At the sign of the Barking lion...

St Edmund, Assington

At the sign of the Barking lion...

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Assington

Gurdon memorial tower stair doorway The Gurdons of Assington porch

   
   
Assington angels   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.

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.

  churchyard cat
   

Simon Knott, May 2009

inside at Assington south doorway south aisle
apple blossom white fresh daffodils apple blossom white

 

 

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