cavendish

St Mary, Cavendish

Chocolate box England is a soubriquet thrown around liberally when people are discussing village churches, but if it is true anywhere, it is true here. On a hot summer's day, this village, with its wide green, its medieval cottages and ancient inn, its pretty church in its tree-lined churchyard, is as lovely as it is possible to be. This is the antithesis of wild settings like that of Westhall, agricultural settings like Thornham Parva, industrial settings like Ipswich St Mary at Quay. This is England tamed and civilised, and the sheer Englishness of the setting, especially when seen from behind a pint outside the pub, can inspire mild feelings of patriotism even in a staunch European like myself. No wonder Americans love Cavendish so much.

St Mary behind its high summer trees from the village green.

As you may imagine, this is a well-kept village, with an extremely well-kept church. It is all terribly nice, in a terribly English way. Indeed, in the upper Stour Valley, it is often hard to see beyond the rather polite CofE parish churches these buildings have become.

Wedding cake architecture at Cavendish.

There was great wealth here in the middle ages, and this built the substantial exterior of St Mary. The building is like a beautiful fortress, and instantly recognisable; Suffolk has none other quite like it. Recently cleaned, it gleams with flinty whiteness. The stair turret climbs beyond the parapet, and a lantern surmounts the 14th century tower.

The chancel was built by a bequest from Sir John Cavendish in the 1380s, one of the less likely, and more fortunate, results of the Peasants' Revolt; Sir John had been lynched by his parishioners after his son had Wat Tyler put to death. So, everything turned well in the end. Except for Sir John, of course.

The nave was probably the work of Reginald Ely, designer of King's College chapel in Cambridge. It is all high quality stuff.

Inside the church, everything is neat and light. It is as if someone with very good taste had been given a medieval building, and told, "see what you can do with THAT".

At the east end of the south aisle is what at first appears to be a stone altar, but on closer inspection is a tomb chest for Sir George Colt, who died in 1570.

At this time, our English churches were still in a ferment; until the late 1530s, a chantry altar probably stood here, perhaps for a guild. You can still see the squint that allowed the chantry priest a view of the high altar. The canopied niche to the right of the chest contains a modern image of the Madonna and child, and may very well have contained something similar until the 1530s.

Colt's tomb, and its placement in such a sacred space, must have sent a clear message to the people of Cavendish - Catholicism is over, and we're in charge now.

You'll not be surprised to learn that the tomb has been tastefully furnished with flowers, and the niche painted in Marian blue, which presumably has Colt spinning nicely in his grave.

Where once priests said Masses for souls, George Colt spins quietly in his grave at the modern statue and coat of marian blue in the niche. Well, it's good for the dead to get some exercise.

The church also has not one, but two pre-Reformation lecterns, one a brass eagle affair like that at nearby Clare.

But perhaps the most interesting thing in the building is not from this church at all. It is a 16th century Flemish reredos, showing the crucifixion. It is among the most splendid art objects in all Suffolk. The whole thing is a highly animated three dimensional relief, with saints, angels and Old Testament figures looking on. It is set in a gorgeous frame by that campest of Anglo-catholic architects, Ninian Comper, most familiar from Eye. It is the sort of thing that has been whisked off to the V&A most places, so the parish here are to be congratulated on keeping it, and celebrating it. You'll find it in the north aisle.

If Disneyland Paris decided on a themed English area, with a village parish church, it would have to choose Cavendish. And why go all the way to Paris, when you can visit it here?

St Mary, Cavendish, is across the village green from the A1092 Melford to Haverhill road. I found it open.