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Listen: come with
me. Well set off from the Queens Head at
Blyford, a fine and welcoming pub across the road from
that villages little church. Perhaps well
have just had lunch, and well be sitting outside
with a couple of pints of Adnams. Youd like to stay
there in the sunshine for the rest of the afternoon, but
Im going to take you somewhere special, so stir
yourself. You are probably thinking it is Blythburgh,
Suffolks finest church a couple of miles away on
the main A12. But it isnt. Nor is it the church at
Wenhaston, a mile away across the bridge, and home of the
Wenhaston Doom, one of Suffolks greatest medieval
art treasures. But no, youve already seen that.
I'm going to take you somewhere of which you may not even
have heard. Within a few miles of the pub sign (notice
that it features St Etheldreda, whose father King Anna
was killed in battle on the Blyth marshes) there is a
third of Suffolks finest churches. It is the least
known of the three, partly because it is so carefully
hidden, so secreted away, and partly because Simon
Jenkins missed it out of his book Englands Thousand
Best Churches, and like many people you take too much
notice of it.
Blyford is on the main road between Halesworth and
Dunwich, but we are going to take a narrow lane that you
might almost miss if you werent with me. It leads
northwards, and is quickly enveloped by oak-buttressed
hedgerows, beyond which thin fields spread. Pheasants
scuttle across the road in front of us. A hare watches
warily for a moment before kicking sulkily back into the
ditch (we are on foot perhaps, or bicycle). Occasional
lanes thread off into the woods and towards the sea.
After a couple of miles, we reach the obscenity of a main
road, and cross it quickly, leaving it behind us. Now,
the lane narrows severely, the banks steepening, trees
arching above us. They guard the silence, until our
tunnel doglegs suddenly, and an obscure stream appears
beyond the hedgerow. Once, on a late winter afternoon, my
dream was disturbed here by a startled heron rising up,
its bony legs clacking dryly as it took flight over my
head. I felt the rush of its wings.
This road was not designed for cars. Instead, it traces
the ancient field pattern, cutting across the ends of
strips and then along the sides, connecting long-vanished
settlements. The lane splits (we take the right fork) and
splits again (the left) and suddenly we are descending
steeply into a secret glade shrouded in ancient tree
canopies. The lane curves, narrows and opens and
here we are. Still, you might not notice it, because the
church is still camouflaged by the trees, and the
absurdity of the neighbouring bungalow with its kitschy
garden may distract you. But to your right, in a silent
velvet graveyard sits St Andrew, Westhall. It has been
described as Suffolks best kept secret.
I hope that I can convey to you something of why this
place is so special. Firstly, notice the unusual layout
of the building as you walk around it. That fine late
13th century tower, not too high despite its
post-Reformation bell-stage, organic and at one with the
trees, a small Norman church spreading to the east of it.
And then, to the north, a large 13th century nave,
thatched and rustic. It was designed for this graveyard,
for this glade. Neither has changed much. Beyond it, the
grand 14th century chancel, rudely filling almost the
entire east end of the graveyard. Perhaps as we step
around to the north side the same thing will happen as
happened to me one muggy Saturday afternoon in July 2003,
when I surprised a tawny owl daydreaming on a headstone.
he took one look at me and then threw himself furiously
into the air and away.
Your first thought may be that here we have two churches
joined together and this is almost exactly right.
Here at Westhall, there was a Norman church, an early
one. Several hundred years later a tower was built to the
west of it, and then the vast new nave to the north. A
hundred years later came the chancel. Perhaps the east
end of the Norman church was rebuilt at this time.
Mortlock thinks that there was once a Norman chancel, and
this may be so. The old church became a south aisle, the
particular preserve perhaps of the locally important
Bohun family. They married into the famous Coke family,
who we have already met at nearby Bramfield.
And so, we step inside. We may do so through the fine
north porch. It is a wide, open one, clearly intended for
the carrying out of parish business. It was probably the
last substantial part of the church to be built, on the
eve of the Reformation. The door appears contemporary.
Or, I might send you round to step in through the Norman
doorway on the south side, into the body of the original
church. Both entrances are usually open.
You expect dust and decay perhaps, in such a remote spot.
But this is a well-kept church, lovingly maintained and
well-used. Although there are a couple of old benches
scattered about, most of the seating is early 19th
century, with that delightful cinema curve to the western
row which was fashionable immediately before the Oxford
Movement and the Camden Society sent out their great
re-sacramentalising waves, and English churches would
never be the same again.
If you step in from the north, you are immediately
confronted with something so wonderful that we are going
to pretend you cannot believe your eyes, and you pass it
by. Instead, walk into the Norman south side and draw
back the curtain beneath the tower. Walk to the western
wall, and turn back. You are confronted with the main
entrance of a grand post-conquest church, probably about
1100. Before the tower was built you would have been
standing outside of the main entrance. Surviving faces in
the unfinished ranges of the arch look like something out
of Nick Park's Wallace and Grommit. Above the arch is an
arcade of windows, the central one open. Almost a
thousand years ago, it would have thrown summer evening
light on the altar.
As you step back into
the aisle, it is now easy to see it as the nave it once
was. The northern wall has now gone, replaced by a low
arcade, and you step northwards through it into the
wideness of the modern (it is only 600 years old!) nave.
Here, then, let us at last allow ourselves an exploration
of Suffolks other great medieval art survival. This
is Westhalls famous font, one of the seven
sacrament series, but more haunting than all the others
because it still retains almost all its original colour.
The Mass panel is the most familiar, because it was the
cover of Eamonn Duffys majestic The Stripping of
the Altars. The other panels, anti-clockwise from this,
are Last Rites, Reconciliation, Matrimony, Confirmation,
Baptism, Ordination, and the odd panel out, the Baptism
of Christ.
The font asks more
questions than it answers. How did it survive? Suffolk
has 13 Seven Sacrament fonts in various states of repair.
Those nearby at Blythburgh, Wenhaston and Southwold are
clearly from the same group as this one, but have been
completely effaced. Other good ones survive nearby at
Weston and Great Glemham, at Monk Soham, at neighbours
Woodbridge and Melton, neighbours Cratfield and Laxfield,
at Denston in the south west and at Badingham. We
dont know how many others there might have been.
Probably not many, for most East Anglian churches have a
surviving medieval font of another design. The surviving
panels were probably plastered over during the long
Reformation night (the damage to the figures is probably
a result of making the faces flush rather than any
attempt at iconoclasm) but they were also all probably
once coloured. So why has only this one survived in that
state?
The other feature of the font that is quite extraordinary
is the application of gessowork for the tabernacled
figures between the faces. This is plaster, moulded on
and allowed to dry it can then be carved. It is
sometimes used on wood to achieve fine details, but
rarely on stone. Was it once found widely elsewhere? How
has it survived here?
If it was just for the font, then St Andrew would still
be an essential destination for anyone interested in
medieval churches. But there are several other features
that, in any other church, would be considered equally
impressive.
There is the screen. It is a bit of a curiosity. Firstly,
the two painted ranges are clearly from different times
and the work of different artists. On the 15th Century
south side are female Saints, very similar in style to
those on the screen at Ufford. The artists helpfully
labelled them, and they are St Etheldreda (the panel
bearing her left half has been lost) St Sitha, St Agnes,
St Bridget, St Catherine, St Dorothy, St Margaret of
Aleppo and finally one of the most essential Saints in
the medieval economy of grace, St Apollonia - she it was
who could be asked to intercede against toothache.
The depictions on the
early 16th Century northern part of the screen are much
simpler (Pevsner thought them crude) and were probably
painted by a local artist. A dedicatory inscription runs
along the top on this side. It is barely legible now, but
the names Margarete and Tome Felton and Richard Lore and
Margaret Alen are still discernible. The figures on this
side of the screen are fascinating. They are all easily
recognisable, and are fondly rendered. With one
remarkable exception, they are familiar to us from many
popular images.
The first is Saint James in his pilgrim's garb, as
if about to set out for Santiago de Compostella. The
power of such an image to medieval people in a backwater
like north-east Suffolk should not be underestimated.
Next comes St Leonard, associated with the Christian duty
of visiting prisoners - perhaps this had a local
resonance. Thirdly, there is a triumphant St Michael, one
of the major Saints of the late medieval panoply, and
then St Clement, the patron Saint of seafarers. This is
interesting, because although Westhall is a good six
miles from the sea, it is much closer to the Blyth river,
which was probably much wider in medieval times. It seems
strange to think of Westhall as having a relationship
with the sea, but it probably did.
Now comes the remarkable exception. The next three panels
represent between them the Transfiguration, with Christ
on a mountain top in the middle between the two figures
of Moses and Elijah. This is the only surviving medieval
screen representation of the Transfiguration in England.
Eamonn Duffy, in The Stripping of the Altars, argues that
here at Westhall is priceless evidence of the emergence
of a new cult on the eve of the Reformation, which would
snuff it out. Another representation survived in a wall
painting at Hawkedon, but has faded away during the last
half century. The last panel is St Anthony of Egypt,
recognisable from the dear little pig at his feet. I
wonder if it was painted from the life.
When we can at last
tear ourselves away from the screen, there is much else
to explore. The wall painting on the north wall shows St
Christopher, as you might expect. St Christopher had a
special place in the hearts of medieval churchgoers, and
he usually stands opposite the main south entrance so
that the faithful could look in at the start of the day
and receive his blessing. As a surviving inscription at
Creeting St Peter reminds us, anyone who looks on the
image in the morning would be spared a sudden death that
day. This was important in an age when to die unconfessed
was to risk purgatory, or even hell. But it is the two
other figures in the illustration that are remarkable,
though, for one of them is Moses, wearing his horns
of light (an early medieval mistranslation of
halo). He receives the commandments from God
the Father, who stands beside him.
There are a couple of
other wall-paintings, including a beautiful
flower-surrounded consecration cross beside the south
door, and a painted image niche alcove in the eastern
splay of a window in the south wall. This is odd, for it
should have a figure in it, but none appears to have ever
been painted there. Perhaps it was intended to have a
statue placed in front of it, but the window sill is very
steep, and it is hard to see how a statue could have been
positioned there. Cameron Newham surmised that there had
once been a stand below it, the base of which was canted
in some manner, and that the sill had once been less
steep (the base of the painting seems to suggest this).
Between the painted niche and consecration cross there
are surviving traces of a large painting. It seems to
consist of the leafy surrounds of seven large roundels.
Mortlock wondered if it might have been a sequence of the
Seven Works of Mercy as at Trotton in Sussex, but there
is insufficient remaining to tell. Nicholas Bohun's tomb,
in very poor repair, sits in the south-east corner. An
associated brass gives you rather more information than
you my might think you need. A George III royal arms
hangs above. Stepping back into the south side, the
angels that hold up the roof have lost their heads and
wings, but are still beautiful. Several hold crowns, one
holds a portative organ, another a shield with the lilies
of the Annunciation.
If you haven't lost
your appetite for the extraordinary, come back up into
the apparently completely Victorianised chancel. Chalice
brasses are incredibly rare, because of their Catholic
imagery. Westhall had two of them, although unfortunately
only the matrices survive. Then, look up. On one of the
roof beams is an image of the Holy Trinity, with God the
Father holding the Crucified Christ between his knees.
There is probably a dove as well, although that is not
visible from the ground. Indeed, the whole thing is too
small, as if the artist hadn't really thought about the
scale needed for it to be seen from the chancel floor. In
the chancel windows, fragments of 14th and 15th Century
glass remain.
At any time in any
season this is a special place. I find it hard to resist
a visit when ever I am cycling in these lanes to the
south of Halesworth. It is always an extraordinary place
to step into. Simon Jenkins described the parish churches
of England as the greatest folk museum in the world, and
that is exactly right, for of all Suffolk's churches this
feels more than most to be a touchstone down the long
generations to the people who built it and the people who
worshipped in it. As you wander about wondering you may
just catch out of the corner of your eye the movement of
a 12th Century priest genuflecting at the south altar, a
15th Century peasant lighting a candle and telling her
beads, the 18th Century blacksmith and ploughboy
shuffling awkwardly on their bottoms during the long
Sunday afternoon sermon. They were real people, who knew
this place as their own. This is how we came to be.
Simon
Knott, April 2020
Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England
Twitter.
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