Pettistree

St Peter and St Paul, Pettistree

My first visit to this church was, in its way, an act of lunacy. I was taking part in the Historic Churches bike ride in 1998, trying to raise money for charity by visiting as many churches as possible in one day. It was nearly four o'clock, and this was church number 63; by now, they had all begun to blur somewhat. This was exactly the right word, actually, because the Suffolk monsoon was at its height. I was soaked to the skin; no, beyond that. Parts of me I'd only read about in books were wet.

St Peter and St Paul on a day of pain rather than dampness.

The kind lady on duty was a mite concerned. "You're very wet, dear", she observed.

"Yes", I said, surveying the church dimly through bedraggled eyelashes, taking in the fine pair of brasses, the fragments of medieval glass, the slots in the chancel arch where the tympanum to the rood fitted.

Worship the Lord with Holy Worship, demanded the Victorians. Makes you wonder what was going on here before.

She stamped my form, which was rapidly dissolving across her table, and I headed on in grim determination to the pleasures of Wickham Market and Framlingham.

If I tell you that Pettistree is basically a suburb of Wickham Market (which it is) I will offend people in Pettistree. If I tell you that Pettistree's church is far and away the finest church in Wickham Market (again, which it is), then I will offend people in Wickham Market.

Which just goes to show that you can't please anybody.

The photograph above shows the fine 15th century tower, and the curiously high nave walls. For some reason, a clerestory was built and then filled in. Perhaps they changed their minds, or possibly it was blocked to keep the heat in.

This photo of the outside of the church was taken on another occasion that bordered on madness; I was on my way home from Lowestoft, by a route that could by no means be described as direct.

Almost crippled after 60 miles on a faulty saddle, I was secretly relieved to find the church locked without a keyholder. If I had gone inside, I would probably have seized up, only to be discovered several days later by a churchwarden, dead from starvation and frozen in a cycling position.

And so it was that, on the Historic Churches bike ride 2001, I finally got to photograph the inside and survive.

The chancel arch is stencilled with a text in the manner of nearby Wickham Market, and a number of medieval features survived the extensive Victorianisation here. In the south side of the nave, we find the remains of an image niche in the jamb of a window, with the very top of a piscina arch surviving to the east of it. Or at least, that is probably what it was. But note that there are two more piscinas either side of the chancel arch. Hmm...

Reset piscina on the south side of the chancel. There would probably have been a sedilia in that window embrasure as well.

Up in the entirely 19th century chancel, a super 14th century angle piscina was rescued, and reset.

Something I haven't seen, but find fascinating, is the Pettistree bells. There are six of them, and three of them are medieval. The story goes that, having remained silent throughout the Second World War, they were rung in celebration of victory on May 8th 1945, and appeared to make cracks in the tower. And so they remained silent, until everything was restored in the late 1980s.

Back in the nave, the remains of an image niche, with what looks like the top of a piscina arch beside it. Well, what else could it possibly be?

Two of the medieval bells bear Latin inscriptions invoking the help of St Nicholas and St John, but the third has a most curious inscription. It says Me Alaman te Iheru Maneat Bethleem Sine Lectu. I discovered that Alaman is an Arabic word meaning 'Western Lands', an old name for Arabia. Iheru seems to be the first part of Iheru-shalom, or Jerusalem, the Peace of God. Could this rhyming couplet literally be translated as 'I Arabia, you Judea, wait in Bethlehem without a bed'?

It took friend of the site Julia Werthimer to furnish us with what I believe to be the correct translation. Through research, she discovered that Iheru is probably a mistranscription of Ihesu. The word Jesus was often spelled with a vagrant H in imitation of Greek IHCOYC. The lowercase tall S was probably misread when the bell was transcribed.

Further, Me Alaman te is almost certainly a mistranscription of Me Clamante - Julia tells me that, taking Ihesu as dative and Sine as the imperative of sino, the bell inscription could be translated as 'While I ring out, let there remain a bed in Bethlehem for Jesus'. Perhaps the donor of the bell was the keeper of the adjacent inn. Rather lovely, that.

St Peter and St Paul is located in the middle of Pettistree, which you'll find off of the B1438 Woodbridge to Wickham Market road. You can also reach the church along a lane from Wickham Market town square - but don't tell anyone in Pettistree that. A keyholder is listed.

You can also visit the very good Pettistree website.