e-mail simon@suffolkchurches.co.uk

 

St Andrew, Tostock

 

Tostock is in what I understand planners call the 'sleeve' of the A14; but the traffic noise is absorbed by the woodlands, and there is no exit off of the dual cariageway into the village. And so, you wouldn't know, and this is a peaceful place.

The chequered north side of St Andrew.

St Andrew is doubly peaceful, set as it is near to the brown sign tourist trap of St Mary, Woolpit. Not many people visit St Andrew; and yet, I found it open, and St Andrew has an interior that is nearly as good as Woolpit's mighty church.

Tostock escaped the grand Perpendicular rebuild that just about every neighbouring church underwent, and so appears less dramatic, but more homely, in its graveyard clearing.

Looking east. The curious memorials to the left are a mid-Victorian and its Edwardian copy. the alcove to the right now contains the war memorial.

  

Externally, much of the church was as it is now in the 14th century.

You step into an interior which appears wholly Victorianised, although there are some splendid medieval survivals. The first that you'll notice are the medieval benches, with their animal bench ends.

When you look at the style, especially with the traceried backs, they seem so similar to those at Woolpit that you'll assume they came from the same workshop, and even wonder if they were once in the same church.

The font is a pattern book of Decorated windows, but look out for the green man peering out of the foliage on the north face. Not sure what William Dowsing thought of it - he may have missed it. He came this way on the afternoon of February 5th 1644, and smashed 16 panes of stained glass because of the Catholic imagery they contained.

He gave orders for another 40 to be destroyed, but a rather pretty pane has been reset in the east window, showing a group of animals.

A cockatrice for sure...

  

...but a dog? Or a lion?

Perhaps it was found during the 19th century restoration, or perhaps it came from another church altogether. He also ordered the steps up to the chancel to be levelled - these had been put in about ten years before under the orders of Bishop Wren, a staunch supporter of Laudian sacramentalism. An inscription asking for prayers for the dead was destroyed - Dowsing uses the word took, so it was probably in brass.

A green man looks out of the foliage at Tostock.

As John Blatchly observes in the new edition of Dowsing's journal, it is unlikely that he was responsible for the damage to the bench ends, since they are all animals; as at Woolpit, which he also visited.

Above: the arrayed benches, very similar to their neighbours at Woolpit.

Right: that war memorial. I wouldn't be entirely comfortable about it, I think.

  

The roof is superb. It reminds me of Rougham, if on a smaller scale, with the angels on the hammerbeams and figures in the wallposts. Like Rougham, it isn't as beautiful as Woolpit; but then, it hasn't been restored so enthusiastically.

The war memorial set in the alcove to the south of the chancel arch is an extraordinary thing. At this distance in time, it is hard to warm to its sub-text; it almost seems a celebration of war. I'm glad that I don't have to sit and look at it every Sunday. Mortlock thought that the alcove itself had once been for an image to a chantry altar.

I liked St Andrew very much. This church, and its village, are restful oases in a busy part of Suffolk, and in a busy world.

St Andrew, Tostock, is lcated immediately to the north of the A14, not far from the junction with the A1088. I found it open, and understand that it is open at weekends in Summer, with a keyholder available at other times.