Clare CofE

St Peter and St Paul, Clare

St Peter and St Paul is a big church, which on the face of it should stand in the first rank of Suffolk churches. The problem is that history has been so vigorously rewritten within its walls, that it is hard to see it as anything other than the rather pleasant Church of England parish church that it has become.

St Peter and St Paul. Big. Not exciting.

I realise that this is my fault, not the building's. It is akin to a very academic literary friend of mine, who can't get worked up about The Brothers Karamazov. For many people, Clare CofE is somewhere really special. It is among the half dozen biggest churches in the county. Indeed, it is incomprehensibly given three stars in one prominent best seller which shall remain nameless, except to say that it would be more accurately titled England's Nine Hundred and Ninety Nine Best Churches, plus Clare.

Anyone still with me, can I say again that it is not the place's fault.

Clare, the village, is a lovely lost place on the road between Melford and Haverhill. It used to have a busy railway station, built slap in the middle of the castle precincts by enthusiastic Victorians.

The railway has gone now, but you can still visit the station. The castle mound is little more than it sounds, but this is a village, a small town really, with a long and turbulent history.

Clare Priory was sacked at the time of the Reformation, of course, but in the last 50 years the Augustinians have re-established their community here in the grounds of the old one. Unlike the teachers and nurses of other orders, these Augustinians, or Austin friars, are contemplatives, ('navel-gazers', a Franciscan friend of mine likes to say). A visit to the priory is thoroughly recommended; the grounds are open to the public, and you can also go into the Catholic church and the Shrine of Our Mother of Good Counsel.

Clare has excellent shops, fine pubs and hotels, a nice market square, and all you could wish from a small English town.

The former chantry chapel to the guild of St John the Baptist, later infilled by an 18th century gallery. Note the two hatchments above, for John Barker (1804) and his widow Caroline (1848).

The church, then. You approach up a lane from the market square, and it is quite an urban setting, despite the lushness of the churchyard when I last visited in the Summer of 1999. The church itself is big, without being particularly grand. Much of it has been rebuilt over the years; the chancel in 1617, most of the nave in the 1440s, the tower at the end of the 19th century, mainly with the old materials.

Other survivals from medieval times include the base of the tower, the aisles, he south chapel-cum-porch, part of the east window, and the lovely rood stair turrets either side of the east end of the nave. There is something similar at Lavenham, and you can see them on a smaller scale at nearby Stansfield; but the ones here have little spires on them.

the rood loft stairway doors. The rood must have been one of the tallest in Suffolk.

One church I visited recently had a sign on the door saying Welcome to YOUR Church - but here, the 18th century sundial says Go about your business. Mortlock kindly thought that this might refer to the activities customarily carried out in the porch at that time.

I stepped into a cold, light space, with a vast gift shop spread out towards the north. I'm tempted to moan, and think that it is there all the time; but I am sure that this cannot be the case, and that it was only there that summer Saturday afternoon. Perhaps another visitor can advise me.

Looking east, the window above the high altar is most curious, as if the arch over the great decorated tracery had been sliced off, and replaced with something more 'tasteful'.

In fact, that is exactly what seems to have happened; in the early 17th century, the Laudians were making their ill-fated attempt to restore the liturgical integrity of English parish churches. The glass heraldic shields of the families who paid for the rebuilding is worth a glance, since it contains scatterings of medieval glass collected after the destruction of January 6th 1644, of which more in a minute. The unusually high chancel arch is rebuilt, but must have contained a very high rood, given the extreme height of the upper roodloft stairway entrance.

The church is light because, famously, William Dowsing went on one of his greatest wrecking sprees here. He claims to have destroyed 1000 images in stained glass. Clearly, as Dr John Blatchly points out in his commentary to the new edition of Dowsing's Journal, this is not possible, and the true figure is probably nearer 185, and certainly no more than 200. Perhaps what Dowsing is trying to tell us is that he arrived to find the church filled with coloured glass, and destroyed the lot. In fact, a few panels survived, including the sun and moon specifically mentioned by Dowsing. Perhaps they were rescued from the floor by someone, and replaced in a later, more sympathetic age; although, as late as the 1870s, the Reverend White, in his introduction to his edition of the journal, congratulates Dowsing for destroying pagan imagery, and also for destroying images of the Holy Trinity. Actually Dowsing was rather careless here, since John Blatchly and Mortlock report that he missed the head of Christ in the porch (although David Ridley of Clare informs me that it is not Christ), and Marian monograms elsewhere.

The so-called 15th century brass lectern. Behind, the screen to another chantry chapel. The decorative tracery includes the Marian monograms Dowsing missed.

The high side chapel extends southwards from the south aisle, a part of the same structure as the porch. It was probably a chantry chapel for the gild of St John the Baptist. In more recent times, it was converted to the needs of the preaching-house the church had become, by the addition of a gallery.

Other features of interest to the church visitor include the remains of a parclose screen to a chantry chapel in the south aisle, a beer jug similar to the ones at Hadleigh and Hinderclay, and a surviving section of the roodscreen in front of the organ. There a fine brass eagle lectern, so beloved of, and copied by, the Victorians. Mortlock considers it pre-Reformation, but David Ridley tells me that it is not so. There's another one at nearby Cavendish.

So, I'm sorry if this makes it sound like an ecclesiological junk shop. In fact, I think this a rather bland building, a testament to the Anglican triumphalism of the late 19th and early 20th century, and the loss of nerve of the CofE in more recent times. This does not feel like the pulsing heart of a faith community; the craft shop rather suits it, actually.

St Peter and St Paul from the Castle mound. (Photo by Aidan Semmens).

St Peter and St Paul, Clare, is located just off the market place in the town of Clare, which you can find about halfway between Melford and Haverhill on the A1092. I found it open.