed back into the city. The Rashidun caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab signed a treaty with Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius, assuring him that Jerusalem's Christian holy places and population would be protected under Muslim rule. Christian-Arab tradition records that, when led to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the holiest sites for Christians, the caliph Umar refused to pray in the church so that Muslims would not request conversion of the church to a mosque. He prayed outside the church, where the Mosque of Umar (Omar) stands to this day, opposite the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. According to the Gaullic bishop Arculf, who lived in Jerusalem from 679 to 688, the Mosque of Umar was a rectangular wooden structure built over ruins which could accommodate 3,000 worshipers.

 

When the Arab armies under Umar went to Bayt Al-Maq

Awaiting restoration with Purbeck Marble ledger stones from the 18th century, but only rediscovered a few years ago.

c1500 Ayshford Court and its chapel once owned by the Ayshford lords of the manor of Burlescombe who built the chapel in the 15c at a time when it was fashionable in the west country for manor houses to have a private chapel for daily worship - their parish church at Burlescombe situated 3 miles away, being used for major festivals, rites of passage and their burial place.

 

Ayshford is first mentioned in a charter of AD 958 and later in the 1086 Doomsday Book as Aiseforda

 

The chapel is built of limestone from the Westleigh quarry and

laid as rubble. The putlog holes, where wooden scaffolding

was built into the walls as work progressed, remain visible on the outside. (Once the scaffolding was removed, the holes were infilled with small decorative Beerstone panels of quatrefoils). Externally the chapel is a single rectangle

with Perpendicular windows. The slate roof was renewed in the 19c after the opening of the Grand Western Canal at the bottom of its land made it easy to transport Welsh slate via the Bristol Channel.

Inside the nave & chancel are under a continuous 15c wagon roof featuring re-used medieval timbers and carved bosses (mostly foliate, one featuring a cryptic rebus) The 15c chancel screen decorated with stenciled green and red stars and rosettes, was repainted in the 19c though some original colour survives . www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/77by5yspc8 The remainder of the furniture, consisting of utilitarian oak pews, dates from the 19c. The chapel is floored with red and black glazed tiles, www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/40D484TJtG

The single bell in the turret dates from 1657 and is inscribed ‘The Bell is Henry Ayshford’s’

In the chancel is a chest tomb to the infant Henry Ayshford, a ‘spotless child’, who died in 1666 (famously a plague year) aged 1 year and 9 months, carrying an inscription on the top and a rhyme on the side. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1cRQ8X8556

In front of the altar is the worn ledgerstone to Henry Ayshford,

1649 carved in very soft yellow sandstone. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/RH8kAc235H

On the north nave wall is an elaborate memorial to John Ashford 1689 +++ the last of his male line 1688 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/Y02y5oVN59

The stained glass is of special interest. In the bottom of several windows are the intertwined initials JT (and in one the date 1848). This is the mark of John Toms of Wellington a stained-glass designer for many local churches. The ribbon text motif was used by many national studios, but here Toms has put his own slant on it to great effect. John Sanford 1711 son of Henry Sanford & Mary Ayshford, succeeded his cousing John Ayshford +++ - they employed John Toms at many of the churches in their patronage. The nave windows represent the twelve apostles, although it is difficult to identify each one. St John the Evangelist with his chalice and St Peter with his keys are both on the south side. On the north are St James the Less carrying a saw next to St Andrew and St Matthew with his moneybag next to St Thomas holding a set square. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/D95T291A25

Above the west door are two stone fragments from an 18c monument. One figure holds a skull, whilst the other holds an hourglass. Both are much weathered possibly having spent some time outside and must have come from a very grand monument www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/24u41nYV05

Since it was declared redundant, the chapel, a grade l listed building, is now maintained by the charity, the Friends of Friendless Churches, who hold a 125 year lease with effect from 1 February 2000. In 2001–02 the charity undertook major conservation work. This included restoring the salmon-pink limewash in the interior, and repairing the stained glass.

 

The manor house is now split into two residences. The main historic house was built by the Ashford / Ayshford family c 1500 with major additions in the 16c & 17c . The parlour wing was probably built by Roger Ayshford who died in 1611 and kneels on his monument in BURLESCOMBE Church.. The plasterwork was probably commissioned by Arthur Ayshford (1600 – 1642/7), his eldest son, who died without surviving male issue , his heir being his brother John 1654.

A transcript of a 1689 inventory showed the great wealth of the Ayshford family at that time which mentions a "painted chamber".

The Ayshford estates passed to the Sanford family of Nynehead Court, Somerset, by the marriage of the heiress Mary (1607–1662), daughter of Henry Ayshford, to Henry Sanford (1612–1644). They have a monument in Nynehead Church.

  

friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/202...

 

friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/202...

Picture with thanks - copyright Lobsterthermidor CCL commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AyshfordChapelBurlescombe...

A feature of the church is the memorial stones (ledger stones) on the floor. There are over 150 commemorating nearly 400 past residents of Ledbury.

A feature of the church is the memorial stones (ledger stones) on the floor. There are over 150 commemorating nearly 400 past residents of Ledbury.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. According to traditions dating back to the 4th century, it contains the two holiest sites in Christianity: the site where Jesus was crucified, at a place known as Calvary or Golgotha, and Jesus's empty tomb, where he is believed by Christians to have been buried and resurrected. Each time the church was rebuilt, some of the antiquities from the preceding structure were used in the newer renovation. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule. The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site.

 

Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the 4th century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection').

 

Control of the church itself is shared, a simultaneum, among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic, and to a lesser degree the Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.

 

Following the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 during the First Jewish–Roman War, Jerusalem had been reduced to ruins. In AD 130, the Roman emperor Hadrian began the building of a Roman colony, the new city of Aelia Capitolina, on the site. Circa AD 135, he ordered that a cave containing a rock-cut tomb be filled in to create a flat foundation for a temple dedicated to Jupiter or Venus. The temple remained until the early 4th century.

 

After allegedly seeing a vision of a cross in the sky in 312, Constantine the Great began to favor Christianity, signed the Edict of Milan legalising the religion, and sent his mother, Helena, to Jerusalem to look for Christ's tomb. With the help of Bishop of Caesarea Eusebius and Bishop of Jerusalem Macarius, three crosses were found near a tomb; one which allegedly cured people of death was presumed to be the True Cross Jesus was crucified on, leading the Romans to believe that they had found Calvary. Constantine ordered in about 326 that the temple to Jupiter/Venus be replaced by a church. After the temple was torn down and its ruins removed, the soil was removed from the cave, revealing a rock-cut tomb that Helena and Macarius identified as the burial site of Jesus. A shrine was built, enclosing the rock tomb walls within its own.

 

In 327, Constantine and Helena separately commissioned the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to commemorate the birth of Jesus.

 

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, planned by the architect Zenobius, was built as separate constructs over the two holy sites: a rotunda called the Anastasis ("Resurrection"), where Helena and Macarius believed Jesus to have been buried, and across a courtyard to the east, the great basilica, an enclosed colonnaded atrium (the Triportico, sometimes called the Martyrium) with the traditional site of Calvary in one corner. The church was consecrated on 13 September 335. The Church Of The Holy Sepulchre site has been recognized since early in the 4th century as the place where Jesus was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead.

 

This building was destroyed by a fire in May of AD 614, when the Sassanid Empire, under Khosrau II, invaded Jerusalem and captured the True Cross. In 630, the Emperor Heraclius rebuilt the church after recapturing the city. After Jerusalem came under Islamic rule, it remained a Christian church, with the early Muslim rulers protecting the city's Christian sites, prohibiting their destruction or use as living quarters. A story reports that the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab visited the church and stopped to pray on the balcony, but at the time of prayer, turned away from the church and prayed outside. He feared that future generations would misinterpret this gesture, taking it as a pretext to turn the church into a mosque. Eutychius of Alexandria adds that Umar wrote a decree saying that Muslims would not inhabit this location. The building suffered severe damage from an earthquake in 746.

 

Early in the 9th century, another earthquake damaged the dome of the Anastasis. The damage was repaired in 810 by Patriarch Thomas I. In 841, the church suffered a fire. In 935, the Christians prevented the construction of a Muslim mosque adjacent to the Church. In 938, a new fire damaged the inside of the basilica and came close to the rotunda. In 966, due to a defeat of Muslim armies in the region of Syria, a riot broke out, which was followed by reprisals. The basilica was burned again. The doors and roof were burnt, and Patriarch John VII was murdered.

 

On 18 October 1009, Fatimid caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the complete destruction of the church as part of a more general campaign against Christian places of worship in Palestine and Egypt. The damage was extensive, with few parts of the early church remaining, and the roof of the rock-cut tomb damaged; the original shrine was destroyed. Some partial repairs followed. Christian Europe reacted with shock and expulsions of Jews, serving as an impetus to later Crusades.

 

In wide-ranging negotiations between the Fatimids and the Byzantine Empire in 1027–28, an agreement was reached whereby the new Caliph Ali az-Zahir (al-Hakim's son) agreed to allow the rebuilding and redecoration of the church. The rebuilding was finally completed during the tenures of Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople in 1048. As a concession, the mosque in Constantinople was reopened and the khutba sermons were to be pronounced in az-Zahir's name. Muslim sources say a by-product of the agreement was the renunciation of Islam by many Christians who had been forced to convert under al-Hakim's persecutions. In addition, the Byzantines, while releasing 5,000 Muslim prisoners, made demands for the restoration of other churches destroyed by al-Hakim and the reestablishment of a patriarch in Jerusalem. Contemporary sources credit the emperor with spending vast sums in an effort to restore the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after this agreement was made. Still, "a total replacement was far beyond available resources. The new construction was concentrated on the rotunda and its surrounding buildings: the great basilica remained in ruins."

 

The rebuilt church site consisted of "a court open to the sky, with five small chapels attached to it." The chapels were east of the court of resurrection (when reconstructed, the location of the tomb was under open sky), where the western wall of the great basilica had been. They commemorated scenes from the passion, such as the location of the prison of Christ and his flagellation, and presumably were so placed because of the difficulties of free movement among shrines in the city streets. The dedication of these chapels indicates the importance of the pilgrims' devotion to the suffering of Christ. They have been described as 'a sort of Via Dolorosa in miniature'... since little or no rebuilding took place on the site of the great basilica. Western pilgrims to Jerusalem during the 11th century found much of the sacred site in ruins." Control of Jerusalem, and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, continued to change hands several times between the Fatimids and the Seljuk Turks (loyal to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad) until the Crusaders' arrival in 1099.

 

Many historians maintain that the main concern of Pope Urban II, when calling for the First Crusade, was the threat to Constantinople from the Turkish invasion of Asia Minor in response to the appeal of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Historians agree that the fate of Jerusalem and thereby the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was also of concern, if not the immediate goal of papal policy in 1095. The idea of taking Jerusalem gained more focus as the Crusade was underway. The rebuilt church site was taken from the Fatimids (who had recently taken it from the Abassids) by the knights of the First Crusade on 15 July 1099.

 

The First Crusade was envisioned as an armed pilgrimage, and no crusader could consider his journey complete unless he had prayed as a pilgrim at the Holy Sepulchre. The classical theory is that Crusader leader Godfrey of Bouillon, who became the first Latin ruler of Jerusalem, decided not to use the title "king" during his lifetime, and declared himself Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri ("Protector [or Defender] of the Holy Sepulchre"). By the Crusader period, a cistern under the former basilica was rumoured to have been where Helena had found the True Cross, and began to be venerated as such; the cistern later became the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross, but there is no evidence of the site's identification before the 11th century, and modern archaeological investigation has now dated the cistern to 11th-century repairs by Monomachos.

 

According to the German priest and pilgrim Ludolf von Sudheim, the keys of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre were in hands of the "ancient Georgians", and the food, alms, candles and oil for lamps were given to them by the pilgrims at the south door of the church.

 

Eight 11th- and 12th-century Crusader leaders (Godfrey, Baldwin I, Baldwin II, Fulk, Baldwin III, Amalric, Baldwin IV and Baldwin V — the first eight rulers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem) were buried in the south transept and inside the Chapel of Adam. The royal tombs were destroyed by the Greeks in 1809–1810. It is unclear if the remains of those men were exhumed; some researchers hypothesize that some of them may still be in unmarked pits under the church.

 

William of Tyre, chronicler of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, reports on the renovation of the Church in the mid-12th century. The Crusaders investigated the eastern ruins on the site, occasionally excavating through the rubble, and while attempting to reach the cistern, they discovered part of the original ground level of Hadrian's temple enclosure; they transformed this space into a chapel dedicated to Helena, widening their original excavation tunnel into a proper staircase. The Crusaders began to refurnish the church in Romanesque style and added a bell tower. These renovations unified the small chapels on the site and were completed during the reign of Queen Melisende in 1149, placing all the holy places under one roof for the first time. The church became the seat of the first Latin patriarchs and the site of the kingdom's scriptorium. It was lost to Saladin, along with the rest of the city, in 1187, although the treaty established after the Third Crusade allowed Christian pilgrims to visit the site. Emperor Frederick II (r. 1220–50) regained the city and the church by treaty in the 13th century while under a ban of excommunication, with the curious consequence that the holiest church in Christianity was laid under interdict. The church seems to have been largely in the hands of Greek Orthodox patriarch Athanasius II of Jerusalem (c. 1231–47) during the Latin control of Jerusalem. Both city and church were captured by the Khwarezmians in 1244.

 

There was certainly a recognisable Nestorian (Church of the East) presence at the Holy Sepulchre from the years 1348 through 1575, as contemporary Franciscan accounts indicate. The Franciscan friars renovated the church in 1555, as it had been neglected despite increased numbers of pilgrims. The Franciscans rebuilt the Aedicule, extending the structure to create an antechamber. A marble shrine commissioned by Friar Boniface of Ragusa was placed to envelop the remains of Christ's tomb, probably to prevent pilgrims from touching the original rock or taking small pieces as souvenirs. A marble slab was placed over the limestone burial bed where Jesus's body is believed to have lain.

 

After the renovation of 1555, control of the church oscillated between the Franciscans and the Orthodox, depending on which community could obtain a favorable firman from the "Sublime Porte" at a particular time, often through outright bribery. Violent clashes were not uncommon. There was no agreement about this question, although it was discussed at the negotiations to the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699. During the Holy Week of 1757, Orthodox Christians reportedly took over some of the Franciscan-controlled church. This may have been the cause of the sultan's firman (decree) later developed into the Status Quo.

 

A fire severely damaged the structure again in 1808, causing the dome of the Rotunda to collapse and smashing the Aedicule's exterior decoration. The Rotunda and the Aedicule's exterior were rebuilt in 1809–10 by architect Nikolaos Ch. Komnenos of Mytilene in the contemporary Ottoman Baroque style.[citation needed] The interior of the antechamber, now known as the Chapel of the Angel, was partly rebuilt to a square ground plan in place of the previously semicircular western end.

 

Another decree in 1853 from the sultan solidified the existing territorial division among the communities and solidified the Status Quo for arrangements to "remain in their present state", requiring consensus to make even minor changes.

 

The dome was restored by Catholics, Greeks and Turks in 1868, being made of iron ever since.

 

By the time of the British Mandate for Palestine following the end of World War I, the cladding of red marble applied to the Aedicule by Komnenos had deteriorated badly and was detaching from the underlying structure; from 1947 until restoration work in 2016–17, it was held in place with an exterior scaffolding of iron girders installed by the British authorities.

 

In 1948, Jerusalem was divided between Israel and Jordan and the Old City with the church were made part of Jordan. In 1967, Israeli forces captured East Jerusalem in the Six Day War, and that area has remained under Israeli control ever since. Under Israeli rule, legal arrangements relating to the churches of East Jerusalem were maintained in coordination with the Jordanian government. The dome at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was restored again in 1994–97 as part of extensive modern renovations that have been ongoing since 1959. During the 1970–78 restoration works and excavations inside the building, and under the nearby Muristan bazaar, it was found that the area was originally a quarry, from which white meleke limestone was struck.

 

East of the Chapel of Saint Helena, the excavators discovered a void containing a second-century[dubious – discuss] drawing of a Roman pilgrim ship, two low walls supporting the platform of Hadrian's second-century temple, and a higher fourth-century wall built to support Constantine's basilica. After the excavations of the early 1970s, the Armenian authorities converted this archaeological space into the Chapel of Saint Vartan, and created an artificial walkway over the quarry on the north of the chapel, so that the new chapel could be accessed (by permission) from the Chapel of Saint Helena.

 

After seven decades of being held together by steel girders, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) declared the visibly deteriorating Aedicule structure unsafe. A restoration of the Aedicule was agreed upon and executed from May 2016 to March 2017. Much of the $4 million project was funded by the World Monuments Fund, as well as $1.3 million from Mica Ertegun and a significant sum from King Abdullah II of Jordan. The existence of the original limestone cave walls within the Aedicule was confirmed, and a window was created to view this from the inside. The presence of moisture led to the discovery of an underground shaft resembling an escape tunnel carved into the bedrock, seeming to lead from the tomb. For the first time since at least 1555, on 26 October 2016, marble cladding that protects the supposed burial bed of Jesus was removed. Members of the National Technical University of Athens were present. Initially, only a layer of debris was visible. This was cleared in the next day, and a partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved was revealed. By the night of 28 October, the original limestone burial bed was shown to be intact. The tomb was resealed shortly thereafter. Mortar from just above the burial bed was later dated to the mid-fourth century.

 

On 25 March 2020, Israeli health officials ordered the site closed to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the keeper of the keys, it was the first such closure since 1349, during the Black Death. Clerics continued regular prayers inside the building, and it reopened to visitors two months later, on 24 May.

 

During church renovations in 2022, a stone slab covered in modern graffiti was moved from a wall, revealing Cosmatesque-style decoration on one face. According to an IAA archaeologist, the decoration was once inlaid with pieces of glass and fine marble; it indicates that the relic was the front of the church's high altar from the Crusader era (c. 1149), which was later used by the Greek Orthodox until being damaged in the 1808 fire.

 

The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis. Two streets open into the parvis: St Helena Road (west) and Suq ed-Dabbagha (east). Around the parvis are a few smaller structures.

 

South of the parvis, opposite the church:

 

Broken columns—once forming part of an arcade—stand opposite the church, at the top of a short descending staircase stretching over the entire breadth of the parvis. In the 13th century, the tops of the columns were removed and sent to Mecca by the Khwarezmids.

The Gethsemane Metochion, a small Greek Orthodox monastery (metochion).

On the eastern side of the parvis, south to north:

 

The Monastery of St Abraham (Greek Orthodox), next to the Suq ed-Dabbagha entrance to the parvis.

The Chapel of St John the Evangelist (Armenian Orthodox)

The Chapel of St Michael and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures (both are disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians), giving access to Deir es-Sultan (also disputed), a rooftop monastery surrounding the dome of the Chapel of St Helena.

North of the parvis, in front of the church façade or against it:

 

Chapel of the Franks (Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows): a blue-domed Roman Catholic Crusader chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which once provided exclusive access to Calvary. The chapel marks the 10th Station of the Cross (the stripping of Jesus's garments).

Oratory of St. Mary of Egypt: a Greek Orthodox oratory and chapel, directly beneath the Chapel of the Franks, dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt.

The tomb (including a ledgerstone) of Philip d'Aubigny aka Philip Daubeney (died 1236), a knight, tutor, and royal councilor to Henry III of England and signer of the Magna Carta—is placed in front of, and between, the church's two original entrance doors, of which the eastern one is walled up. It is one of the few tombs of crusaders and other Europeans not removed from the Church after the Khwarizmian capture of Jerusalem in 1244. In the 1900s, during a fight between the Greeks and Latins, some monks damaged the tomb by throwing stones from the roof. A stone marker[clarification needed] was placed on his tomb in 1925, sheltered by a wooden trapdoor that hides it from view.[citation needed]

A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side. They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church. The southernmost chapel was the vestibule, the middle chapel the baptistery, and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex. Now they are dedicated as (from south to north)

 

The Chapel of St. James the Just (Greek Orthodox),

The Chapel of St. John the Baptist (Greek Orthodox),

The Chapel of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (Greek Orthodox; at the base of the bell tower).

 

The 12th-century Crusader bell tower is just south of the Rotunda, to the left of the entrance. Its upper level was lost in a 1545 collapse. In 1719, another two storeys were lost.

 

The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved arched doors. Today, only the left-hand entrance is currently accessible, as the right doorway has long since been bricked up. The entrance to the church leads to the south transept, through the crusader façade in the parvis of a larger courtyard. This is found past a group of streets winding through the outer Via Dolorosa by way of a souq in the Muristan. This narrow way of access to such a large structure has proven to be hazardous at times. For example, when a fire broke out in 1840, dozens of pilgrims were trampled to death.

 

According to their own family lore, the Muslim Nuseibeh family has been responsible for opening the door as an impartial party to the church's denominations already since the seventh century. However, they themselves admit that the documents held by various Christian denominations only mention their role since the 12th century, in the time of Saladin, which is the date more generally accepted. After retaking Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187, Saladin entrusted the Joudeh family with the key to the church, which is made of iron and 30 centimetres (12 in) long; the Nuseibehs either became or remained its doorkeepers.

 

The 'immovable ladder' stands beneath a window on the façade.

 

Just inside the church entrance is a stairway leading up to Calvary (Golgotha), traditionally regarded as the site of Jesus's crucifixion and the most lavishly decorated part of the church. The exit is via another stairway opposite the first, leading down to the ambulatory. Golgotha and its chapels are just south of the main altar of the catholicon.

 

Calvary is split into two chapels: one Greek Orthodox and one Catholic, each with its own altar. On the left (north) side, the Greek Orthodox chapel's altar is placed over the supposed rock of Calvary (the 12th Station of the Cross), which can be touched through a hole in the floor beneath the altar. The rock can be seen under protective glass on both sides of the altar. The softer surrounding stone was removed when the church was built. The Roman Catholic (Franciscan) Chapel of the Nailing of the Cross (the 11th Station of the Cross) stretches to the south. Between the Catholic Altar of the Nailing to the Cross and the Orthodox altar is the Catholic Altar of the Stabat Mater, which has a statue of Mary with an 18th-century bust; this middle altar marks the 13th Station of the Cross.

 

On the ground floor, just underneath the Golgotha chapel, is the Chapel of Adam. According to tradition, Jesus was crucified over the place where Adam's skull was buried. According to some, the blood of Christ ran down the cross and through the rocks to fill Adam's skull. Through a window at the back of the 11th-century apse, the rock of Calvary can be seen with a crack traditionally held to be caused by the earthquake that followed Jesus's death;[78] some scholars claim it is the result of quarrying against a natural flaw in the rock.

 

Behind the Chapel of Adam is the Greek Treasury (Treasury of the Greek Patriarch). Some of its relics, such as a 12th-century crystal mitre, were transferred to the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Museum (the Patriarchal Museum) on Greek Orthodox Patriarchate Street.

 

Just inside the entrance to the church is the Stone of Anointing (also Stone of the Anointing or Stone of Unction), which tradition holds to be where Jesus's body was prepared for burial by Joseph of Arimathea, though this tradition is only attested since the crusader era (notably by the Italian Dominican pilgrim Riccoldo da Monte di Croce in 1288), and the present stone was only added in the 1810 reconstruction.

 

The wall behind the stone is defined by its striking blue balconies and taphos symbol-bearing red banners (depicting the insignia of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre), and is decorated with lamps. The modern mosaic along the wall depicts the anointing of Jesus's body, preceded on the right by the Descent from the Cross, and succeeded on the left by the Burial of Jesus.

 

The wall was a temporary addition to support the arch above it, which had been weakened after the damage in the 1808 fire; it blocks the view of the rotunda, separates the entrance from the catholicon, sits on top of four of the now empty and desecrated Crusader graves and is no longer structurally necessary. Opinions differ as to whether it is to be seen as the 13th Station of the Cross, which others identify as the lowering of Jesus from the cross and located between the 11th and 12th stations on Calvary.

 

The lamps that hang over the Stone of Unction, adorned with cross-bearing chain links, are contributed by Armenians, Copts, Greeks and Latins.

 

Immediately inside and to the left of the entrance is a bench (formerly a divan) that has traditionally been used by the church's Muslim doorkeepers, along with some Christian clergy, as well as electrical wiring. To the right of the entrance is a wall along the ambulatory containing the staircase leading to Golgotha. Further along the same wall is the entrance to the Chapel of Adam.

 

The rotunda is the building of the larger dome located on the far west side. In the centre of the rotunda is a small chapel called the Aedicule in English, from the Latin aedicula, in reference to a small shrine. The Aedicule has two rooms: the first holds a relic called the Angel's Stone, which is believed to be a fragment of the large stone that sealed the tomb; the second, smaller room contains the tomb of Jesus. Possibly to prevent pilgrims from removing bits of the original rock as souvenirs, by 1555, a surface of marble cladding was placed on the tomb to prevent further damage to the tomb. In October 2016, the top slab was pulled back to reveal an older, partially broken marble slab with a Crusader-style cross carved in it. Beneath it, the limestone burial bed was revealed to be intact.

 

Under the Status Quo, the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Armenian Apostolic Churches all have rights to the interior of the tomb, and all three communities celebrate the Divine Liturgy or Holy Mass there daily. It is also used for other ceremonies on special occasions, such as the Holy Saturday ceremony of the Holy Fire led by the Greek Orthodox patriarch (with the participation of the Coptic and Armenian patriarchs). To its rear, in the Coptic Chapel, constructed of iron latticework, lies the altar used by the Coptic Orthodox. Historically, the Georgians also retained the key to the Aedicule.

 

To the right of the sepulchre on the northwestern edge of the Rotunda is the Chapel of the Apparition, which is reserved for Roman Catholic use.

 

In the central nave of the Crusader-era church, just east of the larger rotunda, is the Crusader structure housing the main altar of the Church, today the Greek Orthodox catholicon. Its dome is 19.8 metres (65 ft) in diameter, and is set directly over the centre of the transept crossing of the choir where the compas is situated, an omphalos ("navel") stone once thought to be the center of the world and still venerated as such by Orthodox Christians (associated with the site of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection).

 

Since 1996 this dome is topped by the monumental Golgotha Crucifix, which the Greek Patriarch Diodoros I of Jerusalem consecrated. It was at the initiative of Israeli professor Gustav Kühnel to erect a new crucifix at the church that would not only be worthy of the singularity of the site, but that would also become a symbol of the efforts of unity in the community of Christian faith.

 

The catholicon's iconostasis demarcates the Orthodox sanctuary behind it, to its east. The iconostasis is flanked to the front by two episcopal thrones: the southern seat (cathedra) is the patriarchal throne of the Greek Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem, and the northern seat is for an archbishop or bishop. (There is also a popular claim that both are patriarchal thrones, with the northern one being for the patriarch of Antioch — which has been described as a misstatement, however.)

 

South of the Aedicule is the "Place of the Three Marys", marked by a stone canopy (the Station of the Holy Women) and a large modern wall mosaic. From here one can enter the Armenian monastery, which stretches over the ground and first upper floor of the church's southeastern part.

 

West of the Aedicule, to the rear of the Rotunda, is the Syriac Chapel with the Tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, located in a Constantinian apse and containing an opening to an ancient Jewish rock-cut tomb. This chapel is where the Syriac Orthodox celebrate their Liturgy on Sundays.

 

The Syriac Orthodox Chapel of Saint Joseph of Arimathea and Saint Nicodemus. On Sundays and feast days it is furnished for the celebration of Mass. It is accessed from the Rotunda, by a door west of the Aedicule.

 

On the far side of the chapel is the low entrance to an almost complete first-century Jewish tomb, initially holding six kokh-type funeral shafts radiating from a central chamber, two of which are still exposed. Although this space was discovered relatively recently and contains no identifying marks, some believe that Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were buried here. Since Jews always buried their dead outside the city, the presence of this tomb seems to prove that the Holy Sepulchre site was outside the city walls at the time of the crucifixion.

 

The Franciscan Chapel of St. Mary Magdalene – The chapel, an open area, indicates the place where Mary Magdalene met Jesus after his resurrection.

 

The Franciscan Chapel of the Apparition (Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament), directly north of the above – in memory of Jesus's meeting with his mother after the Resurrection, a non-scriptural tradition. Here stands a piece of an ancient column, allegedly part of the one Jesus was tied to during his scourging.

 

The Arches of the Virgin are seven arches (an arcade) at the northern end of the north transept, which is to the catholicon's north. Disputed by the Orthodox and the Latin, the area is used to store ladders.

 

In the northeast side of the complex, there is the Prison of Christ, alleged to be where Jesus was held. The Greek Orthodox are showing pilgrims yet another place where Jesus was allegedly held, the similarly named Prison of Christ in their Monastery of the Praetorium, located near the Church of Ecce Homo, between the Second and Third Stations of the Via Dolorosa. The Armenians regard a recess in the Monastery of the Flagellation at the Second Station of the Via Dolorosa as the Prison of Christ. A cistern among the ruins beneath the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu on Mount Zion is also alleged to have been the Prison of Christ. To reconcile the traditions, some allege that Jesus was held in the Mount Zion cell in connection with his trial by the Jewish high priest, at the Praetorium in connection with his trial by the Roman governor Pilate, and near the Golgotha before crucifixion.

 

The chapels in the ambulatory are, from north to south: the Greek Chapel of Saint Longinus (named after Longinus), the Armenian Chapel of the Division of Robes, the entrance to the Chapel of Saint Helena, and the Greek Chapel of the Derision.

 

Chapel of Saint Helena – between the Chapel of the Division of Robes and the Greek Chapel of the Derision are stairs descending to the Chapel of Saint Helena. The Armenians, who own it, call it the Chapel of St. Gregory the Illuminator, after the saint who brought Christianity to the Armenians.

 

Chapel of St Vartan (or Vardan) Mamikonian – on the north side of the Chapel of Saint Helena is an ornate wrought iron door, beyond which a raised artificial platform affords views of the quarry, and which leads to the Chapel of Saint Vartan. The latter chapel contains archaeological remains from Hadrian's temple and Constantine's basilica. These areas are open only on request.

 

Chapel of the Invention of the Cross (named for the Invention (Finding) of the Holy Cross) – another set of 22 stairs from the Chapel of Saint Helena leads down to the Roman Catholic Chapel of the Invention of the Holy Cross, believed to be the place where the True Cross was found.

 

An Ottoman decree of 1757 helped establish a status quo upholding the state of affairs for various Holy Land sites. The status quo was upheld in Sultan Abdülmecid I's firman (decree) of 1852/3, which pinned down the now-permanent statutes of property and the regulations concerning the roles of the different denominations and other custodians.

 

The primary custodians are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic churches. The Greek Orthodox act through the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate as well as through the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre. Roman Catholics act through the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. In the 19th century, the Coptic Orthodox, the Ethiopian Orthodox and the Syriac Orthodox also acquired lesser responsibilities, which include shrines and other structures in and around the building.

 

None of these controls the main entrance. In 1192, Saladin assigned door-keeping responsibilities to the Muslim Nusaybah family. The wooden doors that compose the main entrance are the original, highly carved doors. The Joudeh al-Goudia (al-Ghodayya) family were entrusted as custodian to the keys of the Holy Sepulchre by Saladin in 1187. Despite occasional disagreements, religious services take place in the Church with regularity and coexistence is generally peaceful. An example of concord between the Church custodians is the full restoration of the Aedicule from 2016 to 2017.

 

The establishment of the modern Status Quo in 1853 did not halt controversy and occasional violence. In 1902, 18 friars were hospitalized and some monks were jailed after the Franciscans and Greeks disagreed over who could clean the lowest step of the Chapel of the Franks. In the aftermath, the Greek patriarch, Franciscan custos, Ottoman governor and French consul general signed a convention that both denominations could sweep it. On a hot summer day in 2002, a Coptic monk moved his chair from its agreed spot into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile move by the Ethiopians and eleven were hospitalized after the resulting fight. In another incident in 2004, during Orthodox celebrations of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, a door to the Franciscan chapel was left open. This was taken as a sign of disrespect by the Orthodox and a fistfight broke out. Some people were arrested, but no one was seriously injured.

 

On Palm Sunday, in April 2008, a brawl broke out when a Greek monk was ejected from the building by a rival faction. Police were called to the scene but were also attacked by the enraged brawlers. On Sunday, 9 November 2008, a clash erupted between Armenian and Greek monks during celebrations for the Feast of the Cross.

 

In February 2018, the church was closed following a tax dispute over 152 million euros of uncollected taxes on church properties. The city hall stressed that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all other churches are exempt from the taxes, with the changes only affecting establishments like "hotels, halls and businesses" owned by the churches. NPR had reported that the Greek Orthodox Church calls itself the second-largest landowner in Israel, after the Israeli government.

 

There was a lock-in protest against an Israeli legislative proposal which would expropriate church lands that had been sold to private companies since 2010, a measure which church leaders assert constitutes a serious violation of their property rights and the Status Quo. In a joint official statement the church authorities protested what they considered to be the peak of a systematic campaign in:

 

a discriminatory and racist bill that targets solely the properties of the Christian community in the Holy Land ... This reminds us all of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe.

 

The 2018 taxation affair does not cover any church buildings or religious related facilities (because they are exempt by law), but commercial facilities such as the Notre Dame Hotel which was not paying the municipal property tax, and any land which is owned and used as a commercial land. The church holds the rights to land where private homes have been constructed, and some of the disagreement had been raised after the Knesset had proposed a bill that will make it harder for a private company not to extend a lease for land used by homeowners. The church leaders have said that such a bill will make it harder for them to sell church-owned lands. According to The Jerusalem Post:

 

The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand.

 

In June 2019, a number of Christian denominations in Jerusalem raised their voice against the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the sale of three properties by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to Ateret Cohanim – an organization that seeks to increase the number of Jews living in the Old City and East Jerusalem. The church leaders warned that if the organization gets to control the sites, Christians could lose access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In June 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the sale and ended the legal battle.

 

The site of the church had been a temple to Jupiter or Venus built by Hadrian before Constantine's edifice was built. Hadrian's temple had been located there because it was the junction of the main north–south road with one of the two main east–west roads and directly adjacent to the forum (now the location of the Muristan, which is smaller than the former forum). The forum itself had been placed, as is traditional in Roman towns, at the junction of the main north–south road with the other main east–west road (which is now El-Bazar/David Street). The temple and forum together took up the entire space between the two main east–west roads (a few above-ground remains of the east end of the temple precinct still survive in the Alexander Nevsky Church complex of the Russian Mission in Exile).

 

From the archaeological excavations in the 1970s, it is clear that construction took over most of the site of the earlier temple enclosure and that the Triportico and Rotunda roughly overlapped with the temple building itself; the excavations indicate that the temple extended at least as far back as the Aedicule, and the temple enclosure would have reached back slightly further. Virgilio Canio Corbo, a Franciscan priest and archaeologist, who was present at the excavations, estimated from the archaeological evidence that the western retaining wall of the temple itself would have passed extremely close to the east side of the supposed tomb; if the wall had been any further west any tomb would have been crushed under the weight of the wall (which would be immediately above it) if it had not already been destroyed when foundations for the wall were made.

 

Other archaeologists have criticized Corbo's reconstructions. Dan Bahat, the former city archaeologist of Jerusalem, regards them as unsatisfactory, as there is no known temple of Aphrodite (Venus) matching Corbo's design, and no archaeological evidence for Corbo's suggestion that the temple building was on a platform raised high enough to avoid including anything sited where the Aedicule is now; indeed Bahat notes that many temples to Aphrodite have a rotunda-like design, and argues that there is no archaeological reason to assume that the present rotunda was not based on a rotunda in the temple previously on the site.

 

The New Testament describes Jesus's tomb as being outside the city wall,[l] as was normal for burials across the ancient world, which were regarded as unclean. Today, the site of the Church is within the current walls of the old city of Jerusalem. It has been well documented by archaeologists that in the time of Jesus, the walled city was smaller and the wall then was to the east of the current site of the Church. In other words, the city had been much narrower in Jesus's time, with the site then having been outside the walls; since Herod Agrippa (41–44) is recorded by history as extending the city to the north (beyond the present northern walls), the required repositioning of the western wall is traditionally attributed to him as well.

 

The area immediately to the south and east of the sepulchre was a quarry and outside the city during the early first century as excavations under the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer across the street demonstrated.[citation needed]

 

The church is a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old City of Jerusalem.

 

The Christian Quarter and the (also Christian) Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem are both located in the northwestern and western part of the Old City, due to the fact that the Holy Sepulchre is located close to the northwestern corner of the walled city. The adjacent neighbourhood within the Christian Quarter is called the Muristan, a term derived from the Persian word for hospital – Christian pilgrim hospices have been maintained in this area near the Holy Sepulchre since at least the time of Charlemagne.

 

From the ninth century onward, the construction of churches inspired by the Anastasis was extended across Europe. One example is Santo Stefano in Bologna, Italy, an agglomeration of seven churches recreating shrines of Jerusalem.

 

Several churches and monasteries in Europe, for instance, in Germany and Russia, and at least one church in the United States have been wholly or partially modeled on the Church of the Resurrection, some even reproducing other holy places for the benefit of pilgrims who could not travel to the Holy Land. They include the Heiliges Grab ("Holy Tomb") of Görlitz, constructed between 1481 and 1504, the New Jerusalem Monastery in Moscow Oblast, constructed by Patriarch Nikon between 1656 and 1666, and Mount St. Sepulchre Franciscan Monastery built by the Franciscans in Washington, DC in 1898.

 

Author Andrew Holt writes that the church is the most important in all Christendom.

  

Ledger stone in the churchyard of the former monastery of Panagia Kamariotissa (Παναγία Καμαριώτισσα), on the island of Heybeliada / Chalkē (Χάλκη). Note the scholarly instrumentarium carved below the funerary inscription: a set square, a compass, a book, a (celestial?) globe, a quill and an inkpot on a small writing table.

 

Gelatin silver print, 103 x 144 mm;

attributed to W. Sender (Istanbul / Constantinople), ca. 1927-1932;

acquired in 2021 from a dealer in Istanbul;

Theodor E. Ulieriu-Rostás collection. Accession number: 2021.003.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

Ledger stone in the churchyard of the former monastery of Panagia Kamariotissa (Παναγία Καμαριώτισσα), on the island of Heybeliada / Chalkē (Χάλκη). Note the scholarly instrumentarium carved below the funerary inscription: a set square, a compass, a book, a (celestial?) globe, a quill and an inkpot on a small writing table.

 

Gelatin silver print, 103 x 144 mm;

attributed to W. Sender (Istanbul / Constantinople), ca. 1927-1932;

acquired in 2021 from a dealer in Istanbul;

Theodor E. Ulieriu-Rostás collection. Accession number: 2021.003.

18th July 2017 is the 200th Anniversary of Jane Austen's death.

 

She died in rented rooms at 8 College Street, Winchester after seeking treatment from a renowned Winchester physician for a malady that had become increasingly serious since the previous summer. It is widely believed that she was suffering from Hodgkin's lymphoma - a cancer of the lymph nodes, although breast cancer, forms of tuberculosis and Addison's disease (a disorder of the adrenal glands) have also been suggested.

 

At the time of her death at 4.30 am local time, she was attended by her beloved sister, Cassandra and her not so beloved sister-in-law, Mary Austen. She had fallen unconscious the previous evening following two seizures and an acute attack of pain (and under the influence of laudanum administered by her doctor to relieve it ).

 

Her funeral took place early on the morning of 24th July (before the morning's services commenced at 10.00 am).

 

As part of the commemorations of the anniversary, the cathedral is arranging a procession to retrace the route of her funeral procession from College Street to the Cathedral at exactly the same time as in 1817 (allowing for the adoption of BST and the 10 minute difference between local Winchester mean time used in 1817 and GMT). Unlike the original procession, ladies are permitted to attend.

www.winchester-cathedral.org.uk/events/jane-austen-funera...

janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/jane-austens-fi...

Gravedigger, when you dig my grave

Could you make it shallow

So that I can feel the rain...

DMB, Gravedigger.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, is a fourth-century church in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. The church is also the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. It is considered the holiest site in Christianity and has been the most important pilgrimage site for Christians since the fourth century.

 

According to traditions dating to the fourth century, the church contains both the site where Jesus was crucified at Calvary, or Golgotha, and the location of Jesus's empty tomb, where he was buried and resurrected. Both locations are considered immensely holy sites by Christians. In earlier times, the site was used as a Jewish burial ground, upon which a pagan temple was built. The church and rotunda was built under Constantine in the 4th century and destroyed by al-Hakim in 1009. Al-Hakim's son allowed Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos to reconstruct the church, which was completed in 1048. After it was captured by the Crusaders in 1099, it continued to undergo modifications, resulting in a significant departure from the original structure. Several renovations and restorations were made under the Ottomans. The tomb itself is enclosed by a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule.

 

Within the church proper are the last four stations of the Cross of the Via Dolorosa, representing the final episodes of the Passion of Jesus. The church has been a major Christian pilgrimage destination since its creation in the fourth century, as the traditional site of the resurrection of Christ, thus its original Greek name, Church of the Anastasis ('Resurrection').

 

The Status Quo, an understanding between religious communities dating to 1757, applies to the site. Control of the church itself is shared among several Christian denominations and secular entities in complicated arrangements essentially unchanged for over 160 years, and some for much longer. The main denominations sharing property over parts of the church are the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches.

 

The courtyard facing the entrance to the church is known as the parvis. Two streets open into the parvis: St Helena Road (west) and Suq ed-Dabbagha (east). Around the parvis are a few smaller structures.

 

South of the parvis, opposite the church:

 

Broken columns—once forming part of an arcade—stand opposite the church, at the top of a short descending staircase stretching over the entire breadth of the parvis. In the 13th century, the tops of the columns were removed and sent to Mecca by the Khwarezmids.

The Gethsemane Metochion, a small Greek Orthodox monastery (metochion).

On the eastern side of the parvis, south to north:

 

The Monastery of St Abraham (Greek Orthodox), next to the Suq ed-Dabbagha entrance to the parvis.

The Chapel of St John the Evangelist (Armenian Orthodox)

The Chapel of St Michael and the Chapel of the Four Living Creatures (both are disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians), giving access to Deir es-Sultan (also disputed), a rooftop monastery surrounding the dome of the Chapel of St Helena.

North of the parvis, in front of the church façade or against it:

 

Chapel of the Franks (Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows): a blue-domed Roman Catholic Crusader chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, which once provided exclusive access to Calvary. The chapel marks the 10th Station of the Cross (the stripping of Jesus's garments).

Oratory of St. Mary of Egypt: a Greek Orthodox oratory and chapel, directly beneath the Chapel of the Franks, dedicated to St. Mary of Egypt.

The tomb (including a ledgerstone) of Philip d'Aubigny aka Philip Daubeney (died 1236), a knight, tutor, and royal councillor to Henry III of England and signer of Magna Carta—is placed in front of, and between, the church's two original entrance doors, of which the eastern one is walled up. It is one of the few tombs of crusaders and other Europeans not removed from the Church after the Khwarizmian capture of Jerusalem in 1244. In the 1900s, during a fight between the Greeks and Latins, some monks damaged the tomb by throwing stones from the roof. A stone marker was placed on his tomb in 1925, sheltered by a wooden trapdoor that hides it from view.

A group of three chapels borders the parvis on its west side. They originally formed the baptistery complex of the Constantinian church. The southernmost chapel was the vestibule, the middle chapel the baptistery, and the north chapel the chamber in which the patriarch chrismated the newly baptized before leading them into the rotunda north of this complex. Now they are dedicated as (from south to north)

 

The Chapel of St. James the Just (Greek Orthodox),

The Chapel of St. John the Baptist (Greek Orthodox),

The Chapel of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (Greek Orthodox; at the base of the bell tower).

All Saints, Mendham, Suffolk

 

Sitting on the south bank of the River Waveney, no Suffolk church is closer to the Norfolk border. A surprisingly large and well-appointed church, probably thanks to the patronage of the Freston family whose wall memorials, brasses and ledgerstones fill the chancel. There was a major 19th Century restoration which gives the interior much of its character.

St Andrew's

 

Letheringsett sits on the outskirts of the busy little town of Holt, the road winding down to the River Glaven and its watermill, and then just beyond jinking around the churchyard where St Andrew sits. A handsome round-towered church, yew-surrounded, with a narrow clerestory peeking just above the little aisles. The lower part of the tower appears to be essentially 11th Century. As so often, a bell stage was added in the 14th Century, but here it is also round rather than the more familiar octagon. The tower dominates the view as you approach, giving the church an ancient manner, but beyond everything is crisp from the major restoration of William Butterfield in the 1870s.

 

The porch is Butterfield's, jutting rather crudely into the otherwise restrained south aisle, and you step into an interior which is pretty much entirely the result of his work. Despite the aisles, the church has a narrow feel, the nave and chancel running continuously without interruption, the High Victorian furnishings reaching towards the low arcades. Almost all the windows have coloured glass, and the view to the east is of a remarkably grand alabaster reredos of 1899 which is built up into and around the east window. It was the gift of Sir Alfred Jodrell in memory of his mother. Curiously, both Birkin Haward and consequently Pevsner's revising editor Bill Wilson credit much of the early 20th Century glass here to Kempe & Co, but in fact it is by Herbert Bryans, and is signed with his familiar running dog motif. Bryans had worked for Kempe & Co in the previous century, contributing to the development of their familiar house style, and so perhaps it is not surprising that his later work is sometimes misattributed. The east window is by Frederick Preedy, and came as part of Butterfield's restoration. To the south of it there is a curious window of 1958 which appears to depict the artist Lawrence Gale Linnell present at the Transfiguration. It is by Christopher Webb, and it must be said that it is hardly his best work.

 

A plaque beneath the Christopher Webb glass remembers various members of the Linnell family, including the church historian and antiquarian Charles Linnell, who was rector here in the 1950s and had this glass installed. Linnell is best known today for the books and guides that he wrote for and about Norfolk churches. Their somewhat dry style is not perhaps to the modern taste, but he was also responsible for speaking out for the past in an age when it was becoming fashionable to forget it. He was co-author of the Shell Guide to Norfolk with his friend Lady Harrod, founder of the Norfolk Churches Trust, which remains a guiding light in the county. In 1959 he removed the fragments of 15th Century glass which had been set in the rectory summerhouse the previous century and returned them to the church, where they sit in panels on the south side of the chancel to the west of the Linnell memorial window.

 

The royal arms are to Elizabeth II, one of several such sets in Norfolk. They are signed by Charles Linnell as rector of the time. Memorials remember families associated with Letheringsett in recent centuries, among them the Cozens-Hardy family and the Jodrells. The 1888 memorial to Lady Lucinda Emma Maria Jodrell, who departed this life at Cannes, recalls that this church was re-roofed and porch re-built at her expense. A ledgerstone in the north aisle remembers Nathaniel Burrel, who in 1742 was buried here at the feet of his father. Burrel was rector of Letheringsett, and his inscription tells us that he was a true son of the Church of England, in principles orthodox, in manners courteous, in temper friendly, and in all his dealings punctually just. A curiosity is the handlettered copy of the headstone inscription to Johnson Jex, the 18th Century village blacksmith who became renowned as an inventor and maker of clocks. His serene death mask sits on a shelf above the 13th Century Purbeck marble font, keeping a watch on all who enter.

 

Simon Knott, May 2022

 

www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/letheringsett/letheringsett.htm

Ledger stone in the churchyard of the former monastery of Panagia Kamariotissa (Παναγία Καμαριώτισσα), on the island of Heybeliada / Chalkē (Χάλκη).

 

Gelatin silver print, 103 x 144 mm;

attributed to W. Sender (Istanbul / Constantinople), ca. 1927-1932;

acquired in 2021 from a dealer in Istanbul;

Theodor E. Ulieriu-Rostás collection. Accession number: 2021.003.

c1500 Ayshford Court and its chapel once owned by the Ayshford lords of the manor of Burlescombe who built the chapel in the 15c at a time when it was fashionable in the west country for manor houses to have a private chapel for daily worship - their parish church at Burlescombe situated 3 miles away, being used for major festivals, rites of passage and their burial place.

 

Ayshford is first mentioned in a charter of AD 958 and later in the 1086 Doomsday Book as Aiseforda

 

The chapel is built of limestone from the Westleigh quarry and

laid as rubble. The putlog holes, where wooden scaffolding

was built into the walls as work progressed, remain visible on the outside. (Once the scaffolding was removed, the holes were infilled with small decorative Beerstone panels of quatrefoils). Externally the chapel is a single rectangle

with Perpendicular windows. The slate roof was renewed in the 19c after the opening of the Grand Western Canal at the bottom of its land made it easy to transport Welsh slate via the Bristol Channel.

Inside the nave & chancel are under a continuous 15c wagon roof featuring re-used medieval timbers and carved bosses (mostly foliate, one featuring a cryptic rebus) The 15c chancel screen decorated with stenciled green and red stars and rosettes, was repainted in the 19c though some original colour survives . www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/77by5yspc8 The remainder of the furniture, consisting of utilitarian oak pews, dates from the 19c. The chapel is floored with red and black glazed tiles, www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/40D484TJtG

The single bell in the turret dates from 1657 and is inscribed ‘The Bell is Henry Ayshford’s’

In the chancel is a chest tomb to the infant Henry Ayshford, a ‘spotless child’, who died in 1666 (famously a plague year) aged 1 year and 9 months, carrying an inscription on the top and a rhyme on the side. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/1cRQ8X8556

In front of the altar is the worn ledgerstone to Henry Ayshford,

1649 carved in very soft yellow sandstone. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/RH8kAc235H

On the north nave wall is an elaborate memorial to John Ashford 1689 +++ the last of his male line 1688 www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/Y02y5oVN59

The stained glass is of special interest. In the bottom of several windows are the intertwined initials JT (and in one the date 1848). This is the mark of John Toms of Wellington a stained-glass designer for many local churches. The ribbon text motif was used by many national studios, but here Toms has put his own slant on it to great effect. John Sanford 1711 son of Henry Sanford & Mary Ayshford, succeeded his cousing John Ayshford +++ - they employed John Toms at many of the churches in their patronage. The nave windows represent the twelve apostles, although it is difficult to identify each one. St John the Evangelist with his chalice and St Peter with his keys are both on the south side. On the north are St James the Less carrying a saw next to St Andrew and St Matthew with his moneybag next to St Thomas holding a set square. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/D95T291A25

Above the west door are two stone fragments from an 18c monument. One figure holds a skull, whilst the other holds an hourglass. Both are much weathered possibly having spent some time outside and must have come from a very grand monument www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/24u41nYV05

Since it was declared redundant, the chapel, a grade l listed building, is now maintained by the charity, the Friends of Friendless Churches, who hold a 125 year lease with effect from 1 February 2000. In 2001–02 the charity undertook major conservation work. This included restoring the salmon-pink limewash in the interior, and repairing the stained glass.

 

The manor house is now split into two residences. The main historic house was built by the Ashford / Ayshford family c 1500 with major additions in the 16c & 17c . The parlour wing was probably built by Roger Ayshford who died in 1611 and kneels on his monument in BURLESCOMBE Church.. The plasterwork was probably commissioned by Arthur Ayshford (1600 – 1642/7), his eldest son, who died without surviving male issue , his heir being his brother John 1654.

A transcript of a 1689 inventory showed the great wealth of the Ayshford family at that time which mentions a "painted chamber".

The Ayshford estates passed to the Sanford family of Nynehead Court, Somerset, by the marriage of the heiress Mary (1607–1662), daughter of Henry Ayshford, to Henry Sanford (1612–1644). They have a monument in NYNEHEAD Church.

  

friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/202...

Picture with thanks - copyright David Smith CCL commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Chapel_at_Ayshford_-_...

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

Ledger stone of Hiltprant von Massenhausen (1347) at Saint Mary and Saint Corbinian cathedral in Freising, Germany.

 

The house of Massenhausen was a family of ministerialis active in the diocese of Friesing. The gravestone of his father, Arnold II of Massenhausen, is also perserved at the cathedral. The ledger stone depicts the coat of arms of Massenhausen complete with helm and crest, the latter being fashioned from limestone inlays.

 

The inscription reads:

 

"ANNO DO[MIN]I·M·CCC·XL VII· IN DIE·S[AN]C[T]I·ERASMI·OBIIT·HILTPRANDVS·DE·MAEZZENNAVSEN"

 

("in the year 1437, on the day of St. Erasmus, Hiltprant of Massenhausen died")

 

For additional information see:

DI 69, Stadt Freising, Nr. 27 (Ingo Seufert), in: www.inschriften.net, urn:nbn de0238-di069m012k0002704 & Ludwig Albert von Gumppenberg: Das adeliche Geschlecht von Massenhausen. In: Oberbayerisches Archiv für vaterländische Geschichte, Vol 4. 1843, pp. 398–412.

South aisle: A feature of the church is the memorial stones (ledger stones) on the floor. There are over 150 commemorating nearly 400 past residents of Ledbury.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

All Saints, Mendham, Suffolk

 

Sitting on the south bank of the River Waveney, no Suffolk church is closer to the Norfolk border. A surprisingly large and well-appointed church, probably thanks to the patronage of the Freston family whose wall memorials, brasses and ledgerstones fill the chancel. There was a major 19th Century restoration which gives the interior much of its character.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

A feature of the church is the memorial stones (ledger stones) on the floor. There are over 150 commemorating nearly 400 past residents of Ledbury.

 

Slade family memorial ledger

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.

St Mary, Badley, Suffolk

 

Now a new entry on the Suffolk Churches site.

 

You can follow these journeys as they happen at twitter.com/last_of_england.

 

The poet John Betjeman once observed in a BBC radio broadcast that his poems were not intended for clever people. Rather, he suggested, they were jingles for those enslaved to their own passions. Some churches are like that. Mortlock says of St Mary, Badley, that it seduces the senses, and sticks like a burr in the memory. Even Cautley's stiff upper lip wobbled briefly.

 

But to get to this church, you must find it first. There are two ways to reach it. No road goes within a mile of St Mary, and only by a sign to a track across the fields on the busy Needham Market to Stowmarket road would you ever know it was there.

 

The track is driveable, although too potholed to make cycling a pleasure. It winds lazily through gentle rises for a mile or so, and the noise of the modern world is soon lost behind you. eventually, a cluster of buildings appear below. It is a lost valley; a large 16th century farm house and outbuildings, with the red brick church tower in front of it. Beyond, a hazy maze of trees and fields. No other building is in sight. It is utterly bewitching. In early spring, the wild fields are getting their greenness, and lapwings huddle in the furrows. In this setting, church and farm are camouflaged, for the grass, hawthorn and trees make a secret world amongst them.

 

Crows and jackdaws wheel above. The grassed path leads to a little wooden porch, with a drop-gate to keep out animals. As Mortlock observes, it seems to be original, but there is nothing else like it in Suffolk. The door into the church has a metal grill set in it, and this all seems original too, 18th century at the latest. Through this grill, you can peep at remarkable things.

 

Alternatively, you might come down the long lane from Combs or Battisford, through Moats Tye and then take the lonely lane to the oddly-named Little London. Beyond here the jinking lane becomes an asphalt track, before petering out altogether as you approach a farm. There is nowhere to park so at this point you'd need to turn back if you are in a car and seek wonder elsewhere. Those of us left on foot or a bike (and you are going to have to push your bike mush of the way from here) will be directed by a sign through a gate and across a paddock. Beyond a second gate, a muddy track leads downwards under bowering trees, and just as you think you must inevitably end up lost in the woods you come out into the clearing described above.

 

The graveyard is still in use for burials, and what a peaceful spot this must be in which to see out eternity! It is pleasant enough to rest here if for only a moment, especially on a sunny day, among the scattering of 18th and 19th century memorials, and the large Robins monument set into the outside of the south chancel wall. The birds don't seem to mind, although as with many remote spots it is not always easy to be alone here on a Sunday afternoon in summer. At this point it is worth saying that the church is usually open at weekends from Easter to September, but if you are making a special trip it is really worth checking the CCT website to make sure there are no planned closures, and coming from the Needham Market direction, because a nearby keyholder is listed on a sign at that end of the track. At the very least, he will be able to tell you if the church is already open, and give you the key if it is not.

 

And you will really want to see inside, for Badley church has one of the most haunting and evocative interiors of any of the near-3000 churches I have ever visited. It is essentially an untouched 18th century interior, with barely a sign of Victorian enthusiasm. The benches and box pews are bleached white by centuries of Suffolk air and sunlight, and flooded with sunshine by the remarkably large five-light west window. The tiled floor spreads, punctuated by ledgerstones and brass inscriptions, and the whole piece is nakedly rustic. There are brasses and memorials to the Poley family, who lived in the original Hall. The only jarring note is the unexciting 19th century glass in the east window, but at this distance in time even this has a poignancy of its own. It depicts three Resurrection scenes, not an inappropriate theme here, with Thomas placing his hand in the wound of Christ and Mary Magdalene meeting Christ in the garden flanking Christ breaking bread at the supper at Emmaus.

 

The church fell out of use in the 1980s, and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. But it hasn't always been loved. The iconoclast William Dowsing came this way on the morning of Monday, February 5th 1644. Dowsing had a house nearby at Baylham. It was the last full day of his first tour of Suffolk, and he was probably in a bad mood - certainly, he seems to have been only just realising the enormity of his task, and this was the week he appointed the brutish and scheming Thomas Denny as his deputy. Dowsing found an ally here at Badley in William Dove, the principal landowner and churchwarden. Dowsing himself broke down about half of the stained glass, but trusted Dove to get rid of the rest. He also charged him with the task of lowering of the chancel steps which had been raised by order of Archbishop Laud a decade or so before. No old glass survives, and the chancel steps were never to be made high again.

 

Kirby's 1764 Suffolk Traveller found 82 people living in this parish, although many of these must have been down on the main road, part of which is technically within the parish boundaries. In 1844, White's Suffolk Directory showed a population increase of just one, to 83 - there were three farms, a windmill, and William Mudd living in the Hall. You can find memorials to Mudds in the graveyard even today. Today, two farms remain, although the mill has long gone. Despite this, and it is a curious thought, out of all Suffolk's churches the journey here still most closely resembles that made by both Dowsing and Kirby.

 

It is a hard church to drag yourself away from, but eventually you must do so. If you have come here by car, you'll need to go back along the track to Needham Market, but if you are on foot or on a bike and you came that way, you can extend your journey into the past by continuing along the track west from the church. It forks here, and the right fork leads into the farmyard of Badley Hall, but the left fork is a public right of way. The muddy track leads upwards from here, eventually taking you back to the gated paddock described above (the first time I came here in the 1990s I didn't notice this, and got a proper telling-off from the farmer for going through his farmyard). The track continues along the top of the ridge, and you can see Badley Hall and the tower of St Mary in the valley below. After about another half a mile, the track becomes metalled again, and after a hauntingly beautiful little thatched cottage, the rather mundane bungalows tell you that you have reached the hamlet of Little London. The top of Combs church peeps rather surreally over the crest of a field, and you can walk to it in ten minutes from here, or take the long way round by road, about two miles.

 

A bit further on, you fully rejoin the 21st century at the junction with the Stowmarket to Battisford road, where the busy traffic will give you cause to wonder, just for a moment, if it was all a dream.