Ellough

All Saints, Ellough

What a forbidding prospect this church is! The mean lines of the 14th century tower and the low pitch of the roof are severe. From the south, it glowers at the top of its wild hilly graveyard, like something out of a mid-19th century novel. On a stormy day, it doesn't take much to imagine a Victorian funeral procession picking its way among the gravestones.

Oooh, harsh. Ellough from the north.

From the north, the prospect is even starker. The graveyard is flat and wide, obviously cleared, as so many were in the 50s and 60s.A long path from that time runs along the high wall, and is now broken up and overgrown. The whole place feels summarily abandoned, which, in fact, it was. In 1973, All Saints was one of the first churches in Suffolk to be declared redundant.

A Butterfield angel.

It is not hard to see why. This is a wild area, of narrow roads and few people. Some churches are warm sanctuaries in the face of such bleakness, but it is hard to imagine that All Saints was ever a comforting place.

The church underwent a rather severe Victorian restoration, surprisingly the work of that great Anglo-Catholic architect William Butterfield, responsible for All Saint, Margaret Street.

But none of the drama and beauty of that central London church are repeated here. He was also in charge of the restorations at nearby Ringsfield and Redisham.

So, the chancel is tiled; a simple tractarian altar stands at the east end, and the organ chamber is also Butterfield's. The organ was removed, along with the pulpit and choir stalls, in 1973. The chancel arch is also Butterfield's and perhaps the angel corbels are most recognisably his.

He kept the medieval roof, perhaps the best feature of the church.

Interestingly, the base of the pulpit remains, with the names of the 19th century stonemasons carved in the cement - this would have been hidden, once the pulpit was in place. There are a couple of surviving medieval brasses beside the altar.

I can't say that I warmed to this church, although I was awed a bit by its severity. I don't mind admitting that I left the door open while I was inside.

After the gentle suburbia of Redisham and Ringsfield, the remoteness of Ellough was quite chilling. The name Ellough itself means 'a heathen place'. It slightly spooked me, I'll admit.

All Saints, Ellough, is signposted off of the A145 Blythburgh to Beccles road, just south of Beccles. It is always open.