Is it the sleight of hand of planning regulations that keeps the
south of Suffolk one of East Anglia's remotest areas? The hills and
valleys ripple above the valley of the Stour, and in them hide the
county's most beautiful villages. Boxford and Kersey are
world-famous, but there are others in the area between Sudbury and
Hadleigh that are nearly as lovely but little-known. Little
Waldingfield is one such place, a quiet, self-contained place on
the Sudbury to Lavenham road, not far from its larger neighbour.
Curiously, the churches of both villages are dedicated to St
Lawrence; a confusion, perhaps, of the 18th century antiquarians
who in the main restored the medieval dedications which had fallen
from use by reference to old documents.
The classic Suffolk parish church is one rebuilt on a grand
scale in the 15th century with aisles and a clerestory. The biggest
and best of Suffolk's churches are like this. And so is Little
Waldingfield, except that here the rebuilding was on a smaller,
intimate scale. On the face of it, the church bears similarities to
the great ship of St Peter and St Paul at Clare, especially with
the tall roodstair turrets at the east end of the nave. The
proportions of nave windows to clerestory windows recalls Long
Melford, but the odd thing at Little Waldingfield is that the
chancel was never rebuilt, and looks rather domestic next to the
late medieval glories of the rest of the building. Its steeply
pitched roof is tiled in red, making it look as if a house were
attached to the east end of the church. All in all, the building
has an air of faded beauty.
A gorgeous, ramshackle old porch fronts the south entrance.
Around the back is the exotic surprise of a spired Tudor red brick
porch, now blocked off to form a vestry. All in all, there is a
faded beauty of a building which has queitly seen out the
centuries. But what will it be like inside?
How often, gentle reader, have you stepped inside a building
like this to find a through-going and anonymous 19th century
restoration? We mustn't be too hard on the Victorians, because
almost every medieval survival today is due to their enthusiasm and
energy. But how we long to find an interior sympathetic to the
outside! Well, at Little Waldingfield there is no disappointment.
It as if St Lawrence, in its quiet backwater, was forgotten by the
restorers who scoured nearby Lavenham, Long Melford and Great
Waldingfield. here, there is a smell of age and damp, the old
stonework of the arcades and floors a lingering memory of the days
they were new.
Standing at the west end is one of the area's most interesting
fonts. It is probably a bit earlier than the church around it -
perhaps contemporary with the tower in the 14th century? - and four
of its panels depict monks sitting at benches and going about their
business.
Turning east, you can see that the nave of Little Waldingfield
church is a text book example of a late medieval structure, with
aisles and clerestories on both sides, the eyes drawn upwards in
the intention of Perpendicular architecture. The quiet simplicity
of the chancel with its clear-glassed five-light window lets you
appreciate this all the more. This simplicity extends into the
nave; you feel that there is nothing unnecessary, nothing
superfluous, no clutter to inhibit the ghosts of medieval and early
modern Little Waldingfield. This is still their church as much as
ours.
You can meet some of them in the north aisle. Here are brass
figures of early 16th century Waldingfielders. They would have seen
this church when it was complete, as it is now, albeit without the
later furnishings. Robert and Mary Appleton died in 1526. This was
the year that the artist Hans Holbein arrived in England. His
portrait of Henry VIII that year shows a grand patriarch at the
height of his powers, but also, perhaps, one can detect a
thoughtfulness, a troubled brow. The following year, 1527, Henry
would apply for the annulment of his marriage, a struggle leading
ultimately to the break with Rome and the establishment of
triumphal protestantism in England. By 1544, when the brass to John
Wyncoll in his doublet was installed, this process was already well
under way.
A reminder of happier and less turbulent times in the parish is
the grandest brass of all, the clothier John Colman in 1506, whose
family may well have paid for the rebuilding of the church. Beneath
him, his six sons and seven daughters stand in pious grief. What
would the next half century mean to them, I wonder?
Religious history is interesting, and having an angle on it
certainly makes a visit to a medieval church more worthwhile. But
the medieval churches of England are, above all else, a communion,
a touchstone down the long generations of the people who were born,
lived and died in their parishes.
Some of them were rich and important like the Appletons,
Wyncolls and Colmans. Future generations would leave their mark
behind in the form of charity, recorded on the benefaction boards
in the north aisle, or in the memorials around the walls. But most
are lost to us, with not even headstones in the graveyard recording
their brief lives. To stand in a church like St Lawrence is to
sense them briefly, a resonance in the air perhaps, a movement out
of sight, an echo almost heard. As the Church of England fades and
dies, how much more important it becomes that these buildings
survive to remind us of who we are, and where we have come
from.
And as the State Religion by Law Established that Henry VIII
planted becomes little more than a small enthusiasm, the final
preserve of a scattering of increasingly beleaguered faith
communities, at a time when Christianity is flowering and
burgeoning in modern buildings and denominations elsewhere, it will
be a tragedy if we forget that our medieval churches were always
more than mere worship spaces.
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If anybody would like to expand to this series please do, I
would just ask that you could let "http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=3af7a90d-65ce-45ee-9b73-dc6e95fc9489&wid=bafee28a-5090-4a51-bbf4-aecb69d75d86&ds=2">
Sadexploration know first so he can keep track of the Church
numbers and names to avoid duplication
To view the church micro stats page, please click "http://www.15ddv.me.uk/geo/cm/cm.html">here
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