Beccles St Luke

St Luke, Beccles

My friend Aidan tells me that there is something trainspotterish about including churches like this on the site. Having been to St Luke, I'm tempted to agree with him. This is basically a large functional hall, dating from 1973, with a cross on the end; it fronts a rather more interesting house of 1965. It was intended as a chapel of ease to St Michael.

The east end of the church, with the church house beyond. The flint mural is at the junction between the two.

There are skylights in the roof, and long, narrow windows below the roofline. It looks like nothing so much as a sports hall.

The only detail of note is a flint mural illustrating the dedication. Incidentally, there seems to have been a fashion for dedicating Anglican churches to St Luke in the 1960s and 1970s; the same thing happened in Ipswich and Lowestoft.

I'd have liked to have seen the font, which Mortlock describes as having impressionistic carvings, but there was a meeting on inside, and the man on the door said I couldn't come in.

For once, I didn't argue the point. I stood across the road and took some photographs, while the youths in the picture hurled abuse at me. I hope that their parents see this, and give them a jolly good talking to.

St Luke, Beccles, is located to the south east of the town centre. I suspect that it isn't kept open, but some users might be happier for you to see inside.