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St John the Baptist, Suckley, Worcestershire

Location
(52°9′46″N, 2°24′28″W)
Suckley
SO 722 517
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Worcestershire
now Worcestershire
medieval Worcester
now Worcester
  • G. L. Pearson

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Feature Sets
Description

The old church has been demolished, but some medieval features (a 14thc. tomb recess and piscina, and a 12thc. font) were incorporated in the new church of 1878-89. This is large and imposing, set on a mound and built in Cradley stone with Bath stone dressings. Only the font bears Romanesque sculpture.

History

Before the Conquest Suckley manor was part of Earl Eadwine's great manor of Bromsgrove. After the Conquest, William Fitz Osbern, Earl of Hereford, took five hides out of Bromsgrove to form part of his farm at Hereford; at Domesday Suckley was therefore surveyed under Herefordshire. William gave the church of Suckley to the abbey he had founded at Cormeilles. The endowment was confirmed by the crown in 1074, the date at which the Earl's lands were forfeited by his son Roger. In 1086 Suckley was in the hands of the king, and remained a royal manor until 1215.

Features

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

The VCH dates the font to the mid-12thc. Pevsner compares the shape and the chain of decorated lozenges with the font at Middle Littleton. There are related motifs on the font at Leigh, a few kilometres to the E.

Bibliography
The Victoria History of the Counties of England. Worcestershire, vol.IV, London 1924, 354-61, 358-60.
C. J. Bond, 'Church and Parish in Norman Worcestershire' in J. Blair (ed.) Minsters and Parish Churches: The Local Church in Transition 950-1200. Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 17. Oxford 1988, 119-58, 127-28, 134.
N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Worcestershire. Harmondsworth 1968, 275.