Alderton

St Andrew, Alderton

For some time now, I've felt as if a ghost has been accompanying me on my journey around Suffolk. Nothing sinister, and I know who he is. His name is Arthur Blomfield, and he was a 19th century architect. He seems to have spent an uncommonly large amount of time in the county, and his work extends from the vast, urban St John the Baptist, Felixstowe, to the tiny chapel in the woods on Culford Heath. Much of his work in the county was restoration stuff, and his hallmark is the mystical, rural archaism of Early English/Decorated Transitional.

Blomfield at his best - St Andrew from the pub garden.

My first sight of St Andrew was accompanied by a shock of recognition, for here is Blomfield's work in all its glory, and one of the best Victorian-restored exteriors in Suffolk. The setting is gorgeous, and has the benefit of a pub garden that cuts directly into the churchyard.

That tower from the north-west - a danger to cattle.

But the most remarkable thing about this church is its tower - or, rather, the absence of one.

As with much of this area, the wealth and activity of the early medieval period were replaced by later depopulation and poverty, so that, as with Bawdsey a mile away, this church was soon crumbling.

The tower fell progressively during the 17th and 18th centuries, then achieving its present state one Sunday morning in 1821, when it collapsed during morning service, killing a cow. I understand that the cow was outside the church at the time.

The ruined tower is most splendidly overgrown, full of ivy, angelica and elder, and there's no other Suffolk church like it.

The Millennium project was a little turret for the bell, which now stands just to the west of the tower. For many years, this bell sat on the floor of the nave.

A more ambitious, and slightly tongue-in-cheek, project suggested for the Millennium here was to rebuild the tower - perhaps inspired, or even provoked, by the vast amount of money about to be spent on building a tower at the Anglican Cathedral in Bury.

You enter by a vast north porch, and step into a substantial, light, open nave.

Like Bawdsey and Hollesley, this church must have been a big one before the rot of poverty set in. The interior is thoroughly Victorianised, but all is neat and tidy, fitting and proper for its purpose.

There are a number of notable objects in the nave.

Firstly, the glorious Ikon cross to the south of the chancel arch. It is constructed of thousands of pieces of a cut up New Testament.

How good, to find such an exciting piece of meditative art in this setting!

Also in the nave is a memorial to a former vicar. It reads He was not distinguished by his Activity or Literary Abilities, But he was what is more truly valuable, an Honest Man.

Amen to that. Amen also to the surviving piscina, set in the south wall.

The Millennium bell to the west of the tower.

Left: the Cross Ikon made up of thousands of shreds of the New Testament.

Detail above.

The chancel is all Blomfield's typical ritualist ordering, designed for for a style of worship now rather out of date, although the lady cleaning the church assured me that it flourishes at Alderton, and there is a strong musical tradition here. Most curiously, he seems to have installed what appears to be a mock Easter sepulchre in the north wall - presumably for use as a credence.

Blomfield's extraordinary mock Easter sepulchre. Most curious - although not as curious as Bawdsey, a mile away.

Looking west, the tower arch is rather alarming, with a partition screen cutting the church off from the ruins of the tower.

It is rather an uneasy arrangement, and it is not surprising that the west end of the nave has become cluttered.

In general though, although the inside is worth seeing, it is the outside that the journey is worth. And what better than to sit outside the Swan, looking over the top of a pint of Greene King at the depredations of time, and Blomfield's masterly restoration?

St Andrew, Alderton, is near the end of the B1083 from Melton to Bawdsey. I found it open.