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I Location

II General Description

Middleton is a substantial village in east Suffolk, midway between Aldeburgh and Southwold and 3 miles from the coast. The Minsmere River runs through the village on its way to the partially drained coastal marshland that now forms the Minsmere bird sanctuary. The village centre is on the rising arable land S of the river with the church at its northern edge. Holy Trinity church has a nave and chancel in one, under a single roof, with a S porch to the nave, and a W tower with a spire. Both nave and chancel are 12thc. The nave has a shaft at its SW angle and a chevron-decorated S doorway, and the chancel has the remains of 12thc. ornament around its interior western windows on both sides. The piscina also includes some 12thc. work. The 12thc. chancel must have been lengthened and a new piscina built incorporating material from the old one. The E window and two N windows are intersecting or Y-tracery work ofc.1300, and this was presumably when the chancel was extended. The nave also has one Y-tracery on the N. All other nave and chancel windows are 15thc. insertions, and there is no N doorway to the nave. The S porch is mortar rendered with flushwork panels, battlements and a stepped gable. It has a classical pediment over the entrance and may be 15thc., remodelled in the 18thc. The nave and chancel have been refaced in mixed knapped flints and rubble, laid to give a crazy-paving effect. The tall, slender tower is of flint with heavy quoins at the eastern angles that may be 12thc. At the W are added diagonal buttresses with flushwork chequers. It has been heightened, and its upper storey has a slight setback. The bell-openings are 15thc., as is the embattled parapet with its flushwork tracery panels. The spire is a slender lead spike, and was completely rebuilt in 1955. While the work was proceeding, the thatched roof of the church caught fire, and the blaze spread to the rest of the building. Villagers rescued most of the furnishings, and surprisingly little was irrevocably lost. Romanesque work is found on the S doorway, the nave SW angle shaft, the piscina and around two chancel windows.

III Exterior Features

1. Doorways

(i) Nave S doorway

Round headed, of two orders.

First order: Attached (coursed) nook-shafts on roll/hollow bases with double-scallop capitals with angle tucks and plain chamfered neckings. The imposts are quirked chamfered, and the arch is decorated with two rows of roll-profile frontal face chevron with a wedge moulding between the rolls.

Second order: Jambs, bases, capitals and imposts as the 1st order. The arch has a heavy angle roll and a quadrant roll outside it on the face.

Dimensions

2. Windows

(i) Chancel, S wall, W window

This has been remodelled outside as a two-light window with four-centred arches. The interior is deeply splayed, and there is a 12thc. angle shaft on the W jamb at the inner face. This is coursed and incorporates an integral pseudo cushion capitals at the top and a badly eroded cushion base at the bottom, neither having a necking.

(ii) Chancel, N wall, W window

This has been remodelled outside as a two-light Y-tracery window. The interior is deeply splayed, and there are 12thc. angle shafts on the inner faces of the jambs and rising from them is a pointed arch assembled of chevron voussoirs. Neither jamb shaft has a capital, although they have worn pseudo-cushion bases. At the top of each jamb, stones have been inserted to act as springers; the W having a roll moulding. The chevron arch has the same two-roll frontal chevron profile as on the first order of the S doorway.

3. Exterior Decoration

d. Miscellaneous

(i) Nave SW angle shaft

The shaft is of coursed ashlar cut en-delit. There is no base, but at the top the upper part of the block has been cut square with simple spurs at the angles descending onto the cylindrical surface of the shaft below.

V Furnishings

3. Piscinae/Pillar piscinae

(i) Piscina

The piscina has been cut into the eastern splay of the E window on the S wall, with a free-standing cylindrical shaft at the angle and a half-shaft at the E with a pointed, hollow chamfered arch linking the two. An ogee-headed arch springs from the free-standing shaft capital at right angles, into the wall. The piscina itself is a flat stone dished in the centre. The two arches date fromc.1300. Only the shafts and their capitals are 12thc. The free-standing W shaft has a double-scallop capital with grooves along the axes of the cones and dropped cylinders between the cones. The necking is plain and chamfered, and the E face has been shaved back. The eastern half-shaft capital is of similar form, again with axially grooved cones but with a worn wedge-shape or volute at the NW angle. The S face has been cut back, and the necking is a plain roll.

VII History

Aelfric held Middleton as a manor before the Conquest, with two carucates of land, six acres of meadow and one church with 15 acres. In 1086 it was held by William de Warenne in demesne, and to it have been added five free men and half a priest holding 55½ acres and two acres of meadow. A second manor was held by Munulf before the Conquest, and by Roger Bigod from Earl Hugh in 1086. This consisted of eighty acres with two acres of meadow. A third large holding was in the hands of two free men before the Conquest, and was held by Gilbert Blund from Robert Malet in 1086. Listed under the holdings of Count Alan in 1086 were 12 acres held by a free man before the Conquest. Leofric the deacon held three acres, and a free woman called Aelfgifu held 16 acres, both listed under Roger Bigod in 1086. The church of St Mary, Middleton was granted to the Premonstratensians of Leiston by Roger de Glanville, confirmed by Roger Bigod. The gift was confirmed by Pope Honorius III in 1224. It was still held by Leiston Abbey in 1535.

Benefice of Middleton cum Fordley and Theberton with Eastbridge.

VIII Comments/Opinions

Frontal chevron, seen in the chancel windows and S doorway, is not common in Suffolk. It appears at Polstead, Hawstead and Wissington and of these the chancel arch at St Mary's, Wissington is the closest. The complex scallop capitals of the piscina are likely to date from the 1160s or '70s. The doorway and window decoration may be a decade earlier.

IX Bibliography