Peninsula Churches
Remote and peaceful and yet within an easy drive of London and the Midlands, the five estuaries and the areas around them remain unspoilt. Hidden within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, sometime known as the Wilford Peninsula, the area between the Deben and the Alde, reached by winding lanes over lowland heath, close to sandy estuary beaches are several ancient churches, each with an individuality and fascinating history.
St Andrew's, Alderton
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St Andrew's Alderton, The Remains of the Tower |
The largest of the churches, St Andrew's is set back from the village street. Begun in the 1330s, the nave is all that remains of the original building. The tower was built in the 1400s and, once completed, the North porch was added. By the 1600s the chancel was in ruins and had been abandoned. The chancel arch was blocked up and instead the nave served as Alderton's parish church. It was at this time that the tower began to collapse. An etching of 1769, near the church entrance, shows the ruined tower with parts of the belfry stage and embattled parapet still in place. An upper storey had already been added to the porch with a little wooden bell-turret and pyramid roof, to house the bell.
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Alderton Church from the south |
In 1821 more of the tower collapsed during an afternoon service. Falling westward the only casualty was a cow grazing in the churchyard. The Ipswich Journal described the event 'the shrieks of the females, the tumultuous rush of the whole congregation to the east end of the church, the terror and alarm depicted in every countenance and the roar of the tempest outside' .
In the 1860s the church arch was opened up, a new chancel built and the nave restored to iits original 14th century pitch.
The exterior of the west doorway is grand, with tiny flowers in its arch moulding and shields in the spandrels. The Porch displays fine 15th century crafsmanship, and fine flint and stone flushwork panelling adorn the North wall. Entering the church on a sunny day you will see the lofty nave flooded with light from the 14th century north windows and filtered through green 'Cathedral' glass in the Victorian south windows. The tower arch is elegantly proportioned and has fine acoustics making it a popular concert venue.
All Saints, Ramsholt
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Ramsholt Church, Near Woodbridge, Suffolk |
An ancient and mysterious place. In medieval times, when Edward III’s fleet was moored in the estuary below, Ramsholt would have been a thriving and busy settlement.
The church now stands alone about a mile from the road, nestled high above the marshes of the Deben estuary and silhouetted against an often angry sky – a location that would be hard to match for pure romantic atmosphere.
There was probably a church here long before the Norman Conquest and on first glance the present building is an imposing but straightforward early Norman or possibly late Saxon round tower church, constructed from undressed flint, brick and the local brown septaria stone found on the local beaches and cliffs. The tower is in fact, oval, and the unusual buttressing, reaching all the way to the top makes it one of only two such towers in Suffolk, the other being Boyton. The interior is bright and pleasant, if a little plain with a 14th century piscine and pretty drop sill sedilia in the sanctuary. Entry to the tower is through a Norman doorway beside which stands a font with a 15th century bowl on a Norman base. Beside it is what looks like a fine 13th century stone coffin, ifact used for washing and preparing the dead before burial.
St Mary's, Bawdsey
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| St Mary's Church, Bawdsey, Near Woodbridge, Suffolk |
Just a mile from the Deben Estuary, St Mary's has a particularly delightful churchyard, containing several 18th century chest-tombs. The church itself is inviting and curious - a fascinating fragment of a very much larger building. In 1841 during repair work on the tower two bricklayers decided to celebrate Guy Fawkes night by making a fireball of tow and tallow, which they fastened to a pole at the top of the tower and lit. Sparks reached the thatched roof and much of the church was destroyed. A tiled roof replaced it three years later.
As with Alderton, St Mary's lost its chancel as a result of the Reformation. The tower is 60ft high, but was once some 30 ft higher, a useful landmark for shipping. The simple west doorway and the three-light window above are early 14th century, the stage above - the ringing chamber - has a 15th century window.
The organ is rare and interesting. Built in 1842 by Joseph Hart of Redgrave and was almost certainly moved from there to Shottisham before arriving at Bawdsey.
St Margaret of Antioch, Shottisham
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St Margaret of Antioch, Shottisham, Near Woodbridge, Suffolk |
Elevated above the village, this is the smallest of the five churches, the tower embattled with slender buttresses is made of flint, dressed stone, bricks and brown septaria. The north aisle was added in 1867. In the north wall of the chancel is a 15th century perpendicular window, where you can also see the ends of the 14th century roof-timbers under the chancel eaves. The 14th century priest's doorway has a single window to the west of it. It would once have had an internal shutter which could be opened to allow a hand-bell to be heard by the villagers , unable to attend the service, at the Sanctus and Consecration so that they too could join in prayer. The 13th century font has a bowl of Purbeck marble which rests on its original central pillar.
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