The Corpus of ROMANESQUE SCULPTURE in Britain & Ireland
Suffolk (now)
Parish church
Benhall is in central E Suffolk, 1½ miles SW of Saxmundham in
rolling arable land on the E side of the Alde valley. St Mary's is a flint and
septaria church with a nave with a S porch and a large
transeptal N chapel, a chancel with a separately roofed
N chapel that communicates with the transept, and a W tower. The nave has a
chevron-decorated 12thc. S doorway under a 15thc.
porch of flint and knapped flint. The nave windows are
15thc. and there is a wooden W gallery that partly
conceals the tall, pointed tower arch. The transept and N chapel were built in
the 19thc. to house a vestry and schoolroom. The organ
now occupies the N transept, and the entrance arch from the chancel to the N chapel has been blocked. The chapel, and the
space in the transept behind the organ are now given over to vestry uses, and are accessed through a doorway at the E end
of the N chancel wall. The chancel windows are in a 15thc.style, as are the N windows of
the 19thc. transept and chapel. On the S side of the chancel, the priest's doorway is protected by a little gabled
porch, also 19thc. The nave, chancel, transept and chapel all have diagonal buttresses with
flushwork panels. The two-storey W tower is unbuttressed and has long and short
quoins at the SE, NW and NE angles and a shallow
buttress-like projection on the S wall marking the bell stair. This also has
long and short quoins, and the lower part of the tower
thus probably dates from the later 11thc., although Mortlock suspected that it
was substantially a 19thc. rebuild. At the SW angle the long quoins have been replaced in brick, and there is a later
inserted W doorway. The upper storey has 15thc. bell-openings, and the inserted
W window is also Perpendicular. The battlemented parapet has flushwork
decoration. The only Romanesque sculpture is on the elaborate S
doorway.
Parish church
Bentley is a large village in S central Suffolk, 5½ miles SW of Ipswich and only a mile from the A12 and Capel St Mary, the nearest town. The village itself has a good deal of newer housing, but the church, the hall and Bentley Park are a mile to the N. The country here is arable farmland, with plantation around the park and older woodland nearby. St Mary’s is a flint church comprising a nave with S porch, chancel and W tower. The nave was given a N aisle with its own double pitched roof and a three-bay
arcade by Benjamin Ferrey of London in 1858, and this extends E as a pseudo-chapel (actually an organ room and vestry) with an arch to the chancel. Ferrey’s work included a major restoration of the nave, and the chancel was reconstructed during the incumbency of Canon Beauchamp (1879-99), but some older fabric remains. The nave has a 19thc. S doorway that includes two 12thc. chevron
voussoirs in its inner order, and the chancel has a N window, refaced outside but retaining its deep splay within. There is a loose chevron
voussoir in the vestry. The tower is 15thc. with diagonal W buttresses, a polygonal S stair and an embattled parapet with flushwork decoration.
Parish church
Wixoe is a village in the Stour Valley on the Essex border E of
Haverhill. St Leonard's has an aisleless nave and chancel in one, sharing a single roof and with no
chancel arch. The nave walls are slightly thicker than
the chancel (visible on the interior by a ridge in the
wall at the position of the chancel step), and the
mortar used in the flint cladding is yellower in the nave. There is a 19thc.
vestry on the N side of the chancel. The nave has a modern timber west bell
turret. The N and S nave doorways are 12thc., the N
blocked and overgrown; the S protected by a 19thc. timber porch. The S chancel doorway is
19thc.
Parish church
Ramsholt church is on the estuary of the river Deben in SE Suffolk, 4 miles from its mouth. The village is on the E side of the estuary 3 miles from its mouth in arable land that rises gently from the river. Ramsholt Lodge is half a mile upstream of the church and the Ramsholt Arms half a mile downstream, and there is little else here apart from a farm half a mile inland, towards the road back to Shottisham, the nearest village.
The church has a round, or rather oval, W tower, a nave with a S porch and a chancel. The tower is of flint and septaria, repaired with mortar and has buttresses added to the N, S and W. The tower windows and bell-openings are all plain pointed lancets, and the plain parapet has been rebuilt. The tower arch, or doorway, however, betrays the 12thc. date of the tower. The nave and chancel are of equal width, the nave slightly taller, and are of mortar-rendered flint and septaria. The nave is of 12thc. date, to judge from the two westernmost N windows, which were remodelledc.1500. The remaining nave and chancel windows range in date from c.1300 toc.1500, and the lateral nave doorways are of c.1300, the S protected by a 19thc. brick and flint rendered porch. The S chancel doorway is alsoc.1300. Inside, the piscina is 14thc. with ogee cusping, and the chancel arch is 19thc. The lower storey of the tower has been converted for vestry use. To judge from the plethora of 18thc. gravestones the parish was more populous at that period, but by 1850 the church was derelict. It was restored and fitted with box pews and a two-decker pulpit in the 1850s and was repaired in 1980-84 by A. W. Anderson of Norwich. The tower arch is the only feature recorded here.
Parish church
Little Glemham is in central E Suffolk, between Wickham Market and
Saxmundham, in the rolling arable land W of the Alde valley. Great Glemham, 2
miles to the N, is rather larger but both villages border the parklands of
their respective halls; Great Glemham lying to the W of Glemham House, and
Little Glemham to the SW of Glemham Hall. St Andrew's lies on the southern edge
of Glemham Hall Park, 0.4 mile NE of the village centre. The church consists of
a flint nave with a S porch of knapped flint, a large
transeptal N chapel of knapped flint, a brick chancel
and a flint W tower. The nave retains its 12thc. N doorway, but its windows and
porch are 15thc. The tower is 15thc. with a polygonal
SE stair, diagonal buttresses decorated with flushwork and a battlemented
parapet, also with flushwork decoration. The W window and doorway are 15thc.
and there are niches containing carved figures above
the W doorway and the S porch entrance. The
chancel is 18thc. and the N chapel was built to house
the N family mausoleum, and is dominated by a large seated figure of Sir Dudley
North (d.1829). The church was restored in 1857-58 by J. P. St Aubyn, the work
including reseating, work on the gallery and repairs
to the roof and windows. The only Romanesque sculpture is on the N doorway.
Parish church
The villages of Great and Little Bradley are in the Stour valley N of Haverhill; their churches less than a mile apart. All Saints has an aisleless nave, chancel and W tower. The nave is 12thc., with a plain Romanesque chancel arch and a 12thc. S doorway under a flint and timber porch. Its N doorway has been replaced by a 19thc. window. The eastern part of the chancel is early 12thc., with two plain lancets in the N wall (one blocked) and signs of two more in the E wall. The western section of the chancel has thicker walls and is presumably 11thc. The original eastern angles are visible on the present side walls, indicating that the original chancel was lower as well as shorter. Mortlock claims that there is long and short work here, but it is a later repair. At the W end of the nave, the tower arch is small enough to be called a doorway (and it was fitted with a door and a wooden tympanum to square off the opening in the 16thc.) This leads to a W tower, circular and presumably 11thc. in its lower stage, with flint course laid in herringbone patterns, and octagonal above, with a battlement with double stepped merlons. There are plain round-headed lancets in the lower walls to N, S and W, but they are all restored. Construction is of flint, with herringbone work on the lower part of the tower and the western part of the chancel. Romanesque work reported here is in the chancel arch, the tower arch and the S doorway.
Parish church
All Saints is a flint church with a single, aisleless nave and chancel with no chancel arch, and a W tower. The nave is 12thc. with N and S doorways in-situ, the N under a 15thc. porch. It has been rendered inside and out, and buttressed with brick at the SW. The tower is Perpendicular with diagonal buttresses and decorative flushwork. Romanesque sculpture is found on the two nave doorways.
Parish church
Blundeston is in Lothingland, the northernmost hundred of Suffolk. It is
a tongue of land enclosed by the Waveney which turns N after leaving Beccles so
that it may reach the sea at Yarmouth rather than Lowestoft. The land here is
low-lying and arable, and its villages have usually managed to resist
encroachments by their giant neighbours to the N and S. Blundeston could be
considered a suburb of Lowestoft, but it has not been overrun as Oulton was. It
is a good-sized village of some 300 inhabitants, most of whom commute to
Yarmouth or Lowestoft. Blundeston prison, at the southern edge of the village,
dates from 1963. The church and hall are half a mile apart on either side of
the village centre. St Mary's is a flint church with a nave, chancel
and round W tower. The tower is off-axis towards the N of the nave. It is tall
and slender with a change of masonry halfway up and another just below the
bell-openings, and its fenestration repays study. Its low W window is an
insertion of the 15th -16thc. in brick, and the only other window in the lowest
masonry is a very narrow round-headed S lancet at the level of the
eaves of the nave. The first masonry break comes
halfway between the nave eaves and the apex of the nave roof, and there are small 12thc. lancets at
this level facing S and W. Then near the top of the nave roof are six large
round-headed openings, evenly spaced around the tower and all blocked with
brick. These were doubtless the original bell-openings. Alternating with them
are another six small 12thc. lancets, at the level of their arch heads. Then
comes the second masonry break, a change from flint to brick. Finally there are
four pointed bell-openings immediately below the battlemented parapet. Inside,
the tower arch is extremely narrow and 12thc. Its offsetting to the N reflects
a widening of the nave, so that while the N wall is in its original position,
with a 12thc. doorway (now blocked), the S has been rebuilt much further S.
Parts of the 12thc. S doorway were reused, but it is largely of the 14thc.,
under a 15thc. porch of knapped flint. The nave
windows on N and S are all 14thc. (flowing) or 15thc. The chancel is of knapped flint with flowing tracery windows of
c.1350. The chancel arch and piscina are also 14thc. The chancel
was rebuilt in 1851. The N and S doorways are described
below.
Parish church
Little Whelnetham stands in the rolling countryside of the Lark valley,
some 3 miles SE of the centre of Bury St Edmunds. The village amounts to a
cluster of houses and farm buildings on the road from Sicklesmere to Bradfield
St George. Curiously, Great Whelnetham its nearest neighbour, belongs to a
different benefice.The church stands on the road through the village. Immediately to the E
of the present chancel are the rubble remains of what
may have been a round tower. If so, the present church was built to the W of an
earlier one, but Pevsner suggests that it may not have been a W tower at all,
but a separate watch tower, or an apsidal chapel. St Mary Magdalene's is of
flint with a W tower, nave and chancel. The earliest
feature is a 12thc. pillar piscina, set in the S nave
wall near the E end. It could, therefore, have served an altar against the E
nave wall but it may be reset. The nave itself is 15thc. in all its windows and
N and S doorways. The S doorway is set under a 15th-16thc. brick
porch. The chancel has a plain
13thc. priest's doorway, piscina and aumbry. Its windows and chancel arch
are 14thc. The tower is 14thc. too, to judge from the flowing W window. Its
bell-openings have been replaced, and a battlemented brick parapet added. The
pillar piscina is the only Romanesque feature.
Parish church
Boulge is in the E of the county, 2½ miles NW of the centre of Woodbridge. The landscape is the usual arable farmland of the E Anglian plain; not entirely flat and drained by the network of streams running into the Deben estuary at Martlesham Creek, S of Woodbridge. The name is said to derive from the French 'bouge', meaning an uncultivated heathland, although the Domesday survey give a picture of many small parcels of ploughland. The parish covers approximately a square mile in a two-mile long strip running NE to SW, but it is sparsely populated and there is no village. The community now consists of just 13 dwellings in all; just a couple of farms and a few scattered cottages. The church stands to the N of a small wood in the former parkland surrounding the site of Boulge Hall, demolished in 1956. The normal access to the church is from the S, and from this aspect it appears almost entirely Victorian. St Michael's has a W tower, a nave with a S aisle and a chancel with a large S vestry. Nave and chancel are of flint, of equal width and roofed in one. There is no chancel arch. A plain blocked N lancet in the chancel indicates a date in the early 13thc., but for the rest, the N windows of nave and chancel are ofc.1300 (Y-tracery),c.1320 (reticulated) or 15thc., the N nave doorway is 14thc., and the E wall of the chancel dates from 1858. On the south, the nave aisle is of three bays; the two at the E with a normal pentise roof, and the west bay taller and with its own gabled roof, built as a Fitzgerald family chapel. Edward Fitzgerald, translator of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, is buried in the churchyard. The chancel also has a transeptal vestry and organ chamber. This work on the S of the church was carried out in three campaigns, in 1858 (by W. G. and E. H. Habershon), in 1867 (by W. G. Habershon and A. Pite), and in 1895 (by S. Gambier Parry of Wminster). In each case the patron was the owner of the Hall; J. P. Fitzgerald for the two earlier works and Mr and Mrs Holmes White for the latest campaign. In each case too, knapped flint facings were used. The Tudor tower is of brick with an embattled parapet and a pointed segmental headed tower arch. Maintenance work to the fabric was carried out in 1978-81 by A. W. Anderson of Norwich (roofs), in 1981 (N wall) and in 1983-84 (tower). Boulge has no Romanesque fabric, but is significant in housing a font said to be an export from Tournai.