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This is a fine, grand,
little-visited church. It stands in
fields near the ornate gateway to
Assington Hall. But the Hall burned down
half a century ago, and now St Edmund has
a more exotic and somewhat surprising
neighbour, a field with llamas and
alpacas in it. You approach it by a
driveway from the Sudbury to Bures
road. The whole church
was largely rebuilt in the 1860s, using
the original materials. The architect
seems to have been the vicar himself; not
as unusual as it sounds, in those days of
a renewal of interest in liturgy and
decoration. The church was largely
rebuilt in its original style, judging by
drawings from earlier in the 19th
Century; that is, of the 1late Medieval
period. Its tower is a grand one. It
would be interesting to see it in a
couple of centuries time, when it has
matured a bit.
To the east of the church is
one of the most spectacular churchyard
memorials in Suffolk, a great column
surmounted by angels, set on a base which
remembers generations of the Gurdon
family. It is the first inkling that this
is a church to come to if you have an
interest in monuments; as at Sotterley
and Helmingham,
you can follow the lives (and deaths) of
a single family over the centuries.
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The
Gurdons seem to have been a muscular lot; like
the Barnadistons at Kedington, they were
enthusiastic puritans and parliamentarians, but
made themselves useful enough to receive free and
full pardons after the Restoration. From then
until the 19th century, they were presenting
their younger sons to the living, in the Suffolk
manner. There are some excellent portraits of
them on the various tombs.
Before
going inside, I pottered around the graveyard,
noting a magnificent churchyard cat, a great
fluffy ginger tom who sat on a gatepost to a
neighbouring house and regarded me diffidently.
Nearby, a headstone remembering someone who had
died nearly a century ago had fresh flowers on
it, which I thought was lovely.
| I recalled that this
clerestory-less church was rather dark
inside, and I was pleased to be coming
back with a decent camera. However, I'm
afraid that I wasn't able to get inside,
because St Edmund is now only open at
weekends. This is a pity, because I had
complimented it after my last visit for
being kept open, as most are around here.
It is worth noting that more Suffolk and
Norfolk churches are open every day now
than were ten years ago, which is good.
But there are several places, like
Assington, where the change has been made
in the opposite direction. This is not
because of suspicion, or vandalism, or a
lack of welcome, but simply because some
congregations are now so small it is no
longer possible to ensure a full key
rota. Apart from its
monuments, this isn't an
earth-shatteringly important building,
and I don't suppose that it gets many
visitors. But I look forward to going
back soon and photographing those
monuments, and hopefully my pictures will
encourage you to make the same visit
yourself. There is a chapel of ease a
mile or so away at Leavenheath,
which is also worth a glance if you are
in the area.
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