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This church shared a
graveyard with Holy Trinity, Middleton; or, at least, those are the
customary dedications, but it must be the only
instance of two churches with the same dedication
being sleeping partners like this. Churchyard
sharing isn't that uncommon; it exists elsewhere
in Suffolk still at Trimley,
at Creeting, where one church has now gone, and
in extremis at Pakefield, where the two parishes shared one
building with adjoining naves. This situation
could easily be sustained, when even a single
church might have several Masses going on at the same time; indeed,
it might even have advantages. But after the
Reformation, when the Church of England took over
the English churches and the congregational
services of the Book of Common Prayer replaced
the devotional worship of the Catholic Church, it
became increasingly difficult. Services had to be
co-ordinated, and here at Middleton-cum-Fordley
the parishioners of both churches complained that
the noise made by each others' bells disturbed
the preaching of the Word. The Bishop of Norwich solved the
problem by making the two churches share a
Rector. Since he couldn't be in two places at one
time (a trick that seems to be required of some
of today's hard-working Benefice Rectors) the
smaller of the two churches quickly fell into
disuse, and no trace of it remains today. The
area is that which was used for burials in the
19th century. Be aware, if you are coming here to
look for deceased ancestors, that this part of
the graveyard is now used for grazing sheep, and
is marked off by what claims to be an electric
fence, although I must confess that I couldn't
resist touching it, to no ill-effect.
However, you can see a few
souvenirs of Fordley without braving the fence;
or the sheep, come to that. Over the years,
carved pieces of masonry have been found in the
ground that do not appear to have come from the
surviving church of Holy Trinity, Middleton. So
they probably came from Fordley church. One of
them is a stone coffin lid, reused by a 19th
century churchwarden, lost after the 1956 fire in
Middleton church, and rediscovered a couple of
summers ago. You can see all these pieces in the
chancel of Middleton.
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