hadleigh

St Mary, Hadleigh

Hadleigh is one of those pleasant, if rather self-important, Suffolk towns, whose remoteness from other places of any size makes it a microcosm of bigger towns - the factories, shops and housing estates all to scale. Its centrality in this part of Suffolk gave it the headquarters of Babergh District Council in 1974, despite the fact that the greatest part of the population of the district live in the Sudbury conurbation and the southern suburbs of Ipswich. The headquarters building is one of the most successful vernacular designs in England, by William Sindall Associates.

St Mary. Long.

If Hadleigh is small, however, St Mary is not. This is one of the grand Suffolk churches, the only big one with a medieval spire; indeed, the only proper wood and lead spire in the county. It was built in the 14th century, and the exterior bell, a 1280 clock bell doubling as a sanctus bell, is Suffolk's oldest. The aisles, clerestory and chancel head eastwards of it, for my money equalling Lavenham in their sense of the substantial. It is one of the longest churches in Suffolk. The Catholics who built it are now banished to the suburbs, and the surprising modern church of St Joseph.

Hadleigh Deanery, where the modern CofE was conceived.

To the south west of the church stands the famous Hadleigh Deanery, more properly the gorgeous red brick Tudor gateway to the now demolished medieval Deanery.

It was at this Deanery gateway in July 1833 that the meeting was held that gave birth to the Oxford Movement, which went on to change the face of Anglican churches forever. It is no exaggeration to say that the modern Church of England was born in this building.

The gateway has been filled in for accomodation most successfully, and there is a good Victorian extension northwards. The Rector here, in one of those anachronisms so beloved of the CofE, is styled 'Dean of Bocking'.

Bocking is a village in Essex, and the living is in the gift of the Archbishop of Canterbury, so Hadleigh Rectors are installed in Canterbury Cathedral.

Back on Planet Earth, the south side of the graveyard is taken up by the former guild hall, and on the fourth side there is a scattering of excellent 18th and 19th century municipal and commercial buildings.

With the possible exception of the Bury churches, it is the best setting of any urban church in Suffolk.

Hadleigh was one of the great Cloth towns, like Lavenham a centre for merchants rather than factories (most of the work was farmed out to self-employed weavers, quite literally a cottage industry). The wealth of those days built the church, particularly the fine 15th century clerestory and aisles.

Hadleigh Deanery and church. Impressive.

This is a big church, since it needed to contain the chantry altars of at least five medieval guilds. And it has always been an urban church, as you can tell from the way buildings on the north side cut into it. The east window was clearly always intended to be seen up the gap to the busy High Street.

The magnificent south doorway retains its original 15th century doors. It is interesting to compare it with Cotton, barely 50 years older, but from a quite different generation of architecture.

Gone are the delicate fleurons, the articulate details that speak of an internal sense of mystery. Here, we enter the realms of self-confident rationalism for the first time.

You step into a space that is light and airy, but this is to do with the sheer volume of the interior as much as with any effect of the light. Trees close by on the north side gently wave shadows into the nave.

I have visited this church often, most recently on Holy Saturday 2000. On that occasion, a large number of people were cleaning the church in preparation for the celebration of the Easter liturgy.

The inside is so big, it is an ambitious task; but this church has been cleaned in a wider sense over the centuries, and, like Clare, it is hard to see this building as anything other than the rather polite CofE parish church it has become.

The south doorway, bold and self-confident.

I do prefer this church to Clare, though. This is partly because it feels more like the heart of a living faith community, but it is also because it is a bit more daring. Witness, for instance, the Maggi Hambling painting in the north aisle, and the exceptionally good modern window beside it. The Victorian glass in the south aisle is also very good; there is a lovely modern Madonna in the north chancel chapel, and the sanctuaries are well kept and cared for.

The fine memorial to a former Dean of Bocking.

St Edmund in the mouth of - what? A wolf?

In the south chancel chapel is the famous St Edmund bench end, attached to a modern bench. It shows a wolf, with St Edmund's head in its jaws. At least, it is supposed to be a wolf, but it has cloven hooves. The other end is equally wierd. Note the squints through to the high altar from this chapel.

The lady I spoke to told me that, despite appearances to the contrary, St Mary retains its high church tradition, with the celebration of a monthly high Mass, and church groups including a Walsingham society. In the high sanctuary are not one, but two plaques to former Dean Hugh Rose, one commemorating his conference that led to the Oxford Movement, and the other the centenary of that movement, laid by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1935.

One of the plaques quotes Pusey's eulogy to Rose, that "when hearts were failing, he bade us stir up the gift that was in us, and betake ourselves to our true mother". Presumably both Pusey and Rose would be depressed by the efforts the CofE has gone to in recent years to distance itself from its 'true mother'.

Above: St Mary, looking east.

Right: Unusually, an Easter Sepulchre being used for something approaching its original purpose.

Another religious figure associated with Hadleigh is the puritan preacher Rowland Taylor, who was burned at the stake on nearby Aldham Common in the brief but unhappy reign of Mary I. One of the windows in the south aisle remembers him.

St Mary, Hadleigh, can be found just off the High Street in this town about halfway between Ipswich and Sudbury, on the A1071. In many visits, I've never found it locked.