Kessingland

St Edmund, Kessingland

This is an imposing church which falls into two groups. Firstly, it is one of several along this coast with tremendous towers, that served as beacons and marking points to ships at sea. Secondly, it is the most southerly of what I think of as the Lowestoft area churches, which, although of all ages, shapes and sizes, all seem to be locked whenever I visit. Perhaps this is just my misfortune, or a symptom of being part of the Diocese of Norwich rather than of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. Or maybe they just don't like visitors very much in the Lowestoft area. However, I have since been told that, unusually, this church is opened up on summer weekday afternoons.

Open gate for the cult of the dead, locked doors against the prayers of the living.

So, as I have never found it open, I cannot tell you what it is like inside. Mortlock tells us that the font is one of Suffolk's finest, with figures of Saints in crocketted niches. As to the furnishings, there is a general seafaring scheme, with anchors and ships wheels.

But the tower is a grand one, and very like the one at Walberswick. Mortlock suggests the architect was the same person, Richard Russell, and that it was probably begun in the Spring of 1436 or 1437.

One amazing tower: image niches flank the west window, St Edmund sitting in glory above flanked by shields, and way above all this a gargoyle ready to spit.

St Edmund, Kessingland, is just to the east of the A12, to the south of Lowestoft. I found it locked without a keyholder, but I am told that it is open between 2.30pm and 4.30pm on summer weekdays.

It took about 12 years to complete, an extraordinarily short time for such a vast structure.

The western face is glorious, with flushwork symbols, including Catholic imagery that the 16th and 17th century reformers must have thought outrageous.

Time has not been kind to either Kessingland village or church. The sea has come calling, as it has on so many villages around here, taking houses and lives.

The people themselves destroyed the south aisle and chancel in the late 16th century, finding them expensive to maintain, and unnecessary for the Preaching House liturgy of the Church of England. The north side collapsed about a hundred years later, so really there is very little here from medieval times, apart from the tower and the font.

Of interest are the ruins of the former south aisle, which you'll find in the graveyard. You can see the way the arcade was filled in to form a new wall, as at Bawdsey.

You can walk around in the ruins, imagining yourself back in the days when the church was much larger; and, presumably, you could always get inside.