By the standards of many Suffolk Churches, St John the Baptist in Denham is not a spectacular building, but historically it is fascinating. Over many centuries it has had so many formats that sometimes one has to wonder whether the descriptions offered are the result of poetic licence. A church in Denham is mentioned in the Doomsday book, but whether it was on the current site we will never know. A plaque in the present building is inscribed “William de Kirsby, Prior of Norwich placed me here……….” This stone was previously on the outside of the east wall of the building and he is recorded as prior in the 1280/90’s. This suggests that by this time there was a stone building on the current site, though probably much smaller than now.
Evidence within the building give clues to its other formats, for example the exposed wooden beam within the chancel arch suggest a lower roofline for the nave, the bricked up arch on the north wall together with the remnants of large horizontal grave markers outside indicate the existence of a chantry chapel, the remains of the rood stair between the buttresses on the south wall indicate the existence at sometime of a rood screen, and the recently uncovered doorway beside the current south porch door suggest an entrance to the tower which was demolished sometime in the mid seventeen hundreds.
However nothing visibly shows that this building was at some time about 14 foot longer than it currently is, but recently the builders and architects discovered that markings on the roof beams indicate that at least two of the wooden roof arches are missing, so authenticating the map of 1725 which shows a tower in the middle of the south wall which housed three bells. In 1744 a faculty was granted by the Diocese of Norwich to sell two of the bells and use the money to take down the tower and put the building in good repair as well as building a place to hang the remaining bell.
In 1747 the church terrier lists only one bell which was housed in a cupola above the foreshortened west wall. The north chapel is described in 1731 as having three gravestones (dedicated to the Bedingfield Family) the remnants of a screen with defaced angels, and stained glass windows. In 1809 the building is described as “thoroughly repaired and neatly pewed,” and an engraving of 1818 shows the church much as it stands today. However sometime during the 19th century the cupola was removed and replaced by a bell tower, but this fell down within living memory, and now the remaining bell sits at the back of the church, awaiting some more modern means of hanging it.
The church is usally open
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If anybody would like to expand this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Sadexploration know first at churchmicro@gmail.comso he can keep track of the Church numbers and names to avoid duplication.There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page found via the Bookmark list”