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This is such a strange
area. You leave Debenham, and you
enter a land of apple orchards, mile after mile of them.
This is the Chevallier estate, home of the Aspall Cyder
Company. The family came here from the Channel Islands
They've been here more than two centuries, and were using
the same apple crushing wheel until fairly recently. The
family is remembered by Chevallier Street in Ipswich.
A long
straight road cuts westward through the orchards,
and leads us into a gentle dip. This is Aspall,
not to be confused with Stonham
Aspal on the far side
of Debenham, and the church sits there with its
attendant houses.
The setting is
completely rural, although thoroughly 19th
century. The little lodge beside the church gate
had a brace of pheasants hanging from its door.
The pretty church
is a little one, and the dedication reveals the
enthusiasm of the 19th century revival here. It
may even have been the medieval dedication; in Debenham, the road in the direction of Aspall is
called Gracechurch Street.
Although the
Victorians were busy here, adding a north transept and generally giving the place a
makeover, there is still the 15th century tower.
The porch is
rather pretty, with banding characteristic of the
17th century. The west door has been blocked, but
its age is revealed by the array of brick and
flint above it. A trefoil window is there now.
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The 15th
century tower of Our Lady of Grace.
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In the graveyard, you will
find the stone of the film producer Emeric Pressburger.
The inscription, from Scott's A Matter of Life and
Death, reads: Love rules the court, the camp,
the grove, This world below and heaven above, For love is
heaven, and heaven is love. Michael Fitzgerald, a
friend of this site who pointed it out to me, also sent
me an extract about the burial from Pressburger's
biography, The Life and Death of a Screenwriter,
by Kevin Macdonald:
| He had expressed a wish to
be buried in the village church at Aspall. It was
a cold dreary day and a small funeral, a few
friends from the village, theSchopflinns, my
brother and I and our father. Michael was unable to come. Martin
Scorsese sent flowers.
At the last minute a
long-forgotten Yugoslav cousin rang from Belgrade
to ensure we gave our grandfather a Jewish
burial. He assured us that Emeric had been a
practising Jew. No one else could remember him
going near a synagogue. As a concession, the
liberal Anglican vicar allowed a Star of David to
be engraved on his grave stone.
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Inside the church, the
19th century woodwork is outstanding, recalling Great Bealings and Tuddenham
St Martin, with lots of designs
based on medieval iconography. It is hard to see much
beyond the skin of the Victorian restoration, and there
is little or no surviving evidence of the Catholic life
and liturgy of the place. Two hatchments, to Chevalliers naturally, survive from the
time when the church was almost derelict.
The
pretty porch. (Photo by Alan Thurkettle).
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As is common,
the Chevalliers also supplied Rectors to the
parish throughout the 19th century. Arthur Mee in
The King's England, recalls John
Chevallier. He was Rector in the mid-century, and
was also the village Doctor. He lived in the
Hall, where he prepared a clinic.
Most famously, he
was the person responsible for cultivating
Chevallier barley, a high-yield variety; it was
taken out into the Empire, and provided
three-quarters of the world's barley crops by the
century's end.
John's daughter,
Anne, married into the Kitchener family, and her
son became Lord Kitchener, whose propagandising
and ranting persuaded hundreds of thousands of
young Englishmen to their deaths in the First
World War.
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The rather revolting
memorial to him in the church was given by a Californian
branch of the Kitchener family.
Mee adored Kitchener, and
his entry for Aspall is a treacly homage to the old Angel
of Death. He does mention, however, that the young
Kitchener was so lazy at school that his mother
threatened to withdraw him from it, and apprentice him to
a hatter. You wonder if the world would have turned out
differently.
The
former west doorway.
Our
Lady of Grace, Aspall, is located to the north of
Debenham (leave town on Gracechurch Street) or to the
west of the B1077 Debenham to Eye road. I found it locked
without a keyholder.
Please
note that the photo of Emeric Pressburger's grave is by
Michael Fitzgerald, and retains his copyright.
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