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The
setting of this small church is delicious and
idyllic, in what is in any case one of the
loveliest parts of East Anglia. It is set a few
hundred yards off of a minor road across a meadow
beside the gentle River Brett in a hilly,
tree-surrounded graveyard still higgledy-piggledy
with 18th and 19th Century memorials. The
village, such as it is, is a scattering of old
houses to south and west. The church is almost
entirely Victorianised, but this doesn't really
matter, because this is a place which feels as if
it has been in a deep sleep for far longer, and
it is redolent with a sense of the past, a
touchstone down the long Semer generations. A
striking feature is the marble Edwardian angel
scattering roses to the east of the church, which
was illuminated by the suns rays slanting from
beyond the tower as we walked up from the gate. Most
unusually for this part of Suffolk, the church is
kept locked, but a notce said that a key was
available from the Farm Shop on the Hadleigh to
Stowmarket road, about a mile to the west. My
heart sunk slightly when I saw the long queue for
the counter, but the staff were very efficient
and helpful, especially, as I discovered when I
got to the front of the queue, when they couldn't
find the key. Phone calls were made, and it
turned out that someone had collected it to clean
the church the previous day and not brought it
back. However, the farm shop is owned by one of
the churchwardens of Semer, a very quietly-spoken
man to whose cottage I was directed a little
further down the road towards Hadleigh. He had
another key which he willingly lent us, and so we
headed back down the lane and across the meadow.
It was now later in the afternoon, and the little
church was beautifully illuminated from the west
by the setting sun.
A
quick tour of the outside of the church first. I
was surprised by the unusually placed chest
memorial a few feet to the north of the chancel,
its inscription facing the wall. The answer to
this puzzle is that the chancel was rebuilt in
1870. The old one which it replaced must have
been very small, or perhaps it had vanished
altogether in the years between the Reformation
and the late 19th Century. The tomb is to 18 year
old Maria Archer, who died in 1786. The
inscription tells us that she was an amiable
young woman who was blest with an uncommon
sweetness of disposition, a refined and highly
cultivated understanding, and a most striking
urbanity of manners. Even more curious is
the newly carved headstop on the east side of the
south doorway. It reminded me of someone, but I
could not think who.
| We stepped down into a small
interior which felt a bit overcrowded. It
was fitted out for High Church worship by
the late Victorians, and the furnishings
are of the highest quality, all set on a
sea of the shiniest tiles. The space is
intimate. It would not be hard for this
church to seem full, and a candlelit
evensong on a winter evening must be a
very atmospheric experience. Survivals of
the pre-Victorian era are marginalised,
but the best are two panels of Moses and
Aaron which now flank the reredos. The
boards which used to be between them are
now set on the west wall of the nave,
either side of the tower arch. The one on
the south side appears to have been
reframed. In front of the arch is another
of those blockish, primitive Norman fonts
which seem more common in this part of
Suffolk than elsewhere in the county. We
headed back up to the Hadleigh road to
return the key. I knocked on the cottage
door, and the churchwarden opened it. We
chatted for a while about how lovely the
church was, and I suddenly had a dawning
realisation that the headstop beside the
south doorway was a spitting image of the
man to whom I was speaking! I said
goodbye, and made to go, but couldn't
resist turning back to ask if it was him.
He smiled quietly, and shook his head;
but then he observed, in the broadest of
Suffolk accents, "That may well be,
indeed that may well be", and he
closed the door behind him.
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