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St Nicholas was one of the
first churches I visited for the Suffolk
Churches site in 2001. I arrived in a
downpour not knowing what to expect, and
was a bit miffed to find the porch
locked. In fact, the church was one of
about twenty declared redundant as part
of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and
Ipswich's lunatic act of corporate
downsizing in the 1970s. This is despite
its distance from any other CofE parish
church. Indeed, Wattisham itself is a
remote place, apart from the adjacent
airbase.
Fortunately, the Diocese no longer does
this, and equally fortunately, St
Nicholas did not fall into the hands of
property speculators. It was, uniquely in
Suffolk at that time, taken over by a
charitable trust, who used it for
concerts and exhibitions, ploughing
profits back into caring for the
building. Although this situation was
clearly not ideal, it was better than
that of any of the churches that are now
private houses - they are lost to us for
ever.
I saw no particular reason to come back
here, but it so happened in the early
autumn of 2018 I was cycling back to
Stowmarket station and happened to pass
through Wattisham. I kept my eyes open
for the church, but before I knew it I
was out the other end of the village and
returned for another sweep. Across the
entrance to the churchyard that I'd
pushed my bike through seventeen years
previously there was now a security
fence, which made my heart sink. It
suggested that the church was no longer
in use, and had been abandoned. However,
thirty yards or so to the west I found a
redirected public footpath which led me
into the churchyard. To my pleasant
surprise, this was clearly still
well-maintained, had recently been cut
and was obviously regularly cut. The
church itself, still locked of course,
seemed not to have benefited from such
care and attention, the gutters sagging
and gaping, one window held in place by a
brace of wood. Peering through a north
side window, the church was surreally
furnished with tables and chairs as if it
were a roadside café, but suggesting
that the building is still at least in
occasional use, despite the rotting
notice board telling a different story.
St Nicholas church is essentially a work
of the 14th and 15th centuries, with much
detail surviving, but the heavy hand of a
Victorian restoration rather overwhelming
it. Pevsner thought that the dormer
windows above the east end of the nave,
unusual in Suffolk, were from the 1840s
restoration, perhaps based on the 15th
Century ones at St Nicholas in the centre
of Ipswich. In the 1930s, Cautley found
little to interest him except an armorial
shield. He abhorred the repainted
roodscreen, with its melodramatic
Victorian Saints, now reset in the south
aisle chapel at Bildeston, along with a
number of other fixtures and fittings.
The reredos is now at Little Finborough.
In the 1950s, Dickinson's revision of the
Dutt guide found an 18th century memorial
to six people of the same family who all
lost their feet because of gangrene,
which would have been fun to see,
seventeen years ago or today. Why was
this church not needed? I suspect that,
as at Rishangles, a thriving Baptist
church in the village had something to do
with it. So I cut my losses, and, like
last time, I went and had a look at that
instead. |
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Simon Knott, September 2018
  
 
 
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