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St Luke was a popular
dedication for new churches in the period
after the Second World War, perhaps
reflecting a more contemplative
Anglicanism than the muscular kind which
had led to lots of St Mark dedications in
the 19th Century. This St Luke was built
on Rigbourne Hill in 1973 as a chapel of
ease to St Michael in the centre of town.
A long hall church built
onto an earlier hall, it nevertheless
stands out and even dominates by reason
of its setting at a hilltop junction.
There is little detailing, except for a
lovely flint mosaic at the entrance
depicting the name of the patron Saint
entwined with a vine. Internally,
Mortlock thought the font worth remarking
on, though I've not seen inside myself.
Rigbourne Hill is the
biggest and most challenging of the
housing estates in Beccles, and so St
Luke's presence here is a valued one. I
expect that this part of Beccles was at
one time part of the parish of Ellough,
for the churchyard there is crammed with
18th and 19th Century memorials up to the
point that the new Beccles cemetery
opened, and yet there are virtually no
houses in the modern Ellough parish, and
the church there is now redundant.
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