If you take the
main road from Halesworth to Southwold and the
sea, it isn't long before your eye is distracted
by the great tower of Blythburgh church, the
self-proclaimed cathedral of the marshes, like a
great ship riding the land. This may distract you
from the road sign pointing off the road to the
south which declares Mellis 1/2. If you
did spot it, you would probably think to
yourself, hang on, I thought Mellis was up near
Diss? And you'd be right. It is a mistake.
However, some local has helpfully scratched off
the i, and instead you cross the infant River
Blyth and enter the tiny hamlet of Mells.
Pevsner places it in Holton parish. Historically,
it was part of Wenhaston, the village centre of
which is about two miles away. Whichever, it can
never have been very big, half a dozen houses at
the most. Behind them, the hill rises steeply,
and Old Chapel Farm is a clue that we have found
what we came to see.
The manor here was held by Mettingham College,
and it isn't clear to me if the chapel that stood
in this hamlet was a chapel of ease to Wenhaston,
or for the College of Priests. It was dedicated
to St Margaret, a popular Saint in this part of
the county. A document of 1550 says that it was
not used after 1465, which coincides with the
start of the greatest phase of Suffolk
church-building. Intriguingly, after the
dissolution the manor was granted to Thomas
Denny, a relative of one of William Dowsing's
more prominent deputies.
If Dowsing came to Mells nowadays, he would not
find much to disagree with. All that remains is
the chancel archway, clearly Norman, and part of
the wall above it. The ruin sits on private land,
and cannot be approached. When Dutt came this way
in the 1920s, he said it had an apsed east end,
though this is hard to tell now. The farm
buildings beside it appear to have been converted
into holiday homes since I last visited in 2002,
but otherwise, only sheep pick over the ruins.
Most people in Suffolk probably don't even know
about it.
Simon Knott, November 2018
The chapel as I photographed it in 2002:
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