Felixstowe St Peter and St Paul

St Peter and St Paul, Felixstowe

Until a couple of hundred years ago, this was a small church in the middle of a tiny, straggling village. It was an outpost of the much larger village of Walton, a couple of miles to the south.

Now, Felixstowe has reached out and engulfed Walton, becoming Suffolk's fourth largest town, home to not far short of 40,000 people. Walton parish church sits on the edge of Felixstowe's modern town centre, but the church that is Felixstowe's in name sits far out in the north-eastern suburbs, so that you would be most surprised to see its modern setting if you had travelled in time from then to now. Not far from here, and just across the parish boundary in Walton, stood the now submerged Roman fortification of Walton Castle. It was here in 631 that St Felix came ashore after travelling from Burgundy at the invitation of the East Anglian royal family, and established his see of Dumnoc. You can still see remains of the castle off of Old Felixstowe at very low tides.

St Peter and St Paul in the 1860s. A view from the south east, with the truncated tower beyond, and the curious red-brick chancel near to us. Note that there are no transepts, and no sanctus bell turret. (Photograph courtesy of Sue Wragg, and not copyright of this site).

View from the same spot today. The tower and nave survive, but are completely blocked from view by the south transept and chancel, by Edwards and Roberts of Dundee, 1872. Note the sanctus bell turret.

A medieval time traveller would be even more surprised to see that this church has been almost completely rebuilt since its Catholic days, in a grand and fascinating manner, with more than a nod in the direction of E.B.Lamb's Leiston St Margaret. The lower part of the tower survives, the oldest structure in the parish by hundreds of years. The upper part, in common with many in this part of Suffolk, succumbed to the coastal weather in the late 18th century, and is a capped twin to that at Bawdsey, two miles or so across the Deben estuary. At that time, the ruinous building was patched up in an economical fashion, including the construction of a rather curious red brick chancel. This must have been under the influence of the sacramental revival, since it is so large, but it certainly wouldn't have met with Tractarian approval.

The tower and south porch, today.

So it was then, in the 1870s, that a substantial rebuilding took place. The chancel was taken down, and transepts and a new chancel added, more than doubling the length of the church.

Much was retained in the superstructure of the nave, but the roof was renewed, as were all the windows.

The crossing is very high, much higher than the nave, and outside on its gable sits a fine sanctus bell turret. I found this intriguing, since it appears to be medieval at heart (despite incorporating a chimney) but photographs of the church before its restoration do not show it. I wonder where it came from.

The altar has been brought forward in the Vatican II manner, with a thrust stage extending west of the chancel arch. The transepts have been cleared of their heavy Victorian pews, and I was interested to discover that this work had been carried out only in the month or so before my visit.

The north transept.

The meeting hall, of 1988.

To the north of the nave stands a dramatic modern extension, added in the late 1980s. At first I took it to be a parish hall, but in fact it is something rather more serious, offering meeting rooms, office space, places for prayer groups, and so on.

That turret. Don't fail to notice the chimneys.

Martha poses in the gloom beneath the crossing. Beyond, East Anglian and sea-faring Saints are a backdrop to the reredos, font, and new altar.

The nave is made more interesting by its windows, but also by banners that incorporate an image for every book of the bible. The windows up in the apse-like sanctuary are even better, although Mortlock could not identify the artist. They show a combination of the East Anglian Saints Felix and Edmund, as well as the Saints associated with the sea that are so familiar in this part of Suffolk, Peter, Nicholas, Andrew and Clement. Felix's symbol is Norwich Cathedral, and Edmund's is Bury Abbey, neither place ever visited by them - or, at least, not while alive.

Above: the thrust stage, retaining the old communion rails. The altar is now beneath the chancel arch.

Right: a priest's eye view, looking west into the medieval bit.

Below: Pulpit and font, with ship and passion symbols.

The Stuart pulpit is a good one, although it looks rather curious on its stone column. Mortlock thought this might have come from the vanished Benedictine priory that inspired M.R. James' short story Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad, which was set on the coast to the north of this church.

Some even earlier benches sit in the sanctuary, and on one of them is a little dog.

The font is fascinating; carved on the eve of the Reformation, it is unlike any other I've seen around here, and the Passion emblems are most striking, as is the ship to the west. It is a shame that it has been so heavily whitewashed.

Even more boldy in the Vatican II manner, the font has been moved up into the sanctuary, forming a focus at the east end of the church where the high altar used to be.

For all this pandering to modern Catholic taste however, St Peter and St Paul remains broadly in the evangelical tradition, albeit in a rather more traditionalist mould than its daughter church at St Andrew. Incidentally, if you ask people at St Andrew, they will tell you that THEY are the mother church, and St Peter and St Paul the daughter.

St Edmund and St Nicholas.

Woof.

Historically, St Peter and St Paul's claim is the valid one, but St Andrew's place in the heart of the modern town will inevitably make it appear the true parish church of Felixstowe.

At the time of the restoration, the church also opened St Nicholas, a chapel of ease at Felixstowe Ferry. One senses the energy of those heady days here at St Peter and St Paul.

Why dedicate a church to St Peter and St Paul? In Suffolk, this dedication is found at some of the biggest, grandest churches, including Aldeburgh, Lavenham and Eye.

By the same token, why are there no medieval churches dedicated just to St Paul?

Simply, medieval churches were not dedicated to Saints at all. They were dedicated to Saints' Feast Days. St Peter and St Paul, as the missionaries of the church, share a feast day (although St Peter also has another one of his own).

Hence, a riddle you can try on your friends: what does Mary have seven of, John the Baptist two, Peter one and a half, most people one, but St Paul only a half of one?

Don't leave without spotting the unusual monument to a Canon of Aklavik Cathedral, who translated the Gospels into Eskimo, and the war memorial, which bears stirring words from Pericles, just for a change.

St Peter and Paul, Felixstowe, is in church road, on the eastern outskirts of the town. Leave the town centre on High Road West or Colneis Road. It is signposted from both after a mile or so. It is apparently kept open during the day, although I didn't find it so.