| |
|
| |
|
Dear, dirty, rough and ready
Westhorpe. This church is one of my
favourite places in England. It isn't
Suffolk's finest church, but it has the
great character of a much-loved old
friend. It is idiosyncratic, scruffy and
wise. It is not ashamed of its age, and
doesn't try to hide the ways it has
changed over time. I like people like
this, and I like this church.
I'm always a bit worried about coming
back here, in case some enthusiastic
person has moved into the parish, rolled
up their sleeves and cleared out all the
clutter, possibly carpeting the floor and
installing an overhead projector screen
as well. Coming back after some five
years away I opened the creaking 15th
Century door with some trepidation, but I
needn't have worried.
Westhorpe church is open every day, but
you used to have to collect the the key
from a lovely lady across the road who
would always apologise for the state of
the church. The reason for her apology
was that St Margaret is home to a large
colony of bats. A notice in the little
porch also apologised for the state of
the church. We can only clean the
church once a week, it said. And as
you know, when you have bats, you know
you've got them.
Perhaps it was just the time of the year
I was visiting, but the bats no longer
made such an impression on me as I
stepped down onto what must be Suffolk's
most uneven brick floor - hardly any
smell of urine, no crunch of bat poo
underfoot. In a thoroughly Victorianised
church, with tiled floors, pitch-pine
pews and recut stonework, bats are a bit
revolting. But here on previous visits I
had thought that the whiff of bat urine
was an essential part of the atmosphere.
I imagined that Westhorpe church would be
diminished without its bats. But the
church was still full of its familiar
character, the smell of the past, the
greening of the font, moss showing here
and there between the cracks, all in all
a sense of the ancient. The west of the
church has been cleared of benches,
giving a sense of drama to the high font
on its pedestal.
Part of the charm and fascination of St
Margaret is that it has the slight air of
a theological junk shop. Every century
from the 13th to the 20th has contributed
a curiosity. Firstly, there's the
glorious painted parclose screen to the
east end of the south aisle. It may have
enclosed the Elmham chantry. The altar
here is always dressed for use, and on
winter visits I had seen the damp
collected in puddles on the uneven brick
floor. It is charming. Edwardian rood
screen panels flank the altar, and there
are others elsewhere in the church.
Nathaniel and Jane Fox are commemorated
on a pillar of the north arcade. They
died in the late 17th century, and their
memorials are a good amateurish mixture
of cherubs, skulls and schmaltzy verse: heavens
voyage doth not over hard appear, she
tooke it in her early virgin year.
At the east end of the south aisle, a
board reminds you that this church was
the Sunday local of Mary Tudor, sister of
Henry VIII and grandmother of the
ill-fated Lady Jane Grey. She had
actually been married to the King of
France, her ruthless brother sealing a
shaky and ultimately fruitless pact with
France by so doing. He married his other
sister off to the King of Scotland. Her
second husband was Charles Brandon, and
they lived in the Hall here. Mary died in
1533. She's buried at Bury.
Surprising as this is, a further jolt
comes from the imposing memorial to
Maurice Barrow, who seems to have had
lots of money in the 1660s.
Unfortunately, he died before he could
spend it, as so many of us will do. So
this great tomb was constructed by the
Shelton brothers, Maurice and Henry
(Henry finishing it when, as the
inscription observes, Maurice was
suddenly snatched out of this world).
Barrow reclines in great splendour
beneath big fat grieving cherubs, behind
contemporary spiked iron gates. Perhaps
he thought someone might otherwise
disturb his rest.
Up in the chancel there are more quirky
fascinations. A high mounted memorial on
the north wall is to an earlier Barrow,
William. One might imagine for a moment
that he is sitting with two concubines at
the breakfast table, the servants looking
on. But he's actually reading prayers
with a Laudian air, facing across to his
two wives Elizabeth and Frances (not at
the same time, of course). They wear
amusing hats, with sticky-outy bits, as
if participating in a party game that has
long-since been lost to us. Their
children watch. But it is a curious
little piece.
The big six candlesticks sit on the
altar. Westhorpe was very much in the
Anglo-Catholic tradition, and there are
ancient notices in the south aisle
explaining the sacraments and the
significance of lighting candles. Quite
how much this enthusiasm is still
reflected in the liturgy here, I couldn't
say. When the candles are alight, they
must reflect brilliantly in Richard
Elcock's wall-mounted brass memorial of
1630.
Elsewhere in the church, there are
delightful little details, painted walls,
shields and coffin lids, forgotten
decalogue boards stacked up, two sets of
Royal Arms, one a Stuart set leaning
against the wall in the north aisle
chapel and the other apparently for
George II, although it is probably
another overpainted Stuart set. There is
a lonely 17th century box pew in the
north aisle that may have come from here,
but seems quite out of character with the
rest of it. Barmy Arthur Mee was
convinced that it had been Mary Tudor's
family pew. All in all, exploring this
church is a bit like being inside someone
else's head.
I have a vivid memory of my first visit
here, early in the spring of one of the
last years of the old century. The tiny
graveyard was full of birdsong and
cowslips. Recently, the cowslip had been
declared Suffolk's official flower, and
the ground around seemed to validate
this. That Spring day, I had seen them
lovely and fair all across mid-Suffolk,
but nowhere as lovely and fair as this,
bats and all. |
|
Simon Knott, September 2018
Follow these journeys as they happen at Last Of England
Twitter.
|
|
|
