Rendham

St Michael, Rendham

Rendham and Sweffling are separated by the infant River Alde. I think Rendham the prettier of the two, but it suffers the traffic of the main Framlingham to Saxmundham road which bisects it. The two churches have some similarities, and both were given a thorough going over in the 19th century, leaving just a few delights from earlier years. Again, I think Rendham came off the better of the two. Having said all that, I think Sweffling one of the friendliest churches in Suffolk.

St Michael sits on a ninety degree bend in the main road, giving it a large presence in its wide graveyard, and also suggesting that the road is as ancient as the site.

It looks very like its sister across the river, having a 14th century tower and a 15th century porch against what Mortlock detected as a 13th century church, although that is beyond my competence.

Unlike the Sweffling church, which is approached up a wide hill, here there is just a short path from the road, encumbered on by thick-set trees. Beyond, a Laudian restoration predated the 19th century work of which we shall find much evidence. Thereby hangs a tale, and we'll come back to it.

St Michael is one of the last churches in east Suffolk to get an entry on this site, and that is because I've previously been unable to get into it.

This hasn't prevented entries elsewhere, of course, but it semed to me that there was no point in giving Rendham an entry without a picture of the chalice brass, one of only two in the whole of Suffolk. The other is way across the county at Gazeley. It is a perfect, jewel-like thing, set into the western end of the nave gangway.

It can be dated exactly by its inscription. How did it survive?

Well, the inscription doesn't include any invocation for prayers for the soul of the dead, and so wouldn't have incurred the wrath of 16th and 17th century vandals and iconoclasts. They may not have understood the sacramentalist significance of the chalice, and simply thought it too small to be worth lifting and melting down. Amen to that.

Right: Here lyeth Thomas Kyng sutyme vicar of this churche who died XXVI daye Aprile ADo MCCCCCXXIII.

The lady on duty inside on this Historic Churches bike ride day was rearranging the little museum at the back (Sweffling also has one of these) and told me that there was great rivalry between the two villages, and not a little ill-feeling. When I raised my eyebrows, she explained that this stemmed back to the Civil War. Sweffling was parliamentarian, but Rendham, unusually for Suffolk, supported the King.

She felt that you could still sense this difference in the two churches, and it is certainly true that Rendham was richly furnished by successive waves of anti-puritan sentiment.

The Laudians gave it the pulpit, dated 1632, and it is one of Suffolk's best of its type - perhaps only Dallinghoo's is grander. Mortlock thinks that the east window was also reconstructed at this time. It is now filled with fairly decent early 20th century glass.

Otherwise, almost everything is squeaky-Victorian-clean, but don't miss the canvas Charles II arms on the south wall, which we may assume the parishioners installed with both enthusiasm and relief; and perhaps a little triumph as well, for instead of the usual Latin it reads simply God Save The King.

Looking east, into the Victorian sanctuary - but note the fine Laudian pulpit on the left.

Visitors to the Roman section of the British Museum will have seen the ghostly head of the Emperor Claudius, which may originally have come from the Temple of Claudius at Camulodonum. There are replicas in the museums at Ipswich and Colchester. It was fished out of the river here at Rendham, and part of the museum display records its discovery in photographs and newspaper cuttings from the time. The lady in charge said that some people wanted a replica head to go on display in the church, but she thought this was a terrible idea.

Eye Claudius. Click on the image to read a University of North Carolina article about it.

"He was an awful man", she said. "He killed so many Christians. It wouldn't be at all appropriate." And I think that she is probably right.

As school children, we were told that the head was removed by the Iceni hoards who attacked Camulodonum with Boudicca in AD87, and used as a football as they headed home in the triumph of victory, to their camps in Norfolk. (I always doubted this, guessing that a head made of bronze would be even harder than the old leather balls they made us use in PE). Anyway, at Rendham, the ball went in the river. Well, that's what we were told, anyway.

While I was taking photos in this church, a woman came up and asked me if I thought it was really such a good idea, taking photos of the inside of churches and putting them on the internet, especially in these terrible days when people break in and steal things, and churches have to be kept locked.

I thought for a moment. "No, you are absolutely right", I said. "Putting photos on the internet is a terrible idea. And while we're at it, let's pulp or burn all the books that are about churches as well, because they're bound to have photos in."

Of course, I didn't really say that. Even I'm not that rude. I smiled sadly, agreed it was a terrible world, and headed off with some relief to the beautiful lost valley of Bruisyard.

St Michael, Rendham, is on the B1119 Saxmundham to Framlingham road, just to the west of the A12. It is kept locked, although I believe that a keyholder is listed.

The photo of the Claudius head is not copyright of this site.