Knodishall

St Lawrence, Knodishall

This seemed to me as remote a spot as any I had found in Suffolk, and you would not think that we are barely three miles from either Saxmundham or Leiston. The church stands about a mile west of its village, up a sodden, muddy lane. Just beyond the church, the lane was flooded, but the church itself sits slightly above the road, in a characterful graveyard. Its only company is a farmhouse across the way.

Mortlock considers this a delightful spot in summer, with the sound of the stream below rising up through the woods. In the 1930s, Arthur Mee was entranced by a nightingale in the churchyard. On this foul winter afternoon, the only sound was the howling of the wind, and a nightingale would soon have succumbed to the elements.

The foul weather fails to flatter St Lawrence - it's lovely, really.

But it was still a lovely spot, and I felt an immediate fondness for it. There are several suggestions that this building is basically Norman at heart, not least the blocked door to the north. Early 19th century buttresses rather disrupt the south wall, but the array of windows between them are charming. There is a fine 15th century tower, with headstops grinning into the west door.

Jacob and Rachel, rather distorted by the angle, I'm afraid.

North and south doors are both now blocked, and you enter through the west door into the area beneath the tower. This vestibule is very similar to the one at Bawdsey - you might want to open the inner door before you close the outer one, or you might not even find it. You step through into a delightful interior.

The most famous possession of the church was the painting The meeting of Jacob and Rachel by William Dyce, the great early pre-Raphelite.

It was donated to St Lawrence in 1948, but the picture hanging above the pulpit now is a life-size photograph of it, because the parish sold the original in the 1980s to pay for essential repairs.

This seemed to me an emminently sensible thing to do, although it did occur to me that I probably won't be leaving any of my extensive art collection to the parish of Knodishall now.

More beautiful, anyway, are the two stained glass windows. The one in the south side is of the risen Christ, which Mortlock identified as being the only work in Suffolk by the Arts and Crafts Movement firm W.B Simpson & Sons. It dates from 1910. To the east is the 1930's glass of A.K. Nicholson Studios, showing Saint Lawrence and the Blessed Virgin flanking Christ the King, a Catholic feast day dating from that period, and thus perhaps revealing something of the churchmanship of St Lawrence at the time.

Above: St Lawrence and the Virgin, with Christ the King (1930).

Left: The risen Christ (1910). Note the bell clapper.

The font is also a fine one, one of those mass-produced from Purbeck marble towards the end of the 13th century, of which several survive in this area. The screen fencing off the belfry platform was probably part of the roodscreen. A coat of arms perches rather awkwardly on top, but such a juxtaposition was probably once quite common.

John and Margaret Jenney, who built the tower. Or, at least, paid for someone else to build it. Hard to photograph, brasses.

A lovely piece of Edwardian sentimentality. A later addition, at grass level, records their daughter, who died in the 1950s, outliving her father by 70 years.

Finally, there are a delightful pair of brasses up on the chancel wall. They show John and Margaret Jenney, who paid for the building of the tower. A more mundane memorial, though just as sentimental, is a grave to the north of the church with lacquered lettering

I spent about an hour here, waiting for the storm to die down. It is a pleasure to recollect the tranquillity of it.

headstop on the west door.

St Lawrence, Knodishall, stands a couple of miles to the south of the B1119 Saxmundham to Leiston road. I found it open.