Trip to Suffolk 2

The second village we stopped in was Middleton, a small place around three or four miles from the sea. Not a place one goes through by accident - at least one of the roads into it is not signposted and the others are narrow and unpromising. From the outside the church looks typically medieval. Though there is a village green houses have been built between the church and the green, which means it is on a narrow site, hemmed in.



Inside it is more eighteenth century than medieval, an effect produced by the plastered vaulted ceiling. This photo shows the view from the chancel. At the far end is a gallery with organ pipes on the sides. To the right the dark feature on the wall is a medieval painting of St Christopher in the place it so often occurs in old churches, opposite the entrance. To the left, behind the pews, is the font.


The font is the highlight of the church. The bowl shows the symbols of the Evangelists.







The supporting pillar of the font has alternating woodwoses (hairy wild men) and beasts.








In the sanctuary there is a piscina and attached to it the truncated remains of some other structure in the wall. A possible explanation is that it was a sedilia which was mostly cut away when the window was built at a later date.





Then we went to Westleton for lunch and a visit to the large bookshop housed in an old Methodist chapel. It's a bit disparate and very untidy, but there are a few gems to be had amongst the rubbish. It is a problem with bookshops - if they are too big it is tempting to hold on to the rubbish instead of pruning it regularly.

We hadn't visited the parish church before. Even more than Middleton it is hidden on the edge of the village down a lane and as it doesn't have a tower we had never noticed it.

This time there was some sort of village celebration going on and there
were signs to a flower festival in the church. Maybe I wasn't in the mood,
as I thought it pretty dire, but the font is fun. Lions and suchlike.

And there is a huge patch of some kind of bamboo in one corner of the churchyard, but I won't bore you with a picture of that.

Last and best we arrived in Southwold where I found that the lighthouse was open to visitors. As I have mentioned before I always climb church towers and castle keeps, but I have never been up a lighthouse before. Like all British lighthouses it is now fully automatic and requires no keepers as in the past, so volunteers man it for charity.

I was the only person in my party, so the ticket sellers at the bottom sent me up by myself to the top up the catilevered stairs. My picture is taken from near the top looking down to the floor. The bulk of the tower is hollow with a service floor at the top of the spiral stairs and a ladder from there up to the light chamber.





The views are of a wide area. The lighthouse itself is in the middle of the town so the keepers and their families would have had a normal life, not cut off from civilisation as with lighthouses in more remote places. Adnams brewery is right opposite the lighthouse.



Looking south, on the horizon is the nuclear power station, Sizewell B.






To the north is the recently rebuilt pier.








Inland is the parish church of Southwold, St Edmund's.

I was regaled with information about the lighthouse and the views by a very knowledgeable volunteer whom I had to myself. Altogether it was a very satisfying experience.




We made a quick visit to the church. This is the porch, with statue of St Edmund, bound. He was shot to death with arrows by the Danes.






And here is part of the medieval rood screen, much defaced by the seventeenth century iconoclasts.

We also walked on Black Shore at the mouth of the river, past fishing boats and their sheds, boat building yards and all the detritus that comes with such activities. A good day out.

Trip to Suffolk 1

A recent trip to Suffolk to buy books took in several churches. The best was Dennington, twelve miles west of the coast and two miles north of Framlingham.

Dennington's greatest claim to fame is a carving on one of the bench ends of a skiapod. The middle ages believed in the existence of all sorts of strange species of human, including men whose mouths and faces were in their stomachs. The skiapods were men from Ethiopia with one large foot on which they hopped about. When they slept they lay on their back with the foot in the air, thus sheltering themselves from the sun and rain. The name skiapod means shadow foot. Actually, if you look carefully at this one he appears to have two large feet. Perhaps the carver misinterpreted a picture he'd seen of the creature, or maybe there is an alternative tradition about such fabulous men.

Other features of this church are matching parclose screens on either side of the nave. They must have originally been joined by the rood screen, now lost of course.








It is a large airy church, very attractive. A fine table tomb to William, Lord Bardolf, and his wife,
who died in the 1440s is a feature.




And dotted about are other relics of the past. There's a hefty parish chest and a medieval hanging pyx cover for the reserved sacrament in the sanctuary.












Something I have never seen before is in the side aisle which in the early nineteenth century housed the village school. It is a long tray, filled with sand. Using a stick the children would learn to write their letters. And when the tray was full you used a smoothing board on the sand and could then start again. Very ingenious, and cheaper than providing everyone with slates and chalk.